Posted on 03/28/2007 6:42:44 AM PDT by tang0r
In the sports world, history makes a distinction between average coaches and legendary coaches. There are some coaches, like John Wooden or Bill Parcells, who seem to win regardless of the all the perceived negatives that surround them. Despite not always having the best talent, or the access to the most money, or the best situation, they find a way to put up winning and even championship seasons.
These legendary men stand in contrast to other coaches who, despite having a tremendous amount of positive resources, can't seem to put together a consistent contender. Oftentimes, these average coaches have a personalized "system" that they have developed over the course of many years. These average coaches insist on adhering to their system, despite the fact that their actual personnel may not be the best fit for their particular strategy. (See, e.g., the failed integration of Michael Vick into the West Coast Offense, or Clinton Portis into Joe Gibbs's H-Back Offense.) Quite simply, the average coach has an inability to gauge the real-world relationship between his own ideas, strategies, and techniques, and the success of the team.
(Excerpt) Read more at prometheusinstitute.net ...
(No I'm not going to the site and read it)
Go to the site and read it.
"Overpaid CEOS" ? How?
Thanks for nothing.
Much like sub-par head coaches, the CEOs of many large companies exist in a similar state of ignorance, and is predominantly due to the overinflation of their executive salaries. Recent evidence of excessive executive pay abounds. For one example, the CEO of Blockbuster, John Antioco, is in the process of suing his company because he did not receive his entire $6 million dollar bonus. While Mr. Antioco is pursuing this compensation, his "leadership" has left the company with record losses and competitive disadvantages being exploited by industry-leader Netflix.
Aren't bonuses supposed to be for high achievement?
How can a CEO be overpaid?
The BOD sets the pay scale so are CEO's somehow beng paid more than was agreed upon?
That would be the only way a CEO could be overpaid.
Tells me everything I need to know about the "promethius institute"
One should never be handsomely compensated for failure, no matter their executive title.
Exactly. What would be reasonable compensation for a CEO that runs his company into the ground.
Can't remember where I read it, but Whole Foods decided to remove their cap so they could recruit more effectively.
CEOs are only overpaid if the stockholders think they are overpaid. Other than that, it's nobody's damned business what they are paid.
Is it on the excerpt only list? If it's so important, just post the damned thing. I'm with DManA.
This is kind of an endless ramble that goes nowhere. Considering the premise, it didn't seem likely a valid point was going to be made. But it is quite informative (and frightening) to know that some believe the gubmit should have the ability to limit compensation within the private sector.
this is socialist crap....the American Dream is not confined to the pages of an Alger book....the Dream has no limits...except the sky and that limit too, is being broken by the likes of billionares Paul Allen and Richard Branson
Don't know what this has to do with CEO's either, but......From the sports side and since I was a football coach for about 15 years, it's not about having the best players around. It's about using what you have and what you do with it. You see this more in the college arena than in Pro-Football. Pro-Football is a business, not a sport.
Ah, what the hell. Not on the excerpt list, so I'll do ya a favor and post it AND bump the thread. Maybe there IS something worth reading (but I remain skeptical).
Just Win, Baby
What to do about overpaid CEOs
Justin Hartfield, for the editors | 03.27.07
In the sports world, history makes a distinction between average coaches and legendary coaches. There are some coaches, like John Wooden or Bill Parcells, who seem to win regardless of the all the perceived negatives that surround them. Despite not always having the best talent, or the access to the most money, or the best situation, they find a way to put up winning and even championship seasons.
These legendary men stand in contrast to other coaches who, despite having a tremendous amount of positive resources, can't seem to put together a consistent contender. Oftentimes, these average coaches have a personalized "system" that they have developed over the course of many years. These average coaches insist on adhering to their system, despite the fact that their actual personnel may not be the best fit for their particular strategy. (See, e.g., the failed integration of Michael Vick into the West Coast Offense, or Clinton Portis into Joe Gibbs's H-Back Offense.) Quite simply, the average coach has an inability to gauge the real-world relationship between his own ideas, strategies, and techniques, and the success of the team.
Much like sub-par head coaches, the CEOs of many large companies exist in a similar state of ignorance, and is predominantly due to the overinflation of their executive salaries. Recent evidence of excessive executive pay abounds. For one example, the CEO of Blockbuster, John Antioco, is in the process of suing his company because he did not receive his entire $6 million dollar bonus. While Mr. Antioco is pursuing this compensation, his "leadership" has left the company with record losses and competitive disadvantages being exploited by industry-leader Netflix.
