Gaming the Gamers - a great quote from Hoverstadt

Just had to post this quote from Patrick Hoverstadt’s book, “The Fractal Organization” on performance related pay. I think it is so true, especially who he says will win.

“In any performance related pay system, gaming is inevitable. PRP systems are explicitly attempts to manipulate behaviour, attempts by managers to manipulate the behaviour of staff. From a Game theory perspective, this is gaming; it is management playing a game with staff. So in PRP gaming is inevitable, the question is which game is going to be played, or rather, whose game is going to be played, the manager’s or the staff’s? Setting up a PRP system that is explicitly designed to manipulate staff behaviour is an open invitation to staff to game the system. If it is OK for managers to manipulate staff, it has to be OK for staff to manipulate managers by using the PRP system. Ashby’s Law tells us who is likely to win this contest, and of course it is the staff.”

Cheers,

Rob