Follow the Incentives and You'll Predict the Behavior

People respond to incentives — financial, social, emotional. If you want to understand why someone acts a certain way, look at what they're rewarded for, not what they say they value. A company that says it values work-life balance but promotes people who work weekends is telling you its real incentives. This isn't cynicism; it's pattern recognition. Understanding incentive structures helps you predict behavior far more accurately than listening to stated intentions.