美国高管的财政悬崖解决方案损人利己

    虽然转移成本和劫贫济富式地支付CEO奖金的说法似乎有些新奇，但并不新鲜。这早已是很多董事会给CEO付薪的方式之一。

    如今，很多董事会都会根据公司利润给CEO付薪，却不管实现利润的方式优劣如何。有些公司通过创造短暂的利润增加来提高CEO薪酬，这已经成为经常性的操作。裁员、冻结招聘和加薪、大幅缩减养老金计划和健康福利：在决定CEO奖金时，所有增加利润的手段都会得到无差别的对待。

    但董事会必须有所区别。董事会应当给通过打造业务和创造就业来增加价值的CEO支付更高的薪水。对代表短期利益，不产生持续回报，并可能对长期构成危害的行为，不应支付奖金。

    但要做到这一点，董事会可能要做很多人现在都没有着手在做的一些事情：透过利润数字，理解公司行为的长期经济价值以及对股东和经济环境的影响。

    这样的审视将带来巨大的好处。CEO和董事会能在决策前更好地理解决定可能产生的长期影响。

    比如，裁员就不产生持续的价值。它实质上表明，董事会请来的CEO是失败的，没能贯彻董事会批准的策略。

    但董事会成员们不会承认自己的失误，他们会笑着回应，他们确实希望让高管们缩减员工规模，而不是扩招。太多的董事会将员工简单地视为成本。但这种想法充其量是被误导。虽然工资在损益表中列为费用，但在管理有方的企业中员工并不是成本。

    可以断定，聪明的董事会聘请的CEO绝不会在上任后只会雇佣不产生积极经济价值的员工。但跟笔者聊过的董事们都普遍支持这样的口号：“经济没回暖前不要招人”。能持续审视自身行为的公司管理者不多。没有多少人会问：“如果我们的员工太多了，我们（董事会和管理层）哪里做错了？”

    当然，为人们提供工作并不是很多企业的目标。美国政策研究所的研究显示，“参与解决债务运动的63家上市公司的资产负债表上有超过4,800亿美元的现金，足以为1,000万名雇员支付最低工资”。

    While the idea of cost shifting and actually paying CEOs bonuses for wealth transfers from others may seem novel, it isn't new. In fact, the approach is already a part of the way many boards pay CEOs.

    Today, many boards pay CEOs for earnings, regardless of the quality of the actions taken to achieve them. Some firms make it a regular practice to take benefits and jobs away from employees to create a temporary profit lift that raises CEO pay. Layoffs, hiring, wage freezes, machetes to pension plans, and slashes to health benefits: all additions to earnings count alike when it comes time to determine a CEO's bonus.

    But boards need to discriminate. Boards should pay CEOs well for building a business and creating jobs that add value. They should not dole out bonuses for actions that represent a short-term benefit that will not produce continuing returns -- and could be harmful in the long-term.

    To do this, though, boards would have to do something many aren't doing today: understand long-term economic value by looking behind the earnings numbers to the impacts of the company's actions on stakeholders and the economic environment.

    Such a review would have a powerful benefit. CEOs and boards would better understand the long-range effects of possible decisions before making them.

    Layoffs, as an example, don't create sustainable value. At their core, they represent a failure of a board to hire a CEO who can execute on the board-approved strategy.

    Yet not recognizing their own culpability, board members will smile and say they want their executives to reduce headcount rather than hire. Too many board directors see workers simply as a cost. But this thinking is misguided at best. Although wages show up on the income statement as an expense, workers are not a cost at well-managed firms.

    Presumably, a smart board doesn't appoint a CEO who hires workers that add no positive economic value. Indeed, the directors I speak with are generally unanimous in their support of the mantra, "no hires if there is no economic return." But not enough company leaders examine their actions on an ongoing basis. Not enough ask, "If we have too many people, where did we -- the board and management -- go wrong?"

    Certainly, putting people to work just because is not on many company agendas. The IPS study states that the "63 public companies in the Fix the Debt campaign" currently have more than "$480 billion in cash on their balance sheets, enough to pay living wage salaries for 10 million workers."