Who Wants to Manage a Millionaire?

No one can say for certain how many millionaires have been created by Wall Street's long boom. But this new breed of employee certainly creates a whole new set of challenges for managers today. Working millionaires make motivation and retention--two hard games to play in the first place--harder than ever. And they push already steep compensation levels upward. What, then, can be done to manage millionaires in a way that makes them worth the effort, not to mention the cost? To answer this question, Suzy Wetlaufer, senior executive editor of HBR, interviewed more than two dozen CEOs, HR executives, and headhunters from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, as well as a half-dozen working millionaires themselves. Their thoughts--and the managerial imperatives they imply--have culminated in the first HBR at Large, a new department designed to explore multifaceted business ideas confronting people creating, leading, and transforming business today. Wetlaufer discovered, somewhat unexpectedly, that many executives see an upside to the rise of the working millionaire. Millionaires force companies to be far more creative--indeed, entrepreneurial--about their products and services. They push companies to keep beating their targets in the marketplace. And they compel their bosses to build a productive, healthy culture. Admittedly, some millionaires can only be kept happy with corporate jets, original art lining big offices, and world-class executive lunchroom cuisine. Indeed, millionaires are driving managerial practices that, in another time, might have been dismissed but that today are merely admission to the game. But the irony is that such practices should perhaps have been there for everyone all along.

• Employee incentives
• Economics
• Self-motivation