Sandbagging

Sandbagging is setting a target you privately expect to beat, so the number is safe before the quarter starts. It is almost never dishonesty. It is the predictable result of wiring goals to pay, promotion or reputation, and the fix is consequence design rather than exhortation.

By Matt Roberts, co-founder, ZOKRI

Why it happens

The moment somebody’s pay, promotion or standing depends on a number they helped set, they will set a number they are confident they can hit. Everyone does this. The people who do not are usually new.

So when you find sandbagging, the useful question is not who did it. It is what in the system made it the sensible move. Almost always the answer is that missing a target costs somebody something, and nobody has said out loud which targets are allowed to be missed.

The two fixes

Label the stretch. If a target is deliberately ambitious, say so when it is set, and agree in advance that strong partial progress counts as success. An unlabelled stretch target is just a commitment somebody will fail.

Unwire the consequence. No bonus should attach to a team’s goal number. Keep the bonus, judge the individual half on evidence from somebody who was there, and let the goal number be an honest instrument rather than a payslip.

Asking people to be braver without changing either of these is a request to act against their own interests every quarter. It works for about one quarter.

How to spot it

The tell is a target that lands at ninety-five to a hundred per cent, quarter after quarter, across most teams. Real bets do not behave like that. A portfolio where almost everything hits is a portfolio of things that were going to happen anyway.