Strategy Elicitation is reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result. It sits in the Social dimension (SOC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-SOC-0032, within the Learning family. The core principle: reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result. 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
Reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result.
Plain-English Definition
Reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result.
Feynman Explanation
'How do you do that?' is the most underused question in business.
Core Principle
Reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
'How do you do that?' is the most underused question in business.
Examples
- Bandler & Grinder modeling Erickson, Satir, and Perls.
- Sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Executives usually notice this element only after it has cost something. By then it looks like a one-off. It is not. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: 'How do you do that?' is the most underused question in business. Every element in the Social 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, sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design. It is amplified whenever sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design. Inside organizations that shows up as sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design. 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 document strategies, not just outcomes. Outcomes don't transfer; strategies do. Design against it the way you would design against a known failure mode — assume it will appear, and price the exploit before someone finds it.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Document strategies, not just outcomes. Outcomes don't transfer; strategies do.
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.
- Document strategies, not just outcomes. Outcomes don't transfer; strategies do.
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.
Combine extreme safety with extreme risk; avoid the middle.
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Allocating finite resources across many fronts when the opponent does the same — no dominant strategy exists.
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Designing organizations to ride doubling curves — AI, data, compute, biotech — rather than linear improvement.
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Causal chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes to impact.
Start cooperative; copy your counterpart's last move thereafter.
Where, how, what — in that order.
One party's gain is exactly another party's loss.
Unconscious psychological strategies that protect self-image.
Where Strategy Elicitation is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayYour Best People Are Optimizing Against You
Social proof and internal competition.
- DiagnosticCultural Performance Audit™
How revealed group behavior is measured.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- 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 Strategy Elicitation
- What is Strategy Elicitation?
- Strategy Elicitation is reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result. It sits in the Social dimension (SOC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-SOC-0032, within the Learning family. The core principle: reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result. 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 Strategy Elicitation?
- Sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-SOC-0032).
- How is Strategy Elicitation exploited?
- Sales modeling, top-performer studies, training program design.
- How do you design around Strategy Elicitation?
- Document strategies, not just outcomes. Outcomes don't transfer; strategies do.
- Which behavioral dimension does Strategy Elicitation belong to?
- Strategy Elicitation is classified in the Social dimension (SOC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Learning", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-SOC-0032 and its evidence grade is B.