Rewards of greed

Press, 19 August 1978, Page 17

Rewards of greed

Success! By Michael Korda. Hodder and Stoughton. 258 pp. $11.75. (Reviewed by Leone Stewart) This is a book about the rewards of greed, the self-satisfaction of vaunting ambition, the joy of power. Readers with a highly developed sense of morality and social responsibility, beware. With that caution in mind, it must be said quickly that this book can be a lot of laughs. The author is outrageously forthright in advocating all manner of usually forbidden deceptions to reach the magic salary of $lOO,OOO a year — with fringe benefits. Obviously, he is not writing for the scrupulous. Michael Korda maintains it is not necessary to be brutal or unethical to get to the top. He is the relatively young editor-in-chief of the New York publishing firm, Simon and Shuster, so he should know. But his is a textbook of Machiavellian techniques that do not seem to have much to do with the milk of human kindness. Who needs it when you can afford the best brandy? AH the subterfuge and scheming, it seems, will not get you to the top without hard work. Korda’s case studies of fascinating successes — often not very nice people — reveal a frightening capacity for work. But, as the author says, most people do not mind working hard to achieve success

— their problem is they work damned hard and never get anywhere. Korda maintains the ambitious, successful people are having all the fun. All that is needed is a small degree of talent, and the simple ambition to live well, getting better and better. Success is good for the health, he says; huge salaries are the ritual sacrifice of free enterprise. Honourable motives hardly get a mention. This is a shrewd, practical guide to getting on. The advice varies from self analysis, developing a good memory, and making your self heard at meetings, to leaping the rungs in the promotion ladder and writing effective, attention-getting memos. Regarding work as play is Michael Korda’s key rule to the success game. And, of course, one must look like a winner. The author’s dress code is extraordinarily strict. He devotes a chapter to women and success, a subject on which he was delightfully expansive in his first book, the lively “Male Chauvinism! How it Works.” The corporate executive statistics based on sex are only mildly encouraging. The chances of women getting the key to the top executive 100 are, apparently, still not all that great, but having a law degree helps. Then there is the hard-driving film producer, Julia Phillips, who while still in her twenties, collected a cool $U52,500,000 for “The Sting.” Ah well. . .