Universal Diagnostic Questions

Canonical thinkers

• The Incentives Lab

The 20 questions

Run every situation through this list. The blind spot is almost always in the question you skipped.

1. 01What behavior is being rewarded?
2. 02What behavior is being punished?
3. 03Who benefits?
4. 04Who pays?
5. 05What is visible?
6. 06What is hidden?
7. 07What assumptions are embedded?
8. 08What feedback loops reinforce this?
9. 09Which biases are most likely operating?
10. 10What game is being played?
11. 11What level of consciousness is driving decisions?
12. 12Which developmental stage dominates?
13. 13What moral trade-offs exist?
14. 14What unintended consequences are likely?
15. 15What happens if this incentive compounds for ten years?
16. 16What happens if every organization adopted this incentive?
17. 17What metric is being optimized — and what outcomes are ignored?
18. 18What would have to change for everyone involved to benefit?
19. 19What is the proxy — and what is the real goal it stands in for?
20. 20If you reversed the incentive tomorrow, who would resist most loudly, and why?

How this layer reinforces, counteracts, or depends on the rest of the system.

• Depends on·Layer
  This layer depends on Systems Thinking

  The 20 questions only produce insight if you can trace second- and third-order effects through the system.

No HBEs are tagged to this layer yet. As the registry grows, matching elements will appear here.