Hitting your target this year can guarantee a harder target next year
In centrally planned factories, managers who exceeded their quota often simply received a higher quota the next year, with no extra reward for the earlier overperformance. Economist Martin Weitzman modeled this 'ratchet effect' in 1980, showing it gives workers a rational incentive to hide spare capacity and never reveal their true output, since doing well today just raises tomorrow's bar. The same dynamic shows up whenever hitting a sales target quietly becomes next quarter's new minimum.