This is the answer. The higher performance orgs I’ve worked for have had excellent incentive alignment and cohesion. The metrics were there, but fairly mediocre.

Places with robust metrics ranged from excellent to meh. One place had a sales team that was owning it, and the leadership was shoveling cash into wheelbarrows. But the company was losing a fortune because the sales metrics were precisely stupid.

I don't think this is possible. In a sufficiently large organization, however much you try to prevent it, some employees will be "psychopaths" (going by Hintjens's definition) looking to game the system. Whatever the metrics are, they will put in only enough effort to advance their own interests, and assuming they succeed (and at least some will) at getting raises/promotions, the org is then at risk of (legitimate) legal action from other employees who put in more actual work and get lower compensation.