"The image of a man who owns mansions in Seattle, DC, New York, and LA (amongst others) pontificating to his S-Team that paying employees more makes them /less/

"The image of a man who owns mansions in Seattle, DC, New York, and LA (amongst others) pontificating to his S-Team that paying employees more makes them /less/ motivated is one that sticks with me." That seems to be widely spread modern management thinking. Executives always have a reason why they should be paid a lot no matter if the stock goes up or down, the company does illegal things, profits go up or down. They always need to be incentivized financially. And the same pople will tell you that giving more money to the lower ranks will make them lazy. I remember a discussion with my director where he explained to me that he doesn't want to hire people who work for the money while at the same time in a lot of meetings he talks about cost and profit.