SURVIVAL IN THE EXECUTIVE JUNGLE

Although Mr. Burger's executive jungle is filled with analogies to lions and arnivores, it seems populated mainly by monkeys. Burger has drawn a thorough picture of the paranoiac's paradise where a knife constantly descends toward your shoulder-lades only to disappear like Macbeth's dagger when you turn to face it. An executive's job is, from his high perch on the jungle bars, ""not to operate the machine, or to type the letters, or to make the sales, but to see that others do."" How to handle your first staff meeting; how to apportion your day; organizing the work of your staff and creating team spirit; settling down for the long pull as a junior executive; adjusting to your staff's resentment of your power; eliminating unimportant information and problems; making decisions; hiring; the role of company psychologists; status and recognition, rather than money; strategy toward union or labor harmony; how to fire humanly; how to get secretarial efficiency; winning promotion; and job hunting are all discussed. Inevitably, though, the non-executive reader will suspect that Burger's book is for souls as nicked as a lead machete and that its spirit is based on a presumption as factitious as that which prompts the writing of gentlemen's so-called guides to the art of seduction.