No cure for disorder that affects CEOs

Memo to all financial advisers: There is a crisis sweeping corporate America, one that threatens our nation’s economic…

Memo to all financial advisers: There is a crisis sweeping corporate America, one that threatens our nation’s economic competitiveness and, as a result, the financial well-being of your clients.
I am speaking of CEMD — chief executive motivational disorder.
Never heard of it? Of course not.
It is an affliction whispered about only among Park Avenue doctors, taciturn pilots of Gulfstream IVs and trophy wives — provided, of course, their cosmetic surgeries permit lip movement.
The disorder is a form of severe lassitude and psychological immobility that targets only American CEOs.
Quite simply, when CEMD hits — an all-too-common occurrence these days — CEOs are struck dumb and are unable to perform their economically vital jobs.
Sadly, there is no cure. (If we are lucky, our tax dollars will fund the required billions for research.)
But fortunately, until that day comes, there is but one proven way to manage CEMD: enormous compensation.
Cynics and rabble-rousers of all political stripes may scoff at both the disorder and its treatment, but CEMD threatens all of us.
One can easily imagine the CEMD crisis that befell Robert L. Nardelli, the former chairman of The Home Depot Inc.
Picture the normally confident Mr. Nardelli lying immobile on the floor of his office. Company executives and board members stream in and out of the office trying to rouse him and get him to resign, but to no avail.
Luckily, the board of the Atlanta-based company remembers the compensation treatment and agrees to a $210 million severance package and other hefty sweeteners.
A director whispers the news into Mr. Nardelli’s ear, and voila! Like a diabetic coming out of an insulin coma, he jumps to his feet, returns to his normal, combative state and marches right out the door.
Obviously, we will never know the true story of Mr. Nardelli and other CEMD-afflicted CEOs.
But as you can see, if we want orange big-box stores on every highway, we must keep the treatment dollars flowing. To think of the billions and billions paid to CEOs as an excessive waste of shareholder wealth is to look at the crisis from the wrong end of the telescope.
Thank goodness we are wealthy enough to divert corporate funds from other purposes so that we can help CEOs in desperate need.
Consider what might happen if we didn’t.
Without highly compensated CEOs, companies would be forced to rely on the wisdom of other senior managers, and maybe even ordinary employees; the level of curiously priced private-equity takeovers might plummet; wholesale layoffs might be less necessary; short-term share price performance could become less of a fetish; and employees and ordinary shareholders would feel more connected to corporate America.
Do we really want any of that?
Of course not. Let’s fight CEMD with the only tool now at our disposal: more money for CEOs.
I am the CEO of Save Our CEOs, a national organization devoted to fighting CEMD. If you would like to do your part in the war against this heartbreaking disorder, just send your check to me.