by Gipsie B. Ranney
from The Systems Thinker, Volume 21 Number 8, October 2010

The use of incentives, particularly in the arena of executive pay, is of particular interest given the current economic situation. There's growing evidence that incentives work, but often in unintended ways. When we deal with complex systems, people and organizations may behave not at all like our myths would predict. For example, the escalation of pay, perks, and parachutes for CEOs may actually backfire, attracting individuals who are primarily extrinsically motivated, rather than those who are seriously interested in creating value.

But organizations continue to rely on external reward systems and incentives for a variety of reasons. These include the inability to break out of the old ways of thinking about reward and recognition practices; lack of a holistic or overall system view of performance factors and results; and a continuing focus on short-term results by management and shareholders. The best policy may be to avoid incentives altogether and focus instead on creating systems in which intrinsic motivation, cooperation, ethical behavior, trust, creativity, and joy in work can flourish.

Systems Thinking in Action Conference: Because Sustainable Success Doesn't Just Happen
October 31-November 2, 2011
Westin Seattle Hotel
Seattle, Washington

By Steve Byers and Nalani Linder

Last month, about 80 systems thinking practitioners from the Pacific Northwest gathered for a day of networking and learning together at the first-ever Pegasus Systems Thinking in ActionŽ Regional Event held in Renton, WA. The coordinators of the planning team reflect here on their experience, in part to inspire others to consider hosting an event in your own neck of the woods!

The event was held over an evening and the following day at a community college south of Seattle. Participants came from a wide variety of fields--aerospace, education, social services, insurance, healthcare, and others. The invitation was targeted to "growing and seasoned systems practitioners" and not necessarily to those brand new to systems thinking. (Note: For those who wanted to come and were novices, we offered a separate and optional Systems Thinking 101 workshop the day before the event.)

We volunteers handled most of the planning, as well as all of the design and onsite hosting of the event. Pegasus handled online registrations, coordinated with the venue, and helped with marketing (which enabled us to reach a much larger group of prospective participants than we ever could!).