Incentive Super Response Tendency
Never pay your lawyer by the hour
People respond to incentives by doing what is in their best interests. What is noteworthy is, first, how quickly and radically people’s behaviour changes when incentives come into play or are altered and, second, the fact that people respond to the incentives themselves and not the grander intentions behind them.
Keep an eye out for the incentive super-response tendency. If a person’s or an organisation’s behaviour confounds you, Ask yourself what incentive might lie behind it. I guarantee you that you’ll be able to explain 90% of the cases this way. What makes up the remaining 10%? Passion, idiocy, psychosis or malice.