Up the organization
by Townsend, Robert, Robert Townsend, R. Townsend · first published 1970
58% recommend42% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, opinionated management book by a former CEO of Avis. It offers practical advice on running a company and keeping people empowered, and it is considered a classic for anyone leading teams.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Although it was first published more than thirty-five years ago, Up the Organization continues to top the lists of best business books by groups as diverse as the American Management Association, Strategy + Business (Booz Allen Hamilton), and The Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management. 1-800-CEO-READ ranks Townsend's bestseller first among eighty books that "every manager must read." This commemorative edition offers a new generation the benefit of Robert Townsend's timeless wisdom as well as reflections on his work and life by those who knew and worked with him. This groundbrea
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> doesn't consider himself too high to do the grunt work too go read 'Up the Organization' by Robert Towsend (written many years ago when he was the CEO of Avis Rent-a-car). Everyone at Avis (janitor, receptionist, CEO, all the way down the line) was required to work 1 or 2 days a year at…
on “Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will. ” ↗• The Prize • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich • The Lean Startup • Poke the Box • The Elements of Computing Systems • The Death of Common Sense • Up the Organization • The Personal MBA • The Wisdom of No-Escape • The Adapted Mind • Brain Rules • Getting Things Done • On Writing • Steal Like An Artist • George Orwell: A Collection of Essays And these are technically…
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗Up the Organization - http://www.amazon.com/Up-Organization-Corporation-Stifling-S... And outstanding book about running a business.
on “Ask HN: I want to start a web company what books should I read?” ↗Up the organization https://www.amazon.co.uk/Up-Organization-Corporation-Stiflin... The complete Yes Minister https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yes-Minister-Prime-Complete-Collect... The undercover economist and it's follow up https://www.amazon.co.uk/Undercover-Economist-Tim-Harford/dp...…
on “Ask HN: Non-tech books that have helped you grow professionally?” ↗If we're on books, I'll always suggest "Up the Organization" by Townsend. It's a classic for a reason. https://www.amazon.com/Up-Organization-Corporation-Stifling-...
on “Things I've learned transitioning from engineer to engineering manager” ↗I just finished reading Robert Townsend's book "Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004IK9U1S He falls into the Theory Y camp, which I know as Servant Leadership. It's considered…
on “Theory X and Theory Y management” ↗Up the Organization, by Robert Townsend, for example.
on “Nasty Gal is expected to file for bankruptcy” ↗Good article, and kudos to him for making it work over the long run. However it does seem odd that in his search for reading he did not stumble across Up The Organization by Robert Townsend, who wrote in 1970 that "people want to work". He also abolished the HR department. Good thoughts, however, for a startup.
on “How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead” ↗> For example, if you're a small startup, target executives at Google so they can make you into Google. That is a warning in Robert Townsend's book 'Up the Organization'. He mentioned small corporations didn't become large corporations by acting like them. Beware of hiring enterprise level managers. Sometimes I think this is even true for larger companies, See Atari…
on “Updating classic workplace sabotage techniques” ↗…transactions are if anything even more unbalanced. Low transactions high revenue per transaction usually means scale is unimportant and you shouldn't be paying for it. And a quote from Robert C. Townsend's Up the Organization. Big companies didn't become big by acting like big companies. Trying to emulate GM is a path to failure. When the book was written people thought of GM the same way people think of google and facebook.…
on “The memory safety problem isn't bad coders” ↗Back before the neoliberal revolution, the US used to throw people in jail for price fixing. Example: Robert C. Townsend in his book Up the Organization 1970 warned, if your customers are all on the east side of town and your competitors customers are all on the west side, you're both going to jail. Now no one goes to jail unless they steal from other…
on “Patients Paid Billions More Because of Alleged Price-Fixing by Drugmakers” ↗Peopleware happens to be on my shelves, so I quote "The more egocentric the manager, the more intense the fondness for the company move. Listen to Robert Townsend in Up the Organization: [etc] What this is, to use a technical term, is the merest crap."
on “How Companies Can Lose Workers Without Imposing Layoffs (Low Reviews,Relocation)” ↗Let me quote the quote from Robert Townsend "Up the organization", quoted in turn by DeMarco and Lister in their "Peopleware" (needless to say they quote it to say its pure crap): "If you've inherited (or built) an office that needs a real house cleaning, the only…
on “Senior employees, ordered back to the office, are jumping ship” ↗Up the Organization by Robert Townsend had this gem, not the exact quote but: big companies didn't get big by acting like big companies.
on “Startup Anti-Patterns” ↗…particular he is the CEO under whom the slogan "We try harder" was begun. A slogan that, incidentally, was produced by his inspiring the ad people to try harder themselves! He tells the story in his book Up The Organization! He didn't have a big ad budget. So he asked how he could best motivate the ad people to work on his account. A friend advised him that what they really most wanted was creative freedom. So he told…
on “Money, the Unit of Caring (2009)” ↗