Typically from C-levels who offer intuitive seeming, but internally inconsistent goals. For example, "We need to increase sales and decrease spending" might be two inconsistent goals if the only way to increase sales is to increase spending.
A bad manager will accept these inconsistent, and mutually exclusive, goals as if handed down on high by the gods and find counter-productive ways to save money or increase sales - even at the expense of actual profit. There is always a way, if you don't care about the actual outcome. These people will Goodhart the company into a terrible position, as long as it means they meet their arbitrary KPI's and get their full bonus.
A good manager might instead gather some data, then come back to the executive the next day with a data backed explanation showing why meeting both goals might be possible, but still wouldn't be advisable due to the negative externalities. A good executive will actually listen, because it's backed with real data they didn't have when they made the call.
Unfortunately if either the manager OR the executive are bad or thinking with their ego's... The entire thing falls apart. Which is why it's so very common.
Typically from C-levels who offer intuitive seeming, but internally inconsistent goals. For example, "We need to increase sales and decrease spending" might be two inconsistent goals if the only way to increase sales is to increase spending.
A bad manager will accept these inconsistent, and mutually exclusive, goals as if handed down on high by the gods and find counter-productive ways to save money or increase sales - even at the expense of actual profit. There is always a way, if you don't care about the actual outcome. These people will Goodhart the company into a terrible position, as long as it means they meet their arbitrary KPI's and get their full bonus.
A good manager might instead gather some data, then come back to the executive the next day with a data backed explanation showing why meeting both goals might be possible, but still wouldn't be advisable due to the negative externalities. A good executive will actually listen, because it's backed with real data they didn't have when they made the call.
Unfortunately if either the manager OR the executive are bad or thinking with their ego's... The entire thing falls apart. Which is why it's so very common.