Tag Archives: executive pay

Giving Executives 40% of Revenue is Insane

Posted on March 21, 2016 by John Hunter

I have previous written on my belief that excessive executive compensation had reached the level of a deadly disease of western management (building on the W. Edwards Deming’s list of 7 deadly diseases). I named excessive executive pay and a broken “intellectual property” system as new deadly diseases in 2007. Here is a graphic from, It’s Twitter’s birthday, and its executives are getting huge stock-based gifts, showing the massive executive give-away at Twitter. Twitter has given executives $2,000,000,000 in just … Continue reading →

Posted in Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged commentary, executive pay, leadership, management, overpaid executives, respect for people

Top 21 Executives at Toyota Getting a Raise to a Combined US$14.9 Million

Posted on May 20, 2015 by John Hunter

The difference between Toyota and so many other companies is obvious in many ways. One of the stark differences is how executives are paid. Toyota’s belief in a strong management system contrasts with the self worship many USA executives practice. How the executives pay themselves illustrates this very well. Even with a proposed 19% pay boost the top 21 executives at Toyota would get a combined US$14.9 million in the proposal for this year. Toyota Plans 19% Boost in Director … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged executive pay, respect for people, Toyota | 2 Comments

Toyota Posts Record Profit: Splits $15 million in Pay and Bonus for top 21 Executives

Posted on June 2, 2014 by John Hunter

After posting record profits of $17.9 billion Toyota proposes to increase the pay and bonus for the top 21 executives to $14.9 million. That is not as you might expect just the increase in the bonus to the CEO. That is the entire pay and bonus for the top 21 executives. That places all 21 together below the top 50 CEO paydays in the USA. Toyota’s net income for the year surged 89.5%. While the profits are partially due to … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Deming, Investing, Management, Popular, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged executive pay, executives, leadership, Management, overpaid executives, Popular, respect for people, Toyota | 3 Comments

More Evidence of the Damage Done by Kleptocrat CEO Pay

Posted on April 21, 2014 by John Hunter

I have been writing about the problems of overpaid executives that has lately become so bad that “overpaid executives” doesn’t capture the nature of the problem. Today I see many CEO’s are acting as kleptocrats do – taking food out of others mouths to build their castles. The damage done to everyone else involved is of no concern. Both groups love bankers that flood them with cash for new and larger castles at the expense of the futures of their … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged business, executive pay, hiring, Investing, management research, overpaid executives, stakeholders, stockholders | 2 Comments

Kleptocrat CEOs and Their Apologists

Posted on March 10, 2014 by John Hunter

I am disgusted by the lack of ethical and moral fiber of many CEOs of the largest corporations (along with their cronies and apologists) in the USA. This lack comes out in many ways (see all the scandals at the too-big-to-fail banks etc.) but the problem I am upset about now is the increasingly commonplace kleptocrat behavior. CEOs, and their cronies, were well paid decades ago. As their greed about their pay got to be unethical Peter Drucker started to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Investing, Psychology | Tagged business, commentary, ethics, executive pay, Investing, overpaid executives, respect for people | 2 Comments

New Deadly Diseases

Posted on August 29, 2012 by John Hunter

Management and the economy keep evolving. Many good things happen. In the last decade the best things are probably the increased deep adoption of lean thinking in many organizations and the adoption of lean and Deming methods in software development (agile software development, kanban and lean startup [which I do realize isn’t limited to software development]). Sadly all the deadly diseases Dr. Deming described remain. And, as I said in 2007, I think 2 new diseases have become so widespread … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Economics, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged Creativity, curiouscat, Deming, executive pay, Innovation, John Hunter, lean management, lean manufacturing, overpaid executives, Systems thinking | 12 Comments

Massively Unjust Executive Compensation Damages Companies and Investments

Posted on March 13, 2012 by John Hunter

For years I have believed the massively unjust executive compensation packages have been doing great harm to American businesses. As an investor, one of the big risks that has to be evaluated is how much of the business profits executives will divert to their personal bank accounts. And investors also have to worry about the risks executives take to reach huge incentives which then greatly damage your investment. In 2007, I added two of my own deadly diseases to Dr. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Respect | Tagged bonus, Deming, ethics, executive pay, incentives, Investing, motivation, overpaid executives, respect for people | 4 Comments

Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style

Posted on December 8, 2011 by John Hunter

The excesses to which CEO’s and their board buddies go to in taking from corporate treasuries what they don’t deserve continues to amaze me. The level to which the bad behavior is accepted is apparent in the lack of progress at dealing with those that are taking what they have no moral right to. As shouldn’t have to be explained (but maybe does) leadership isn’t about avoiding being indicted. The levels to which these people take from the organization they … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Investing, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged Deming, ethics, executive pay, leadership, management, overpaid executives | 5 Comments

