

Executive compensation: the more pay leaders get, the meaner they get - mcantelon
http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/06/executive-compensation-the-mor.html

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hugh3
I am skeptical, since the conclusions so closely match what I'm sure a lot of
people would _like_ to believe.

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rauljara
There are many reasons to be skeptical about the claims the article is making.
Correlation vs. causation, and the experiment's relation to executive
compensation both seem obvious angles of attack. However, the fact that the
study supports what some people would like to believe is not a good reason to
doubt any study. Certainly there are some people who would like to believe
executive compensation has no impact on how mean you are. Would you be just as
skeptical of the reverse finding, based on the notion there are people out
there who would like it to be true?

If an experiment's findings are bogus, it is because there is a problem with
the methodology or execution. If you want to attack a study, attack it on that
basis. If you can't point to a problem with the methodology/execution, your
attack is at least as suspicious as that hint of confirmation bias.

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chc
You're confusing different levels of analysis. The comment you're replying to
was speaking on a very broad scale: The result is suspicious. Because of that
suspicion, we might then look more closely and identify all the issues you're
talking about, but we need that first spark of skepticism to get there.

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bretpiatt
This sounds like a twist on the Stanford prison experiment, I'm not really
sure how this ties to real world executive compensation. (See
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment> for reference)

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lionhearted
> "It made me want to look at income disparity, power and moral disengagement.
> Does this income gap help the leaders to feel comfortable setting up
> policies that hurt the people at the bottom?"

An alternative hypothesis: Higher compensation can instill a sense of pressure
that makes a person more on edge, stressed, and curt with people, regardless
if you're an engineer or a manager or something else.

I've got anecdotes both ways, but generally speaking, whenever I've been
working on something with lots of pressure or higher compensation, I've
noticed myself being unintentionally more on edge and a little shorter with
people. The best example I can think of off the top of my head - I spoke at a
few conferences from I think '06 to '08. I always tried to be really nice to
all the staffers and volunteers there, assistants, everyone making it happen.
I remember how when someone who was slightly important was nice to me I always
remembered that and felt good, and made a big effort to do so.

Largest conference I ever spoke at my hands were shaking _bad_ before I went
to speak. Actually, my hands regularly shook before public speaking, I broke a
water glass like this once. But this time it was _bad_. Someone came to chat
with me, and I just said, "N-n-n-not now. Sorry. Later. Maybe later." I tried
to mumble out something about having the shakes but it didn't come across
really well.

Now I'm comfortable admitting I've got the shakes before speaking and I fight
through it by acknowledging it and fighting through it. But how many people
push that inwards? The result comes out, you get shorter with people.

So I think the author came in with a perceived notion - executive compensation
might lead to meanness. Then she picked metrics that would indicate an
atmosphere of intense pressure and labeled these signs of "meanness" - whereas
maybe cause and effect runs the other way? Maybe people under pressure are
more curt and "mean"?

Now, I might not want to work somewhere like that. Or, if that place did
produce the best results and offered me the best mix of compensation,
advancement, travel, and furthering my other goals - well, maybe I would want
to work there for a little while. The more interesting question to me is how
effective these cultures are at accomplishing their goals - I wouldn't mind
spending time in a pressure cooker for a while if it furthered my goals. (But
then, it might not - but it'd be interesting to see some results; I'm going to
go off on a limb and guess Apple has a more intense culture than Yahoo, for
instance, but also much more prestige and opportunity these days)

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epochwolf
So does mean that money makes executives mean or that mean executives pay
themselves more than nice executives?

Correlation is not causation.

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zb
In the study the participants were all assigned the same "compensation", and
randomly assigned to groups where the fictional employee had either high or
low "compensation" inequality. So to the extent that this study supports the
conclusion, it's not because mean executives pay themselves more.

Does anybody read the articles any more, or just the headlines?

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epochwolf
I did read the article. I guess I missed something.

