Systems Thinking · Lesson 3 of 3

Unintended consequences and time horizons

What you measure grows, and what you did not measure shrinks. Decide which you actually wanted.

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Systems respond to interventions, including by adapting around them. A rule that measures one thing will produce more of that thing and less of whatever was not measured — often the thing you actually wanted.

Short-term and long-term effects frequently point in opposite directions. Working late produces more today and less this quarter. Discounting fills this month and trains customers to wait. Neither is a reason not to act; both are reasons to name the trade explicitly.

The practical version of all of this is a single question before any change: who will respond to this, and how? Systems are made of people, and people adapt.

See it happen

Support is measured on tickets closed per day. The number goes up 40%.

The read that arrives on its own

The new target is working. Roll it out to the other team.

The same situation, with this idea

Closed goes up; reopened goes up more, and the long difficult tickets are sitting untouched because they wreck the average. The measure rewards quick closes and nobody chose that.

What changed

What you measure grows and what you did not measure shrinks. The behaviour was not a failure of the team — it was the exact instruction that was given.

The takeaway

What you measure grows, and what you did not measure shrinks. Decide which you actually wanted.

Easy to take the wrong way

Adding a second metric to patch the first. Two measures pulling apart produces the behaviour that satisfies both on paper — go back to what you actually wanted first.

Try this

Think of a rule or target you live under. What does it quietly reward that nobody intended?