We (Willem van den Ende, Nynke Fokma, and I) have added a wiki to the SystemsThinking.net website.
The wiki is a meeting place for discussion and dialogue about systems thinking applied to software development and beyond. Feel free to visit and contribute!
by Alfie Kohn (thanks to Rachel for the tip!). It’s (another) very interesting and relevant book. The book discusses why the use of rewards and punishment as means of motivating people doesn’t work. It’s very readable, but it also has a thorough scientific basis. Although I’ve read about one third, I really recommend it.
Together with Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations
This week I read two articles in the newspaper about using rewards. The first was a proposal to reward good traffic behaviour. The other one was an idea to use performance-based pay for civil servants. After reading the books, I see them in a different light: using rewards will only make both situations worse…
I’d like to recommend the Mental Model Musings website by Gene Bellinger. This systems thinking website contains a lot of interesting stories in which systems thinking and causal loop diagramming are applied to all kinds of (organisational) situations. The website also provides clear and concise introductions to systems thinking and concepts like balancing loops, self-reinforcing feedback loops, causal loop diagramming, and simulation.
Some quotes from the site:
The first rule of systems is “Don’t fight the system. Change the rules and the system will change itself!”
Buckminster Fuller said that rather than attempting to teach people the right things to do, one should design organizations such that doing the right things was simply the path of least resistance.
Energy follows the path of least resistance.
Feedback defines the path of least resistance.
This Thursday, I read in the newspaper that a German candy manufacturer is letting its employees work 60 hours a week (6 days of 10 hours!) for 3 months, because otherwise the company would have to close.
It looks like they’re applying a fix while leaving the underlying causes untouched. The company will probably have to close anyway, but just a few months later, when losses and debts are even higher and people have sacrificed time they’d rather spent with their family, children, friends. The later you face the crisis, the harder it’ll hit you.
This is an extreme example of something that seems like a trend among organisations across Europe. The problem is that working more hours just delays the crisis and shifts the burden to the employees and their families. It means only increasing the value of a variable in the system, instead of necessary structural changes, e.g. by identifying and removing muda (waste) or applying other lean techniques.
Copyright © 2004-2007 Marc Evers
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Netherlands License.
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