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MANAGEMENT LIBRARY
Up the Organization
by Robert Townsend

Like any good satire, Up the Organization is not only irreverent and wickedly humorous, it is based on shrewd insight and sound common sense. Its questioning of the ghastly stifling orthodoxies of corporate thinking, corporate behavior, and corporate society is, many commentators note regretfully, as relevant now as it was when the book was first published over 30 years ago.

Getting Started
Townsends first concern is for the people who are trapped in rigid organizational structures and unable to realize anything like their full potential. He has no time for the adornments of executive office or indeed anything that separates a management elite off from the experiences of ordinary workers. Turning his attention to more general issues, he suggests that all major organizations are operating on the wrong assumptions.

Contribution
According to Townsend, in the average company, the boys in the mailroom, the president, the vicepresidents, and the girls in the steno pool have three things in common: they are docile, they are bored, and they are dull. He claims that they are trapped in the pigeonholes of organization charts and that they have been made slaves to the rules of private and public hierarchies that run mindlessly on and on because nobody can change them. The Problems of Business Schools. Townsends advice to companies is not to hire Harvard Business School graduates. He believes that this so-called elite is lacking in some pretty fundamental requirements for success: humility; respect for people on the firing line; deep understanding of the nature of the business and the kind of people who can enjoy themselves making it prosper; respect from way down the line; a demonstrated record of guts, industry, loyalty, judgment, fairness, and honesty under pressure. The End of Executive Office Perks. All the special perquisites of executive office are anathema to Townsend. His list of no-nos includes:
The Organizational Trap.

reserved parking spaces; special-quality stationery for the boss and his elite ; muzak;

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BUSINESS: The Ultimate Resource April 2006 Upgrade 43

bells and buzzers; company shrinks; outside directorships and trusteeships for the chief executive; the company plane.

The Wrong Kind of Leaders. According to Townsend, those with power, or who think they have power, are dangerous beings. He claims that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the country except that the leaders of all our major organizations are operating on the wrong assumptions. Townsend believes that the country is in this mess because for the last two hundred years it has been using the Catholic Church and Caesars legions as the patterns for creating organizations. He argues that until forty or fifty years ago it made sense. The average churchgoer, soldier, and factory worker was uneducated and dependent on orders from above. And authority carried considerable weight because disobedience brought the death penalty or its equivalent.

Context
Townsends genius lies in debunking the modern organization for its excess, stupidity and absurdity. He collected his material in the course of his successful career as a director of American Express and president of Avis Rent-a-Car, then transformed himself into a witty commentator on the excesses of corporate life. His bestseller Up the Organization is subtitled How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits. Robert Heller called the book the first pop bestseller on business management. It is in the tradition of humorous bestsellers debunking managerial mythology and the high-minded seriousness of the theorists. In the 1950s there was Parkinsons Law, at the end of the 1960s came Townsend, more recently the Dilbert series has followed in their footsteps. Townsend also belongs in the tradition of people-oriented business writing. His humor should not blind one to the underlying seriousness of his purpose. Given that over 30 years have passed since its publication, the book still retains its freshness and originality, and its insights into the blind deficiencies of too many organizations remain sadly apt.

For More Information

Townsend, Robert. Up the Organization. New York: Fawcett Books, 1984.

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