Three Horizons is h1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously. It sits in the Time dimension (TIM) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-TIM-0011, within the Strategy family. The core principle: h1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously. 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
H1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously.
Plain-English Definition
H1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously.
Feynman Explanation
Most organizations are 100% H1 and call themselves innovative.
Core Principle
H1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
H1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Most organizations are 100% H1 and call themselves innovative.
Examples
- Bill Sharpe's foresight framework, used at IFF and across UK futures practice.
- Portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly.
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: h1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: most organizations are 100% H1 and call themselves innovative. Every element in the Time 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, portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly. It is amplified whenever portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly. Inside organizations that shows up as portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly. 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 allocate explicit time, money, and people across all three horizons every planning cycle. Treat it as infrastructure. Once you can see it in your own system, most of the argument about culture resolves itself.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Allocate explicit time, money, and people across all three horizons every planning cycle.
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.
- Allocate explicit time, money, and people across all three horizons every planning cycle.
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.
Small advantages, applied consistently, become uncatchable.
How much we value the present over the future.
How vividly we connect to our future self predicts long-term decision quality.
An automatic action triggered by a stable cue — built through repetition.
A single habit whose adoption cascades into many other behavior changes.
Creative work needs blocks of hours; managerial work runs on 30-minute slices. They destroy each other when mixed.
Where you can go is constrained by where you've been.
A present-bias kink (β) on top of exponential discounting (δ): immediate rewards get a bonus, all future rewards trade normally.
People preferentially process experience visually, auditorily, or kinesthetically. Match the channel; match the mind.
We judge probability by how similar an event is to a prototype.
Our decisions are influenced by when events occur or when we evaluate them.
Pre-allocate every hour to a category before the day starts.
Where Three Horizons is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayThe Two-Week Incentive Sprint
Shortening the horizon between behavior and payoff.
- EssayIncentives Under Crisis
How time pressure rewrites payoffs.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
Questions about Three Horizons
- What is Three Horizons?
- Three Horizons is h1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously. It sits in the Time dimension (TIM) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-TIM-0011, within the Strategy family. The core principle: h1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously. 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 Three Horizons?
- Portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-TIM-0011).
- How is Three Horizons exploited?
- Portfolios concentrated in H1 die slowly. Portfolios all in H3 die quickly.
- How do you design around Three Horizons?
- Allocate explicit time, money, and people across all three horizons every planning cycle.
- Which behavioral dimension does Three Horizons belong to?
- Three Horizons is classified in the Time dimension (TIM) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Strategy", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-TIM-0011 and its evidence grade is B.