Book Audits

By Alexander L. Taylor III

HIGH-TECH TIPS

Silicon Valley has become famous for a laid-back corporate-management style that includes hot-tub conferences. Now along comes Andrew Grove, president of Intel, a leading semiconductor maker, with the valley's first primer on business: High Output Management (Random House; 235 pages; $16.95).

An executive's most important task is to spur subordinates to peak performance. Grove emphasizes reducing what he calls an employee's CUA factor, for complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity, to improve teamwork and increase productivity. When the CUA factor is unavoidably high, as when an outside executive is hired to run a troubled division, Grove says, the best advice is to cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Money is a critical motivating tool, but it becomes harder to use as employees move up the corporate ladder. Grove proposes a simple test. If an employee considers the absolute amount of a raise important, he is probably motivated by financial needs and will eventually be satisfied. If he is more concerned with the amount of the raise relative to what other workers are getting, he probably views money as a measuring stick of success; he will always be motivated by more money, but can never be satisfied.

HIGH-FLYER'S FALL

The saga of John Z. DeLorean is still unfolding, but the books are already starting to appear. Can the movie be far behind? Dream Maker (G.P. Putnam; 455 pages; $16.95) by Ivan Fallen and James Srodes was first in the stores. Due out next month is a more authoritative account by Detroit Journalist Hillel Levin, Grand Delusions (Viking; 336 pages; $15.95). Levin reveals that while DeLorean's sports-car company was heading toward insolvency, he charged the firm $78,100 for expenses in moving from Detroit to New York City, gave executives credit cards for Tiffany and "21" Club and acquired several expensive sports cars that he lent to relatives.

Levin does not add substantially to the public record about DeLorean's arrest for cocaine dealing, but the author makes a strong case for DeLorean's systematic looting of his infant firm. Levin charges that he used a shell corporation in Geneva called GPD Services to siphon off $17.65 million. No trace of the money has turned up, but the suspicion is that DeLorean walked away with at least some of it.

This investigative biography also takes a little of the shine off DeLorean's career at General Motors. Despite his genuine flair for engineering, says the author, DeLorean appropriated other people's achievements for his own. No one who knows will say whether DeLorean quit or was fired in 1973. He had clearly infuriated the GM brass with his high-profile Hollywood lifestyle and outside business interests. But when DeLorean left, he did not do badly. Levin reports that his parting golden handshake with GM included a valuable Cadillac franchise and a year's extension of his $200,000 salary.

EXECUTIVE FEATHERBEDS

A top salary may be fine, but do not forget the perks. That is the message from Consultant James Baehler in Book of Perks (St. Martin's Press; 229 pages; $13.95). The best time to negotiate for more benefits, says Baehler, is just before taking a job because the hiring company values a new executive's services more than his old firm did. The two rules for piling up perquisites: if you do not ask, you do not get, and if you do not know what to ask for, you do not get anything.

To stiffen the spines of the timid, Baehler counsels that perks are "privileges and comforts to which you are properly entitled. There is no way your company can properly compensate you for the hours you work, the stress you must deal with, and the time you spend away from your family."

Baehler examines all the obvious corporate benefits, such as health care and extra vacation time. But he also looks at the more obscure ones. Some favorites: reimbursement for entertaining at home, consultation with company lawyers and "phantom" stock options, which have no expiration date. Baehler scoured proxy statements to identify which industries provide lavish benefits (advertising, investment banking, movies) and which are tightfisted (insurance, farm equipment, food processing). Despite all the talk about club memberships, three-window offices and company cars, Baehler reminds readers, the greatest perk is still money.

--By Alexander L. Taylor III This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.