Mental model · Systems
Incentives
Incentives: People respond to what their position rewards, which explains behaviour far better than character does.
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People respond to what their position rewards, which explains behaviour far better than character does.
Try it now
Take someone whose behaviour frustrates you. Write what their position rewards and what it quietly punishes.
What to do with the answer
Change the incentive or accept the behaviour. Asking them to act against it will not work for long.
Where it misleads
It can slide into cynicism. People do act against their incentives, and treating everyone as a machine costs you the ones who do.
The module it belongs to
- Systems Thinking — Understand connections and consequences
The book behind it
- The prince — Its big ideas, in our own words.