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I've always found that anytime time a financial outcome is tied to some sort of behavior incentive, weird behaviors come out. This especially comes out in sales, where whether you like it or not, individuals will typically optimize for the best financial outcome, which is not always explicitly connected to what's best for the company.



Congrats, you've learned the Secret of Management.

From here on out, your career consists of optimizing methods of manipulating that effect for your benefit, the benefit of your team, and the benefit of your company, in that order.


"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."


There is also the Cobra effect as a subset of unexpected outcomes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect


I much prefer the German word for it, "Verschlimmbesserung."




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