Which has more value for measuring deployment of interventions?
by Amanda Doecke
I clicked submit on another game theory case study…
but my mind kept playing the game.
I was trying to “nudge” the root cause of a problem through the lens of consequence — who bears the cost, who avoids the outcome, how incentives shape behaviour. System or individual? It felt clean. Rational. Familiar.
But something didn’t sit right.
Because even as I mapped outcomes and calculated risks, I kept circling the same question:
What if consequence wasn’t the lever that mattered most?
What if the real story — the real diagnostic — was in coordination?
Not what someone stands to lose, but how hard it is for them to act — and whether they believe anyone else will act with them.
When I first built the idea of Asymmetrical Consequence Weighting (ACW) — a hypothetical metric for identifying when the person most affected by an outcome isn’t the one supported or equipped to change it — I was focused on misalignment: the disconnect between who suffers the consequence and who is expected to act.
Because even when consequences are known — even when people care — coordination still breaks down.
And it wasn’t just theory. When I worked on the formula, I kept instinctively adding the Yes%, not the No. I was unconsciously weighting participation, not avoidance. That was the giveaway.
I wasn’t measuring consequence aversion.
I was measuring willingness to coordinate.
And the people who did? They weren’t simply complying — they were responding to something that made effort feel possible. Not easier, always, but possible. Their actions weren’t just reactions. They were signals — that something in the system made enough sense to try.
Not consequence → fear → action.
But coordination → recognition → more coordination.
That’s the loop I missed the first time. And that’s what I’m building for now.
So with a fresh set of eyes, I’m asking different questions:
Who’s being asked to coordinate?
Who’s supported to do it?
And what frameworks are in place to keep that momentum building — not just once, but repeatedly, across contexts and people?
ThinKynd 