In many organizations, things were simple in the early days. Goals were clear, tasks were concrete, and people moved forward on instinct, a sense of responsibility, and a bit of shared common sense. Then the business grew, headcount increased, and management became more “professional.” KPIs were introduced—and often with aggressive targets from the start. Growth had to be fast, metrics had to be tough, and results had to be immediately visible. The intention was usually good: use pressure to drive efficiency, use numbers to combat chaos.

But this is often where the trouble begins.

When KPIs are set too aggressively, they stop being a mere “tool for aligning goals” and become a survival filter. The targets themselves exceed the boundaries of normal collaboration and rational execution. At that point, what employees truly need to solve is no longer “how to do the job well,” but “how do I survive?”

Once this state takes hold, the behavioral logic within the organization quietly shifts. Rules are no longer paramount; processes are no longer the most reliable. The most critical thing becomes one question: who are you aligned with?

And so, the soil for a favoritism culture is prepared.

Under high-pressure KPIs, resources are inevitably scarce. There’s never enough time, enough people, enough budget, or enough room for error. In this environment, whoever can secure more support is more likely to hit their targets. Where does that support come from? Often, not from the system, but from relationships. Whether you are “one of us,” whether you are “trustworthy,” whether you have “chosen the right side” at critical moments—these things start to matter immensely.

This doesn’t necessarily stem from a manager’s self-interest; it’s a consequence forced by the aggressive targets themselves. When the formal system cannot support the goals, the informal system automatically steps in to fill the gap. Trust networks, personal preferences, and clique relationships become the “invisible operating system” that actually runs things. Over time, the organization may still talk about KPIs, processes, and systems on the surface, but underneath, it operates according to the logic of favoritism.

What’s more subtle is that this culture often becomes “rationalized.” Those who hit their targets are seen as “capable” and “reliable,” while those who don’t—even if their process was perfectly sound—are easily labeled as “lacking execution” or “not working hard enough.” Outcome-based judgment overwhelms process-based judgment, and being on the right side of the hierarchy outweighs professional expertise. Over time, truly capable people who are not in the inner circle will gradually choose to stay silent, coast, or leave.

From a manager’s perspective, this is a very insidious side effect with a high cost. In the short term, aggressive KPIs might indeed produce impressive numbers. But in the long run, they continuously erode the organization’s sense of fairness and foundation of trust. People stop trusting the system and only trust individuals; they stop believing in rules and only try to read the wind. The organization appears to be running at high speed, but it is increasingly dependent on a few key nodes. If those nodes fail, the entire system quickly becomes unbalanced.

True mature management is not about constantly raising the KPI bar. It’s about clearly understanding: what kind of goals must rely on the system, and what kind of goals, once they exceed the system’s capacity, will inevitably breed relationship-based operations. The former is organizational capability; the latter is organizational regression.

Healthy KPIs should force the system to evolve, not force people to form alliances. They should naturally bring visibility to “those who do the job well,” rather than making it easier for “those who stand next to the right people” to survive.

When you find that people in an organization care more about “who you work for” than “whether this task itself is right,” it’s often not a people problem. It’s a sign that the targets have been set in the wrong range. KPIs are supposed to be the language of management, not an amplifier of power.

A question worth asking repeatedly is: Can this KPI be achieved without relying on favoritism, without cutting corners, without leveraging personal connections? If the answer is no, the problem likely lies not with the execution layer, but with the target itself.