Now imagine you’re a product manager and your pay is determined by these factors: your sales for the next quarter; your sales in the current year; the company’s revenue and profit in the next two years; levels of satisfaction among your customers; ideas for new products; and evaluations of your coworkers. If you’re smart, you’ll probably try to sell your product, serve your customers, help your teammates, and, well, do good work. When metrics are varied, they’re harder to finagle.
