Does it surprise you to learn traders would cover up losses to protect bonuses? It shouldn’t, it happens over and over. Would it surprise you that almost any bonus (or quota) scheme increases the odds that the data will be doctored to meet the goals? It shouldn’t. Intelligent measures to make such doctoring difficult can help reduce the practice. But it is a likely risk of any such goal. As we have quoted Brian Joiner as saying: there are: “3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult.” So it is no shock that distorting the data is often the tacit people use (especially when the rewards are great or the punishment for missing is severe).

Of course the people that take unethical or illegal action are responsible for their actions. But managers that set up poor systems and then get poor results should not be surprised. You mainly read about the exciting distortion of data - but there is much more such distortion that doesn’t seem interesting enough for the press.

Traders at top investment bank ‘covered up losses to protect their bonuses in £1.4 bn scam’

Related: Problems with Bonuses - Be Careful What You Measure - Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations - Another Quota Failure Example