Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates goals with a leap and a pose — arms extended downwards, chest thrust forward — that enrage the footballer’s critics. Suggest, however, that his self-regard or pay are unmerited and you are likely to be laughed off the terraces — especially after last week’s hat-trick for Real Madrid that won the team a place in the Champions League semi-finals.

C罗(Cristiano Ronaldo)进球后用跳跃和一个姿势——双臂下伸、胸部前挺——来庆祝，这激怒了这位足球运动员的批评者。然而，假如你提出他的自尊或薪酬是不应得的，那么你可能被人嘲笑——尤其是在他最近大显身手、把皇马队(Real Madrid)推入欧冠联赛(Champions League)的半决赛之后。

Chief executives’ assertions of their skills is even more vexing. As last week’s shareholder revolt against Bob Dudley’s 20 per cent pay rise at BP showed, tolerance for their posing is paper-thin. Investors’ impatience may erupt again at Anglo American’s meeting this week and at other FTSE 100 groups later this spring. CEOs may be paid as much as, or more than, Ronaldo, but, with vanishingly few exceptions, they are not in his league.

首席执行官们对自己技能的断言，甚至更令人迷惑。正如上周股东反对英国石油(BP)掌门人戴德立(Bob Dudley)加薪20%所展示的，眼下人们对CEO们摆姿态的容忍程度非常低。在本周的英美资源(Anglo American)会议和这个春季更晚时候的其他富时100指数(FTSE 100)成分股公司会议上，投资者的不满情绪或许会再度爆发。CEO们的薪酬或许等于或高于C罗，但几乎无例外的是，他们在技能上无法与他相提并论。

Excessive pay is the biggest obstacle to restoration of trust in business. This was true in 2010, when Sir Richard Lambert, then head of the CBI business association, warned it was so out of line that CEOs “risked being treated as aliens”. It is even truer now, when they have long since left our galaxy and are heading at nanocraft-speed towards the next.

薪酬过高是企业重新赢得信任的最大障碍。这种情况在2010年是属实的。当时，英国工业联合会(CBI)时任总干事理查德•兰伯特爵士(Sir Richard Lambert)警告称，薪酬过高的程度如此严重，以至于CEO“可能被看作外星人”。如今这种情况甚至更加属实：CEO们早已离开我们的星系，正以“纳米飞船”(nanocraft)的速度飞往下一个星系。

No single solution will bring them back to earth. Here are four that, in combination, just might:

没有什么单一办法能把他们拉回地球。以下四个办法加在一起，或许会有效果：

1) Reduce complexity. Chief executives seem just as baffled by the mechanics of complicated pay deals as outsiders are. Worse, the ambiguity of plans dulls their incentive effect. A recent report by the Institute of Business Ethics made this point using the example of BHP Billiton — the mining company reports two figures for its chief executive’s pay, one based on UK standards, the other on international accounting rules. Remuneration committees, the institute says, “often do not really know the value of what they are trying to hand over, not because they are lazy or don’t care, but because it is impossible to work out”.

1) 降低复杂性。CEO们似乎像外人一样对复杂薪酬安排的机制感到困惑。更糟糕的是，薪酬方案的模棱两可，削弱了其激励效果。商业道德研究所(Institute of Business Ethics)不久前的一份报告以必和必拓(BHP Billiton)为例指出了这一点。这家矿业公司对于CEO的薪酬报告了两个数字，一个是基于英国规定，另一个是基于国际会计准则。该所称，薪酬委员会“往往并不知道他们要提供的薪酬方案的真实价值，这不是因为他们懒惰或者不在乎，而是因为算出一个数字是不可能的”。

2) Make transparency work in favour of restraint. Companies should always benchmark pay and targets against peers. But this can trigger the Lake Wobegon effect, where, as in Garrison Keillor’s fictional town, everyone wants to be paid above average.

2) 让透明度支持克制。公司应当始终将薪酬与基准对比，并参考同行水平。但这可能引发沃比根湖(Lake Wobegon)效应——因为在盖瑞森•凯勒(Garrison Keillor)的虚构小镇里，每个人都希望拿到高于平均值的薪酬。

Publishing pay ratios — as US companies will have to from next January — may help offset the impact, according to a study in the latest Journal of Management Accounting Research. Participants considered CEO pay less fair when told its ratio to employee earnings was many times higher than for the sector. The same perception made them less likely to invest in that company.

