Have you seen any of Daniel Pink's work on what motivates people in business? It might inspire you to focus on other incentives than just pay salary increases.
That's great. Really. Then you get invited to the company holiday party at the CEO's house. Meet his six children who are in college and traveling the world. Then you realize you and hundreds of others paid for that by living in a rental townhouse. True story.
There's no amount of motivation for me that will make up for a raw deal in pay.
Capital distribution in the US is a Paretian/long tail distribution. It is statistically very unlikely for anyone, regardless of their actions, to get to the same place in life as that CEO if they are from anywhere in the bottom 90%.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1077681/thumbs/o-INCOME-DISTRIBUTI...
I agree that nearly everybody is unlikely to reach the same place in life as that CEO. If that were not the case, truly we would be living in a utopia.
Unless the motivation of salary (read: financial independence) is taken off the table, it will always be a significant factor in employee satisfaction, in spite of other factors. The gap between staying and leaving is just far too large to ignore it.
I know someone who currently works somewhere they intensely dislike being but they pay well over the local market and while he would take somewhat of a pay cut to be somewhere else, the gap is larger than that. Perhaps when he's more financially independent this will change but for now he's still earning that independence, and working somewhere that pays well means achieving that far sooner.
Besides, I'd hazard a guess is that the issue of being paid "enough" is well past the point of being an issue for any of these top level managers. They are all probably almost absurdly well compensated. This doesn't disprove the assertion that for the vast majority of positions and salary ranges, differences in salary, as the article discusses are significant to the extreme. is a point below which it does make a difference.
In the end there is little real benefit to these managers to be gained from walking away from one of the best and most well known people in finance for money you don't need.
I will reply tomorrow if I can remember till then you can read what Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathway's VP) has to say on this
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/38_Munger_0.... ( Page 3)
and check out Alice Schroeder's comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnTm2F6kiRQ&feature=youtu.be...