The CEO is Only One Person

Posted on December 14, 2009 by John Hunter

The CEO is important but they are only one person. Rarely do they determine the success of a company. The instances where they seem to are so rare as to almost seem like just random luck. I think they can make a difference, but that they make a significant difference rarely. Steve Jobs seems to have made a huge difference to Apple, for example (and Jeffery Bezos at Amazon – note both of these examples are also founders of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Systems thinking | Tagged executive pay, Investing, leadership, management, Systems thinking | 6 Comments

No More Executive Bonuses!

Posted on November 30, 2009 by John Hunter

Henry Mintzberg, wrote an excellent article for the Wall Street Journal today, No More Executive Bonuses! Don’t pay any bonuses. Nothing. This may sound extreme. But when you look at the way the compensation game is played – and the assumptions that are made by those who want to reform it – you can come to no other conclusion. The system simply can’t be fixed. Executive bonuses – especially in the form of stock and option grants—represent the most prominent … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal | Tagged bonus, commentary, ethics, executive pay, leadership, management, overpaid executives, respect for people | 5 Comments

CEO’s Castles and Company Performance

Posted on August 8, 2009 by John Hunter

Where are the Shareholders’ Mansions? CEOs’ Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance by Crocker H. Liu, Arizona State University and David Yermack, New York University – Stern School of Business We study real estate purchases by major company CEOs, compiling a database of the principal residences of nearly every top executive in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. When a CEO buys real estate, future company performance is inversely related to the CEO’s liquidation of company shares and … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics | Tagged executive pay, leadership, management research, overpaid executives, research | 3 Comments

When Performance-related Pay Backfires

Posted on August 3, 2009 by John Hunter

When Economic Incentives Backfire by Samuel Bowles, Sante Fe Institute Dozens of recent experiments show that rewarding self-interest with Economic incentives can backfire when they undermine what Adam Smith called “the moral sentiments.” Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn, is a great book on this topic. The area of “motivating” employees is one it is often hard for managers to learn. Even managers that have been studying Deming, Ackoff, Ohno… for years still have trouble with the idea that trying … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Data, Deming, Economics, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, quote, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged bonus, demotivate, executive pay, management, management research, motivation, respect for people | 4 Comments

Narcissistic Cadre of Senior Executives

Posted on July 22, 2009 by John Hunter

In yet another voice against the looting mentality of the current crop of executives Chris Bones, dean of Henley Business School writes a A crisis of confidence? This has resulted in the creation of a narcissistic cadre of senior executives who knew no right but their own perception and brooked no criticism or check on their ambition. In their demands for personal rewards we have seen them in their true light. … Secondly, a responsible organisation should set limits above … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged business, commentary, executive pay, overpaid executives

Another Year of CEO’s Taking Hugely Excessive Pay

Posted on April 6, 2009 by John Hunter

I continue to do my part to publicize the abusive CEO pay packages that the current crop of unethical CEO’s, and those sitting on corporate boards have supported (Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay 2008 – 2007 post on CEO pay abuses). It does seem there is more anger now at the looting these corrupt CEOs have engaged in; though far too many people seem to think the corruption is some isolated few CEO’s. The widespread failure of ethical standards by … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Management Articles | Tagged bonus, commentary, economic data, ethics, executive pay, Investing, leadership, overpaid executives | 6 Comments

Looting: Bankruptcy for Profit

Posted on December 19, 2008 by John Hunter

Looting: The Economic Underworld of Bankruptcy for Profit by George Akerlof, University of California, Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Paul Romer, Stanford Graduate School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). George Akerlof was awarded the 2001 Nobel prize for economics. This is the abstract to their 1994 paper: During the 1980s, a number of unusual financial crises occurred. In Chile, for example, the financial sector collapsed, leaving the government with responsibility for extensive foreign debts. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged Economics, ethics, executive pay, overpaid executives | 7 Comments

Japan Airlines CEO on CEO Pay

Posted on December 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Nice webbast of CNN clip on Japan Airlines CEO cutting his pay to less than that of the pilots. He really seems to understand the company does not exist for him to plunder (unlike so many CEOs in the USA). Related: Japan Airlines using Toyota Production System Principles – Under Nishimatsu, Japan Airlines Tries to Rise Above Legacy – Respect for Employees at Southwest Airlines – posts on executive pay – Honda executives not overpaid either

Posted in Management, webcast | Tagged airlines, executive pay, Japan, overpaid executives | 2 Comments