What unhelpful behaviours do your objectives bring forth?

Last year I had a call from a market research company checking up on a visit from one of their representatives. Basically to check whether the person had done what they said or had just made me up! The tone of questioning made me feel as if I was on trial. A few weeks ago someone tweeted about an over zealous train conductor who seemed to start with a belief that no was to be trusted. These examples had me thinking about the sorts of values, beliefs and behaviours that are unconsciously built into certain jobs as a result of the objectives set. They may help do the job effectively but they can also have interesting repercussions too.

What about the following (and yes they're very stereotypical and simply to illustrate the point):

Politicians: Common sense being ignored in order to disagree with the opposition.
Dr/Pharmaceuticals: Emphasis is on illness rather well being.
Advertising: Words that influence are used even if misleading e.g. recent case involving use of 'nutritious'.
Media: Again words to attract attention are used even if inaccurate
Police/Traffic wardens: Lack of trust must be inherent
and from my own experience
Buyers: Bulldozing of suppliers or internal stakeholders
Coaches: Finding challenges/issues to resolve

I just wonder what KPI's could, or already are, put in place to ensure we avoid these types of repercussions?

Patience

Most personal training sessions include some time with me using boxing gloves and my personal trainer providing the resistance. Apparently my technique has got a lot better. However at least once a week he stops me to refine some aspect of my moves.

Yesterday he felt that I was just swinging my jabs and not going back to my guard in-between. In other words continuous movement, no technique, no accuracy and certainly no force behind the jabs. Or left/right/left/right/left right until I got tired!! So he told me that he would remove the pad and I could only jab when he placed it back in front of me. Left, Right, and I nearly fell over as I automatically moved for another left to find out there was no pad to hit in front of me. Try again - Left, Right....agh I still managed to wobble as I eventually remembered to bring both hands back to guard position. “You need to be patient Alison” he said as he could see my frustration and desire to just get into the left, right, left rhythm. Left, right, (breath) guard. Left, right, guard, left, right, guard.

Slowly I managed to get into the rhythm but something else happened. I realised my reactions were different. Instead of just getting into a rhythm and swinging and hitting the pad because it was there I was waiting until the pad was in front of me and then intentionally hitting it. It was as if the extra time to bring my hands back to guard was enabling me to remember my objective, to centre myself, before taking action again! It certainly gave me a new perspective on patience.