When it comes to management, the answer is an unequivocal no.

Soccernomics, the beautiful book written by Financial Times Columnist Simon Kuper and University of Michigan Professor Stefan Szymanski, makes the convincing case that "it turns out that coaches and managers simply don't make that much difference."

After studying years of soccer matches, the authors conclude that "the vast bulk of managers appear to have almost no impact on their teams' performance and do not last very long in the job. They seem to add so little value that it is tempting to think they could be replaced by their secretaries, the chairman, or stuffed teddy bears, without changing the club's league position. The importance of managers is vastly overestimated."

How can this be?

As a culture, we laud coaches and CEOs for their superior management skills. Give them deity-worth reverence. Put them on magazines' covers, see them repeatedly interviewed on television, and even some nations elect them to top government jobs.

The Great Man Theory of History happening in real-time.

But what really matters are the players and the employees.

The market makes this clear.

Johan Cruyff, the famous Dutch international soccer player who went on coach FC Barcelona to four straight La Liga titles and a Champions League title, said simply, "If your players are better than your opponent, 90 percent of the time you will win."

Those who can repeatedly perform a specific task with few flaws and consistent enthusiasm are treasured and well-compensated by the market. Often there is a shortage of the best talent, and there is massive competition to secure their services.

You see, soccer teams have perfect market information on thousands of players. It is clear who on the pitch can play and who can't.

Either you can play soccer, or you can't play soccer.

Either you can perform the task at hand, or you can't.

Soccer players more or less get the job they deserve.

However, when it comes to coaching, this is not the case. The market for managers does not work well. Many of the best managers rarely get proper attention, while numerous managers who add no real positive value continue to get promoted to better-paying jobs.

You see this off the pitch as well.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from MyLogIQ LLC and Institutional Shareholder Services, among S&P 500 CEOs who got raises, the 10% who received the most significant pay increases scored—as a group—in the middle of the pack in terms of total shareholder return.

Similarly, the data showed that 10% of companies posting the best total returns to shareholders paid their CEO in the middle of the pack.

Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Herman Aguinis, a professor of management at George Washington University School of Business, reinforces this point, "Stars are often underpaid, while average performers are often overpaid."

The disparity between CEO compensation and performance appears to persist over more extended periods as well. Professor Aguinis analyzed the earnings of more than 4,000 CEOs throughout their tenures against several performance metrics. He found virtually no overlap between the top 1% of CEOs in terms of performance and the top 1% of highest earners. Among the top 10% of performers, only a fifth were compensated in the top 10%.

Today, coaches and CEOs are more sun god and head of public relations and less visionary executives on and off the field.

The forte of best-paid coaches and CEOs is often not winning matches or generating more revenue, something frankly they have little control over, but keeping all the various constituencies united behind them. Hence why as a culture, we frequently prize charisma over competence.

Chris Tomlinson, a business columnist for the Houston Chronicle, penned, "There is also no shortage of CEO candidates and little competition for them. Few companies need CEOs with unique skills, and boards tend to buy charisma rather than skills anyway. The general economy and market forces within an industrial sector are far more accurate predictors of a company's performance, regardless of how much the CEO earns."

All of that being said, I do think thought leadership and vision matter immensely, regardless of how it pays.

Thought leadership is different from management, but that's for a separate post.

-Marc