Scientific Definition
Once-a-year feedback rewards once-a-year behavior.
Plain-English Definition
Once-a-year feedback rewards once-a-year behavior.
Feynman Explanation
You optimize for whichever month the review happens in.
Core Principle
Once-a-year feedback rewards once-a-year behavior.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Once-a-year feedback rewards once-a-year behavior.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Cadence of measurement = cadence of behavior.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
You optimize for whichever month the review happens in.
Examples
- December heroics. January quiet quitting.
- Cadence of measurement = cadence of behavior.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Continuous feedback systems. Multi-source input.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Continuous feedback systems. Multi-source input.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
The more a quantitative indicator drives decisions, the more it distorts the process it measures.
Donors penalize 'overhead'; charities under-invest in capacity.
Donors penalize 'overhead' and starve capacity that produces outcomes.
A reward designed to reduce X produces more X.
Squeezing all slack from a system optimizes throughput but eliminates resilience.
'Equal value' exchanges incentivize subjective appraisal gaming to trade low-utility land for high-value public assets.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Deep specialization improves local output but breaks cross-domain understanding.
Greedy improvement loops climb hills that aren't the highest hill.
When rewards don't match stated values, culture quietly decays toward what is rewarded.
Insulation from risk changes the risks people take.
Systems with weak corrective feedback drift unchecked into failure modes.