I worked at a giant mega corp as low rung salesman and the major KPI was sales numbers. Until about June when if sales were looking bad region wide it turned to

I worked at a giant mega corp as low rung salesman and the major KPI was sales numbers. Until about June when if sales were looking bad region wide it turned to waste(returns) as the major KPI. If you knew how to straddle the line, by about May you could pivot to the KPI of the moment. Every year some new hire would go out and sale 15% of sales plan and would be praise as a superstar. The next year they'd be written up for some bs reason and after a few years they would be flushed out. What did they do wrong? They out performed sales plan in the first year by 15% and that meant that now every other year their plan for the year would add 5% growth on top of the 15%. Since the initial 15% growth was unsustainable the waste grew and magically they were now failing at the 2 major KPI's.