People Follow Incentives -Not Instructions

Rules are easy to write. Incentives are harder to see. Yet in most systems—companies, governments, schools, markets—the visible structure is rules, while the real structure is incentives. One sits on paper. The other quietly shapes behaviour. So when outcomes look irrational, dishonest, or inefficient, people usually blame individuals: poor discipline, weak ethics, bad leadership. But often, the individuals are simply responding to the environment they were placed in. The system behaves exactly