Originally Posted by
bcaviator
Often times there are strategic reasons for why a company facing big changes needs to retain certain leaders.
Rewarding failure.
The reward should be being able to continue to act an executive/CEO when the company emerges. If that's not enough, it's symptomatic of a much larger problem that won't be solved by rewarding the execs, it means there are fundamental problems with how they do business, the market, etc.