最新一期《管理会计研究杂志》(Journal of Management Accounting Research)的一项研究表明，公布薪酬比率——从明年1月起，美国公司将必须这么做——或许有助于抵消这一影响。当被告知，CEO薪酬与员工收入之比高于行业水平许多倍时，受访者倾向于认为CEO薪酬不太公平。这一印象也导致他们更不可能投资相关公司。

3) Link CEO pay more closely to actual performance, good or bad. Alex Edmans of London Business School says directors should think less about levels of pay and more about how sensitive it is to what actually happens to the company. He cites one study that shows investing in companies where chief executives own lots of stock, and shorting those where they do not, earns between 4 and 10 per cent a year.

3) 使CEO薪酬与实际业绩更紧密地挂钩，无论业绩是好是坏。伦敦商学院(London Business School)的亚历克斯•埃德蒙斯(Alex Edmans)表示，董事们应当更少地思考CEO薪酬水平，而要更多思考CEO薪酬对公司实际表现的敏感程度。他援引的一项研究显示，买入那些CEO持有大量公司股票的公司、做空CEO并未大量持股的公司，每年可斩获4%至10%的额外回报。

4) Reinforce the remuneration committee. As chair of the Barclays committee, Dame Alison Carnwath opposed a 2011 bonus for chief executive Bob Diamond. She was overruled and had to defend it at the bank’s annual meeting. Investors are now heaping pressure on Dame Ann Dowling, who heads the committee at BP. Her discomfort at the 59 per cent vote against Mr Dudley’s pay rise was plain. Compensation committees need to stand firm against chief executives and chairs. Where an extreme pay plan is out of tune with what the company achieved, directors need to use their discretion to cancel bonuses not yet paid, or claw back those already issued.

4) 强化薪酬委员会。作为巴克莱(Barclays)薪酬委员会的主席艾莉森•卡恩沃思夫人(Dame Alison Carnwath)反对2011年的CEO鲍勃•戴蒙德(Bob Diamond)奖金方案。她的意见被否决了，而且不得不在该行的年会上为这笔奖金辩护。如今，投资者正在对BP薪酬委员会主席安•道林夫人(Dame Ann Dowling)加大施压力度。她显然对59%股东投票反对给戴德立加薪感到不安。薪酬委员会需要在首席执行官和董事长面前坚持立场。当某一极端的薪酬方案与公司业绩相悖时，董事们需要利用他们的自由裁量权撤销尚未支付的奖金，或者收回已发放奖金。

The BP revolt overshadowed the story earlier this month of Richard Pennycook, who has led Co-operative Group’s turnround and insisted on taking a 60 per cent cut in his base pay. It “reflects the type of organisation we are”, Allan Leighton, the mutual’s chairman, said. More companies should think what sort of values are reflected in their pay policies — and what impact those policies have on their fragile public licence to operate.

英国石油CEO加薪方案遭反对，令本月早些时候理查德•彭尼库克(Richard Pennycook)的故事失色不少。彭尼库克领导英国合作集团(The Co-operative Group)扭亏为盈，却坚持要求公司削减自己基本工资60%。这家互助机构的董事长阿兰•雷顿(Allan Leighton)表示，这“反映出我们是一家什么样的机构”。大多数公司应当思考一下，它们的薪酬政策反映了何种价值观——这些政策对公司赖以经营的脆弱公共执照产生了何种影响。

One last point. Do not try these remedies out on Ronaldo, unless you want to lose him to a rival. The implicit threat that a sought-after executive may leave often cows boards into agreeing extravagant pay deals. It should not. Directors overstate such risks by roughly the same amount that they overrate the talents of limelight-hogging chief executives.

最后一点。不要在C罗身上尝试这些措施，除非你想把他推到对手球队去。抢手的高管或许会离开，这种隐含的威胁经常吓得董事会同意高得离谱的薪酬安排。不应该是这样。董事们高估了喜欢出风头的CEO的才能，也以差不多相同的程度高估了CEO跳槽的风险。