Even as executive salaries are skyrocketing, managerial and labor job salaries (adjusted for inflation) are as low as they have been since 1973. This relative financial disconnect is not due, as we've shown, to a failure of the American Dream. It's due to the excessive, unchecked compensation of sub-par leaders.
Certainly, the most important and visible jobs in the company deserve the most pay, and success is rightly rewarded when it is achieved. But the amount of pay currently being handed out to many of America's top executives is instead causing them to be less effective leaders. One should never be handsomely compensated for failure, no matter their executive title.
Good leadership essentially boils down to the ability to motivate the masses, combined with the skill to solve problems efficiently. Paying disproportionate sums of money to executives, in any case, is counter-productive. How can a Captain lead his ship through troubled water if he doesn't have an intimate knowledge of every single aspect of the ship's mass, sail and hull? Likewise, how can a CEO evaluate his own ideas, strategies, and performance when he is paid richly, even in gross failure?
The contention that personal profit is the holy grail of market ambition is false and delusional. Capitalism should be about making one's own dreams and aspirations come to fruition. It should not be about mega-amounts of cash and stock options, or hiking themselves up to the top of the corporate mountain, eating and discarding one's "friends" along the way. In fact, the classic Horatio Alger protagonist often picked up his friends and utilized their talents on their mutual rise to the top. At the end of the book, the hero isn't barricaded in his mansion with his money clutched in his fist and dreams of world domination. Instead, he is enjoying his ability to live freely with his friends and family who were along in the journey since day one.
While it's easy to point to individual cases seemingly excessive compensation, it is impossible to establish a bright-line rule for the purposes of federal regulation. Socialists who seek to impose absolute regulatory caps on executive salaries simply do not understand the immense value that a uniquely talented CEO (see Jack Welsh) can provide a company in the globalized economy.
In the NFL, a coach like Bill Cowher may be worth every dollar of his multi-million-dollar salary, while someone like Steve Spurrier (who was paid much more) was merely an extremely expensive method to create a disappointingly mediocre team. It is up to the individual teams to decide whether a head coach's performance is worth the money. After all, they are the ones who are losing.
Similarly, the solution to ballooning executive salaries in business is, as usual, market competition. More and more successful companies, such as Whole Foods Market, are already actively capping their executive salaries at a much more fair ratio of 14 to 1. The public should be duly educated about the executive compensation issue, so they can make investments and purchasing choices with a company's compensation policy in mind. Activist investors should also make a sustained effort to lobby and support companies that reasonably cap the salaries of their executive officers.
The market should thus continuously encourage those companies with the vision and integrity to know their own value. Certainly, competition will help to shine the light. A company with a Steve Spurrier at the helm, history shows, is always bound to lose in the end.
Hence your laziness impedes you. I.e., you won't find out that it isn't what you mistakenly surmised. In point of fact, it is a relatively short "thought-piece", but a well-reasoned one, with highly apt conservative observations such as this:
While it's easy to point to individual cases seemingly excessive compensation, it is impossible to establish a bright-line rule for the purposes of federal regulation. Socialists who seek to impose absolute regulatory caps on executive salaries simply do not understand the immense value that a uniquely talented CEO (see Jack Welsh) can provide a company in the globalized economy.
And here we get to the meat of the article:
"Similarly, the solution to ballooning executive salaries in business is, as usual, market competition."
Couldn't agree more. But we all knew that anyway.
You made the right call, to pursue the sports analogy.
I didn't, but here's where I stopped reading:
Certainly, the most important and visible jobs in the company deserve the most pay, and success is rightly rewarded when it is achieved. But the amount of pay currently being handed out to many of America's top executives is instead causing them to be less effective leaders. One should never be handsomely compensated for failure, no matter their executive title.
This seems to be the "hollywood" and "professional sports" model, both demonstrably under serious question for a number of years now, and fading fast.
CEOs need to be first and foremost leaders in the financial performance of their company and how "visible" they are is irrelevant.
As to "important", that seems to be that misused translation from "Eurospeak", also irrelevant. Important is as important does. If the business model is sound, and the CEO does his job, whether he is visible or important makes no never mind.
I suspect the most successful companies in terms of health and perforance have CEOs I have never heard of and are rewarded fairly, not extravagantly.
Read the last line about the 'Ol ball coach
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