Systems Need Change Every Few Cycles

There's a pattern I keep seeing everywhere: create a system with noble intentions, watch it work beautifully for a while, then witness its slow corruption as people figure out how to game it. Eventually, the system becomes a grotesque parody of its original purpose.

The Standardized Testing Tragedy

Remember when SAT and JEE were meant to identify bright students regardless of background? Now we have an entire industry of "cracking" these exams. Coaching centers that charge more than college tuition. Students who can solve JEE problems in their sleep but can't think originally to save their lives.

The tests haven't gotten easier. We've just gotten better at gaming them. What started as a measure of aptitude became a target to optimize for, and in that transformation, lost its entire purpose.

The Open Source Obituary

Google Summer of Code was beautiful once. A celebration of open source, a way to bring new contributors into projects they loved. Now? It's a line on a resume. Students contribute not because they care about the project, but because FAANG companies like seeing "GSoC participant" on applications.

Hacktoberfest is even worse. What began as a celebration of open source contribution devolved into spam PRs for free t-shirts. Maintainers drowning in "Added a comma" pull requests. The spirit murdered by swag hunters.

The moment these programs became resume boosters rather than community celebrations, they died. They still exist, sure, but as zombies shambling through the motions.

The SEO Apocalypse

Google search used to surface the best content. Then we learned to game SEO. Now the top results are 3000-word articles saying nothing, optimized for keywords rather than humans. Recipe blogs with life stories before the ingredients. Product reviews that have never touched the product.

We cracked the algorithm, and in doing so, broke the very thing that made Google useful. The search engine that organized the world's information now surfaces the world's most optimized garbage.

The Democratic Decay

Here's an uncomfortable one: democracy itself follows this pattern.

The ideal: do good work, people vote for you to continue. The reality: do nothing significant but appease swing voters. Keep people miserable because it's easier to promise better times to those who aren't well off than to actually deliver them.

Politicians discovered that you don't need to govern well - you just need to campaign well. The system rewards not those who serve best, but those who game best.

Goodhart's Law in Everything

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

This isn't just about tests or code contributions. It's a fundamental law of human systems. The moment you create a metric, people will optimize for the metric rather than the underlying value it was meant to measure.

• Universities game rankings instead of improving education
• Companies hit quarterly targets while destroying long-term value
• Social media optimizes for engagement, creating outrage machines
• Influencers buy followers, engagement pods fake authenticity

Every. Single. System. Gets. Gamed.

The Privilege Problem

I realize I'm privileged enough to care about the "spirit" of something rather than what value it brings to my resume. I can contribute to open source because I love it, not because I need it for job hunting. I can write without SEO optimization because I'm not dependent on ad revenue.

But that doesn't justify the destruction. When systems get gamed, they stop serving those who need them most. The underprivileged student who could have been identified by a fair test. The new developer who could have found community in open source. The small business that can't compete with SEO farms.

Gaming systems is a privilege tax that everyone pays.

The Uncomfortable Solution

Here's the thing: striving for the perfect system is a fool's errand. Every system, no matter how well-designed, will eventually be gamed. The charlatans always figure out the exploits.

Maybe the answer isn't to build better systems. Maybe it's to accept that systems need to die and be reborn regularly.

Switch systems not because the new one is better, but simply because it's different. The act of changing resets the game, forces adaptation, breaks established exploits.

The Renewal Cycle

What if we designed systems with built-in expiration dates?

• Standardized tests that completely change format every 5 years
• Open source programs that reinvent their structure regularly
• Search algorithms that randomly shift priorities
• Democratic systems that... well, that's a dangerous thought

The churn would be painful. But maybe less painful than watching good systems slowly rot from the inside.

The Questions We're Not Asking

Instead of "How do we prevent gaming?" maybe we should ask:

• How do we make gaming pointless?
• How do we build systems that remain valuable even when gamed?
• How do we create cultures that shame gaming rather than reward it?
• How do we design for regular renewal rather than permanence?

The Leadership Lesson

This is where my leadership philosophy comes in. When I lead teams, I deliberately avoid static metrics. Instead of "complete X tasks per sprint," I focus on "are we solving real problems?" Instead of "hit these KPIs," I ask "are we building something meaningful?"

The trick to motivating people isn't to create better incentive systems - it's to constantly shift what we're optimizing for. This week we focus on code quality. Next week, user experience. The week after, team learning.

Keep people engaged by keeping them adapting. The moment someone figures out how to game your system, change the game.

Getting Things Done Without Getting Gamed

Here's what actually works in practice:

Rotate Recognition: Don't always reward the same type of contribution. Celebrate the bug fix one week, the documentation improvement the next, the mentoring effort after that. Make gaming pointless by making the target constantly moving.

Value Narratives Over Numbers: Ask people to tell stories about their impact, not hit metrics. Stories are harder to fake than statistics. A developer who says "I helped three teammates debug issues" tells me more than one who says "I closed 50 tickets."

Create Cultural Antibodies: The strongest defense against gaming is a team culture that calls it out. When the team itself rejects gaming behavior, you don't need complex systems to prevent it. Build teams that take pride in genuine contribution.

Embrace Controlled Chaos: A little unpredictability prevents optimization. Random pair programming assignments. Surprise focus shifts. Unexpected recognition. Keep people solving problems, not gaming systems.

The Meta-Leadership Move

The ultimate leadership insight? Tell your team about Goodhart's Law. Make them aware of the pattern. When everyone understands that gaming kills systems, they become partners in preventing it rather than adversaries trying to exploit it.

I've found that transparency about why systems change actually motivates people more than the systems themselves. "We're switching our review process because the old one was getting gamed" resonates better than "here's a new arbitrary process."

The Path Forward

I don't have all the answers. But I've learned that fighting gaming is futile, embracing change is powerful. Build teams that thrive on adaptation rather than exploitation. Create cultures that value impact over metrics.

Maybe we need to stop building monuments and start planting gardens, things that need constant tending, regular pruning, occasional replanting. In leadership, as in systems, the only constant should be change.

Or maybe I'm just another person gaming the system by writing think-pieces about gaming the system. Meta-gaming, if you will.

But at least I'm not doing it for a t-shirt. And I'm definitely not putting "Thought Leader" on my LinkedIn (although, it does have a ring to it).