- Getty Images
- Some senators and corporate CEOs called for hiking the minimum wage earlier this year, but studies have found that the rich and powerful are typically less able to sympathize with others.
An important new business principle is making itself felt: the more you pay your CEO, the more incompetent a job he’ll do. I suppose powerful forces would like to stamp out this notion before it takes hold. But it’s a fine, compassionate idea.
“The human brain can be exquisitely attuned to other people,” they went on. But their own research had shown them that the more powerful a person feels, the less attuned his or her brain will be. “The powerful are, by default and at a neurological level, simply not motivated to care.”
MacBride went on, “McInnis probably gleaned his insight from observation and self awareness, but new research into the way our brains work supports his idea.” She cited research by behaviorist Jeffrey Pfeffer of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who with two colleagues wrote the paper “When Does Money Make Money More Important?” The intriguing answer: when you think you’ve earned it on your merits, in which case continuing to feel meritorious depends on continuing to earn it, and the more the better.
And concern that CEO’s are being paid too much money is certainly not new. What seems novel is the way this concern is now being framed as a mental health issue. Strictly out of compassion for the CEO, mind you, the board of directors should cut his wages in two. Out of equal compassion, the labor union should insist its members make at least one-fourteenth as much as he does.
