Survivorship-Driven Best Practices is strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0268, within the Corporate Perverse Pattern family. The core principle: strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died.
Plain-English Definition
Strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died.
Feynman Explanation
Best practice = winners' archaeology with the losers edited out.
Core Principle
Strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Frameworks adopted on selection bias.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Best practice = winners' archaeology with the losers edited out.
Examples
- 'Move fast and break things' adopted long after the strategy stopped working.
- Frameworks adopted on selection bias.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
The mistake with this element is treating it as irrationality. It is almost always a rational response to a payoff nobody wrote down. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: best practice = winners' archaeology with the losers edited out. Every element in the Incentives dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, frameworks adopted on selection bias. It is amplified whenever frameworks adopted on selection bias. Inside organizations that shows up as frameworks adopted on selection bias. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to always look at the failure denominator before copying winners. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Always look at the failure denominator before copying winners.
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.
- Always look at the failure denominator before copying winners.
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.
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Narrowly tied bonuses get gamed; people optimize the metric, not the underlying goal.
Re-hires often get raises larger than internal promotions.
Pay tied to stock price encourages short-term price management.
CEO pay tied to size rewards deal-making even when acquisitions destroy value.
Sales forecasts under-set to ensure attainment bonus.
Capital tied to growth rates funds unsustainable scaling and unit-economics denial.
Managers measured by team size grow teams beyond need.
Awards reward visible novelty; quiet excellence goes unrecognized.
Innovation programs designed to signal innovation, not to produce it.
Where Survivorship-Driven Best Practices is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- Field guideIncentives: definition, types, examples
The parent field guide for this element.
- ReferenceThe laws of incentives
Goodhart, Campbell, and the Cobra Effect.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Survivorship-Driven Best Practices
- What is Survivorship-Driven Best Practices?
- Survivorship-Driven Best Practices is strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0268, within the Corporate Perverse Pattern family. The core principle: strategy copied from survivors ignores identical strategies that died. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Survivorship-Driven Best Practices?
- Frameworks adopted on selection bias. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-INC-0268).
- How is Survivorship-Driven Best Practices exploited?
- Frameworks adopted on selection bias.
- How do you design around Survivorship-Driven Best Practices?
- Always look at the failure denominator before copying winners.
- Which behavioral dimension does Survivorship-Driven Best Practices belong to?
- Survivorship-Driven Best Practices is classified in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Corporate Perverse Pattern", class "Perverse Incentive". Its permanent identifier is HBT-INC-0268 and its evidence grade is C.