Consider a hypothetical situation. Sales wins an order, engineering closes its project on time and the factory meets its output target. Yet the customer receives a product that does not meet the intended need. Sales says the specifications were handed over; engineering says no formal change request was raised; production says it built the approved version.
Each department has evidence that it did its job. The customer’s overall outcome, however, was never fully assigned to a decision-maker.
The response may be to recruit a manager with excellent communication, resilience and cross-functional coordination skills. That could help. Before opening the search, though, the company should ask whether its existing arrangements make cooperation costly for the people expected to provide it.
The management perspective: expectations and rewards can point in different directions
In 1975, Steven Kerr described organizational situations in which rewarded behavior differed from what managers said they wanted. His article examines incentive misalignment through examples; it does not supply a universal KPI formula. The original source is linked below.
That perspective informs the practical analysis here. If a company calls for teamwork but recognizes only individual departments’ short-term figures in promotion and rewards, employees may prioritize work that counts toward those figures. This does not mean that all problems are systemic or that individuals have no responsibility. It means that a diagnosis should not jump directly from a poor outcome to a judgment about attitude.
Why locally reasonable decisions can undermine the whole
Suppose engineering is primarily measured on timely project closure. Supporting a field problem after closure takes time away from the next project. If that work has neither allocated resources nor performance recognition, declining it may protect the department’s results.
Similarly, sales recognition based mainly on order value may leave unresolved delivery requirements for others to handle. A factory focused only on equipment utilization may favor large runs of easier products while urgent or complex orders wait.
These are illustrative scenarios, not claims about particular companies or industries. The problem is not the existence of KPIs. It is that one metric can fail to capture costs transferred to someone else.
Trace one event before redesigning the entire appraisal system
Choose a recent customer complaint or major delay and follow the handovers. At each stage, ask what the person knew, what they could decide, what they were measured on and whether they remained accountable after passing the issue onward.
“Who failed to communicate?” often leads only to more meetings. A more revealing question is: “When two departments have conflicting priorities, who can make the final decision?” A meeting without a resolution mechanism may simply make more people aware of an unresolved problem.
Distinguish missing information from conflicting incentives. Better handover documents may address the former. The latter may require changes in responsibility, resources or recognition. Applying the same remedy to both can add process without improving the result.
Keep specialist metrics, but retain a shared outcome
One possible discussion framework is to retain professional measures for each department, add a small number of shared delivery outcomes and specify constraints that must not be sacrificed. This is a practical suggestion, not a validated standard model.
Sales could examine whether commitments have passed feasibility checks alongside revenue and pipeline. Engineering could examine recurring post-delivery specification problems alongside scheduling. Customer acceptance could be a shared outcome. Quality and safety requirements should not disappear when deadlines tighten.
Shared measures should not be so numerous or remote that no one can influence them. Nor should every person’s reward depend on one undifferentiated company-wide number. Either approach can obscure individual responsibility or encourage people to conceal problems to avoid conflict. Each metric needs a data source, an explanation of controllable factors and a procedure for exceptions.
Frequent firefighting is not sufficient evidence of management strength
A manager who resolves cross-functional crises quickly can be valuable. But if each resolution depends on that person’s informal intervention, the company may grow more dependent on them without improving how it works.
Ask candidates to describe a recurring problem: how did they identify its cause, change responsibilities and make the process work when they were absent?
Look for both judgment under incomplete information and the ability to reduce repeated escalation. The first without the second can create heroic management. The second without willingness to deal with immediate difficulties may erode the team’s trust.
Check authority before recruiting a cross-functional manager
If the role owns delivery dates but cannot affect resource priorities, specification changes or commercial commitments, even a highly experienced person may be left chasing others. More communication training alone will not close that gap.
Before the search, list decisions the manager can make independently, those requiring joint agreement and those requiring escalation. For joint decisions, establish expected response times and who resolves disagreement.
When discussing such a role with Talent Nexus, this is more informative than asking for “strong coordination skills.” It also helps candidates distinguish a genuine management mandate from an obligation to absorb outcomes they cannot influence.
Watch for side effects after changing the measures
Once a metric is used to evaluate people, behavior may change. Review not only whether the number improves, but whether new avoidance patterns appear.
A shorter complaint-resolution time, for example, should be checked for premature closure. A shorter hiring cycle should be checked for rushed requirements. These are risks to examine when designing a measure, not reasons to blame employees only after a problem emerges.
Start with one workflow, retain feedback from managers and frontline staff and review the evidence at agreed intervals. Identifying one handover that repeatedly pushes problems downstream can make the effect of a change easier to assess than adding ten new KPIs at once.
A useful question for the next management meeting
Ask: “If employees followed our current appraisal and reward arrangements exactly, could they reasonably end up doing the things we are unhappy about?”
If the answer is yes, an appeal for more team spirit is insufficient. The system needs attention, and people still need clear accountability. Those are complementary responsibilities, not alternatives.
Research and scope
Kerr, S. (1975). On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 18(4), 769–783. This article draws on the central observation about misalignment between rewards and expectations. The metric review method and hiring questions are practical extensions.
Original research: Academy of Management Journal