Vocation and incentives

I claim here that chief executives don't need multi-million pound pay packages as incentives.
But am I right? Could it be that bosses do need such incentives, because they lack the intrinsic motivations that drive other professionals?
Put it this way. Doctors  cure people not because they are altruistic but because that's their vocation, the definition of being a doctor; this distinction is clear in House as well as here.
Of course, it's not just doctors of whom this is true. It's not (mainly) a love of children that makes teachers teach. And I don't blog because I love you guys so much that I'm prepared to give you my wisdom for nothing.
It's vocation that motivates (some) folk - not altruism.
But in some jobs, this vocation is missing. So money must provide the motivation instead. One reason why some City lawyers charge £1000 an hour is that the work is so tedious and pointless that the vocational drive that leads lawyers (sometimes the same ones) to do pro bono work is absent.
So, here's my question. Could it be that bosses need money as an incentive because management is not like most other professions - doctors, engineers, economists, whatever - in that it's not the kind of practice with traditions and internal standards of excellence that generate a sense of vocation or internal motivation? 

Comments

[dearieme]

The very fact that they like to pretend that management IS a profession implies that you may be on to something, oh Times man.

[Mark Wadsworth]

That is a very good question, and the answer is probably "yes".

[Meh]

There is evidence from other countries (Germany, Japan) that in some places management feels a greater sense of vocation. I think some managers in the US and the UK used to feel a sense of vocation too, if we think back to the successful days of Marconi or the era when certain large US corporations (IBM, the Generals) were at their peak...

[Matt Munro]

If it ever existed, vocational management started to crumble with the introduction of "transferable skills" theory in the late 80s, and has been eroded further by "equality and diverity", the number of business graduates and the rise of the managment consultant. Globalisation has also eroded the sense that managers had of creating wealth for the good of "UK plc".

[dreamingspire]

Its different in different countries, but the globalisation referred to above is I believe tending to reduce those differences in the capital-intensive economies. In the UK, by comparison with for example Germany, we have seen a significant decline in managerial competence in the public sector, which is demoralising for the manager of a business. Couple that with the incessant drive, in quoted companies at least, to deliver shareholder value (often on short timelines) and one can see why senior managers want to take money sooner rather than later. But now is the time to discuss this from top to bottom in both business and public sector. And management a profession? Having managed small companies, I know that its mostly not a profession - except for a few excellent people.

[Planeshift]

". Could it be that bosses need money as an incentive because management is not like most other professions"

Who knows? Maybe if doctors, teachers etc were in charge of setting their own wages we'd be able to find out.

[arthur]

The probable reason why German and Japanese managers have a greater sense of vocation is because management isn't a "soft" skill there. Most of their managers come from engineering and technical backgrounds, and they can affect the actual production process in tangible ways. British and American management tends to be drawn from business or humanities majors.

[William McIlhagga]

If lawyers need an incentive to work, maybe we should stop paying them?

[dearieme]

Time for an old lawyer joke? The bill includes "Seeing you on the other side of the street, considering waving and deciding not to: 1 guinea."

[john b]

"In the UK, by comparison with for example Germany, we have seen a significant decline in managerial competence in the public sector, which is demoralising for the manager of a business."

Got any evidence for that, or just bullsh*t propaganda?

[Tim Worstall]

But management isn't a profession anyway. That's why it doesn't have the same vocational incentives as the professions.

It's a trade, just like journalism.

[dsquared]

[The probable reason why German and Japanese managers have a greater sense of vocation is because management isn't a "soft" skill there. Most of their managers come from engineering and technical backgrounds, and they can affect the actual production process in tangible ways. British and American management tends to be drawn from business or humanities majors.]

this presumably accounts for the success of the German and Japanese corporate sectors, which dominate their stagnant and poorly-managed British and American rivals.

[pommygranate]

Don't CEOs earn mega-millions because someone is willing to pay them?

[dearieme]

Usually themselves, pommy?

[Pseudonymous]

A doctor can point to the lives he saved, and engineer to the bridges (or whatever) he has built.

There are some managers who can point to the firms they have built, but not many.

Perhaps managers get fewer non-monetary rewards?

[potentilla]

You are all making the mistake of thinking that "managers" is a meaningful uniform category.

Some managers come from some strongly technical/specialist background (accounting, law, engineering, various science, IT, more abstruse areas like City back-office operations). To do their jobs, as well as general management skill, it is necessary to have a deep and detailed technical understanding of one or more areas. They have a more "vocational" motivation, and are usuallu not paid so much, and usually stay longer with one employer.

Some managers consciously avoid having a detailed knowledge of anything. The are often sales and marketing people, but not necessarily (and some sales and marketing people are in the first camp). Or PR. Or investor relations. They frequently have MBAs. They frequently employ management consultants. They tend to move around. They often want to be paid a lot as a mark of status really, rather than for the dosh per se. They ARE paid a lot because they are great self-publicists and recruitment is a largely random art.

Some managers are entrepreneurs. They are more likely to pay themselves a lot than to be paid a lot, but sometimes they are paid a lot to stop them going off and setting up a competitor. They would go on doing what they do whatever they were paid; it's compulsive.

CEOs can be any of these three sorts; you hope you have a 3, or a 1 is sometimes good, but unfortunately you often turn out to have a 2.

Some "managers" don't manage anything at all, but have been given the title to make them feel important, often in lieu of money. They aren't paid a lot. They are often in the public sector. Their existence confuses the issue because they are labelled managers.

I could probably expand this into an essay, but I don't suppose anyone is still reading this thread. I wonder if I'm the only person commenting who has actually been a manager?

[Mr. Econotarian]

This paper is very interesting...

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=901826

"...the six-fold increase of CEO pay between 1980 and 2003 can be fully attributed to the six-fold increase in market capitalization of large US companies..."