Why is it, that corporate CEO's who (mis)manage the corporation for which they are ultimately responsible into bankruptcy or government bailout, always get a multi-million dollar departure gift? This is especially true when the product being managed is MONEY!
Let me see if I can figure this process out ...
1. I have been appointed as the CEO of XYZ Financial Management Group. The "job" pays me $22M simoleans per year.
2. In return for that outrageous sum of money, I am responsible for insuring that the corporate assets are invested in such a fashion that the corporation receives a statistically reasonable return on said investments.
3. I achieve the above by managing the human resources immediately below me in the Corporate Senior Management hierarchy - the Chief Financial Officer; the Chief Operating Officer; the Chief Administrative Officer, etc. - and I am responsible directly to the Chairman of the Board of Directors (or I may, in fact, BE him ... in which case I am responsible to the stockholders).
4. I play golf Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, drop by the office about 11:30am, then have a "business lunch" with my corporate cronies at "The Club" from around 1:00pm until ... oh, 2:30-ish. After such a sumptuous meal, a good massage is always in order, and I get back to the office around 4pm and waste the next 15 minutes waiting for my chauffeur to arrive so he can drive me home.
5. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the only change to my routine is that I play racquet ball in the mornings.
As you can plainly see, my job is one of responsibility, as opposed to effort. I get paid for accepting responsibility for those beneath me, who have a more realistic level of responsibility. Their jobs require that their respective divisions actually accomplish something! Using a stagecoach analogy; they are the horses that pull the coach ... I am the coachman who chooses the direction in which they travel. I do proportionately little, but then, I don't work for hay. However, if the stagecoach doesn't reach the appropriate destination, can I blame the horses?
How many of us have held jobs where we were rewarded for our failures? Let's have a show of hands ... just one hand! (Okay Barack, you can put your hand down now.) These "Golden Parachutes" are ridiculous. (Basically, a A golden parachute is a contractual agreement between a company and an employee (usually an upper executive) specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. Sometimes, certain conditions, typically a change in company ownership, must be met, but often the cause of termination is unspecified. These benefits may include severance pay, cash bonuses, stock options, or other benefits. They are designed to reduce negative incentives should the company change hands, not to protect some corporate Phoenix who burns his company nest! There should be federal regulations allowing corporations or receivers to negate a Golden Parachute clause when the company fails due to the action/inaction of any, several, or all executive officers. If XYZ Financial Management Group can't file criminal charges against me, and/or my subordinates, they should at least be able to refuse any further compensation. I have destroyed their company through my own mismanagement/non- management of available resources!
But, that's just the way I see things ... am I wrong?
1 comment:
I liked the coach and horse analogy. Good blog!
P.S. You've been tagged - you are it! Get the questions from my blog.
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