Name: Up the organization
ISBN: 9780787987756

Up the organization

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 groundbreaking book continues to remind us not to get mired in all those sacred organizational routines that stifle people and strangle both profits and profitability. He shows a way to humanize business and a way to have fun while making it all work better than it ever worked before.

What Hacker News says

chiphJul 2023

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 a classic management book, and I can see why. He really was a radical. When you read it (and you should), remember that it's a product of it's time and allow for the language.

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elliusSep 2017

• 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 not books, but Glenn Greenwald's "Speech to the Massachusetts ACLU" and the Christopher Hitchens speech criticizing the proposed Canadian hate speech law.

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SomeStupidPointSep 2017

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-...

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projektfuNov 2016

Up the Organization, by Robert Townsend, for example.

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lifeisstillgoodSep 2016

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...

I would struggle to encapsulate it all except "people and organizations can be vicious and complex but we all innately want them to be simple, fair and if we can find someone believable we can turn around any hideous situation"

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cosmicrayFeb 2011

> 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 the counter, renting cars. Helped everyone what business they were in, and why they had a job.

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