Financial Pheromones

Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Can you smell it? Try again. “Smell what?” you ask. Why, the smell of money. After all, there is nothing more important than money, is there? Why else would so few be receiving so much? In the economic turmoil of the past several years, we’ve become all too acquainted with the ever-burgeoning executive bonus. These additional payments, we are told, assure the corporation’s ability to attract the best and brightest business-types to their ivory towers rather than lose them to a potential competitor. Could someone please tell me how “best and brightest” is defined? And then, could someone tell me why many of these bonus paying entities are in such dire financial straights? Hell, if they’ve got the cream of the crop in their boardrooms, why aren’t they achieving a higher degree of success?

We all know, on some level, that this rationale is nothing but a gimmick to explain away rewarding a small faction with very large sums regardless of their performance. Plain and simple, but how do we move away from this construct? First, we have to accept the basic premise as false and here’s a place to begin reconnecting with reality:

We all have a given quality of life. Some of that quality is due exclusively to the numbers written on our paycheck while other parts entail more subjective components: working conditions, geographic location, neighbors, proximity to family members, schools, and the like all add in to the mix that ultimately creates our level of satisfaction with that quality. Would you move across the country for a 10 % raise? Perhaps, if other factors appeared to be more favorable. You might even take a pay cut to get to a better position with a better future in a better area, wouldn’t you? And it goes without saying that many of us would find a way to go anyplace and work for anybody if offered a substantial raise. But not all of us and maybe not even most of us.

“You can’t buy happiness” is an appropriate adage to introduce at this juncture simply because it is true. Unless, of course, you see money as a pathway to every possession that, in theory, will make you happy. There’s a few lottery winners out there that might fall into this category, but most of us define our quality of life in more diverse terms. As a result, bonuses to attract the best possible executive should be unnecessary if the whole package offers a great opportunity.

And what about the best and brightest employees? Where are the bonuses to bring in the best auto workers, or municipal clerks, or doctors, or airline pilots, or anything else? Don’t we need the brightest and best on every step of the corporate ladder? It would seem so since many companies are floundering with supposedly exceptional leadership.

How about letting these would-be corporate wizards test the job market out there and see how desirable their skill sets are? Do you really believe most executives would leave a great job at a great company if their bonus were to disappear (or at least diminish)? I don’t, but it’s high stakes poker and the suits are not only dealing, but they can see everybody else’s hand. The shareholders fold and the rest is financial history. The Board of Directors? Nah, they’re in on the scheme and hang on to their perks only so long as they enable the largess flowing to the management teams.

How about embracing the idea that money, while important, is not the be-all and end-all in the boardroom or the trenches?Once we realize that the smell of money is not all that intoxicating, we can start to reshape corporate philosophy through specific shareholder resolutions and, in the meantime, refusing to blink when threatened with the departure of some omnipotent, omniscient CEO.