Best Business Books: Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits

Fooling around with my Kindle, I was pleased to see a Kindle version of what I have found to be one of the more timeless business books on my shelf* - Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits by Robert C. Townsend.

If you have ever wondered how so many organizations (profit and non-profit) seem to have wandered off the rails, this book might be just right for you.

Not at all a lengthy text book, it's a simple book full of good stuff.

Back in the day when the Navy Reserve used to trust me to command units, I had cobbled together some the thoughts from this book onto one sheet which I used to hand out to the crew shortly after assuming command.

Here's a sample:

Decisions: All decisions should be made as low as possible in the organization. The Charge of the Light Brigade was ordered by an officer who wasn't there looking at the territory.

Mistakes: Admit your own mistakes openly, maybe even joyfully. Encourage your associates to do likewise by commiserating with them. Never castigate. Babies learn to walk by falling down. If you beat a baby every time he falls down, he'll never care much for walking.

Reserved parking spaces: If you're so bloody important, you better be the first one in the office. Besides, you'll meet a nice class of people in the employee's parking lot.

There's much more.


*A legacy of a M.A. in Management earned in my youth