Up The Organization By Robert Townsend Pdf Free

Overview

Up the organization robert townsend summary The title of the video resonated with me as it’s something I very much agree with. Leadership is, for the most part, a form of power. All too often those that want power are those with the largest egos. Finding those in leadership, or positions of power, who are willing to put their ego aside, get. Townsend comes from a long line––father, grandfathers and great-grandfathers––of soldiers, American and pre-American. Slavic on his mother's, deep-south redneck on the father's side, his parents managed money poorly and told stories well. Up the organization Adjust Share By Robert Townsend, This article is only available as a PDF to subscribers. Download PDF Tags Array More from Robert Townsend Up the organization From the. March 1970 issue Download PDF From the Archive. Timeless stories from our 171-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day.

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.

Below, I’ve got a listing of: Towsend’s section headers (in bold), a quote or two I found interesting, and any comments I might have on the topic. Sometimes I don’t have any comments – I may have just found the quote interesting.

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Don’t hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy-artists to look over his should and suggest improvements.

In the book, Townsend is pushing the point that, if you’re going to get someone to work on something that you need help with, then get out of the way and let them work! Don’t second guess or correct their work, or why did you get them in the first place. Now there’s something to be said for direction setting, clarification or axing something because it just doesn’t fit, but you shouldn’t be deep in the details.

Compromise and King Solomon

Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort….listen to both sides and then…pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work.

When you give in, give in all the way. And when you win, try to win all the way so the responsibility to make it work rests squarely on you.

This is something I think we (people) typically struggle with. Throughout our lives we’re taught that it’s OK to want to win in specific competitive settings (sports, poker, etc.), but that when it comes to the workplace, or society in general, compromise and agreeableness are the goals. I’ve witnessed many managers (myself included) try to split a problem down the middle. A fair portion of the time this does have the predicted outcome Townsend describes: no one is really sold on the direction; no one will own it; and if it fails you’ll most likely get a variety of reasons why, without any solid accountability.

Computers and Their Priests

Make sure your present report system is reasonably clean and effective before you automate.

Never, never automate a manual function without a long enough period of dual operation.

This section was particularly close to home for me. I work in technology, and most of Townsend’s comments give the impression that computers, and those who are expert with them, can quickly make your life worse. I had to remind myself that this book was originally published in 1970. What really stood out to me was Townsend’s understanding and forethought for process automation. The two quotes/rules above are routinely bypassed by companies looking to automate workloads. Far too often I see someone trying to pitch automation as a way to clean up a dirty or poor process – that just won’t work!

For reference, computers were relatively new to business in 1970. In 1971 Intel released it’s first processor – the 4004. It was an 8-bit CPU, ran at 740 kHz, and could perform up to 92,600 operations per second. For those that aren’t techie, an average cell phone today performs billions of operations per second.

Conflict Within the Organization

A good manager doesn’t try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people.

If you’re the boss and your people fight you openly when they think you’re wrong – that’s healthy. If your men fight each other openly in your presence for what they believe in – that’s healthy. But keep all the conflict eyeball to eyeball.

Similar to “Compromise and King Solomon” – over time we learn that conflict is to be avoided. This can lead to a lot of groupthink and compromise with the purpose of comfort and not progress.

Decisions

All decisions should be made as low as possible in the organization….There are two kinds of decisions: those that are expensive to change and those that are not.

In the book, Townsend says that decisions that are not expensive should be made quickly and corrected inexpensively later if wrong. Decisions that are expensive should have plenty of inputs from the right people. Initially I had to rephrase Townsend’s quote above as: All decisions should be made as low as necessary. The intention is the same, but for me it was the difference of forcing a decision down the ranks (possible) and gathering input from those that would ultimately be impacted by the decision (necessary).

Directors, Board Of: The Back Seat Drivers

They keep pulling up the flowers to see how the roots are growing.

The quote above was referring to smaller companies that have directors or investors that are close to the ground floor. In an effort to make sure everything is OK they keep chipping away at the people responsible for the work. In my experience, this applies to all levels of management, senior staff, or even peers that need to let go of something they care about. It’s tough! I still cringe whenever I see a poorly written script. If I could just borrow that script for 5 minutes, I could format it, apply a proper naming convention, add some comments, etc. But that does nothing for the person responsible for that process. At best you’ve saved some time and dropped someones confidence a bit; at worst you’ll be stuck with that work forever and you’ve lost someone that was willing to learn.

Ejaculation, Premature

To get something done involving several departments…keep quiet about it. Get the available facts, marshal your allies, think through the opponent’ defenses, and then go.

This comes across as sound strategic advice, and I think I know what Townsend was intending, but I didn’t agree with it when I first read it. To be fair, there’s a lot of room for interpretation here. I also had to remind myself that Townsend was most likely coming from a perspective where bureaucracy was commonplace, and drowning ideas wasn’t unusual. What I would disagree with is intentionally keeping people in the dark and springing changes on them without an opportunity for legitimate input.

Excellence: Or What The Hell Are You Doing Here?

If you don’t do it excellently, don’t do it at all.

Excuses

One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people’s excuses for failure.

In my opinion that is the only reason for a manager to exist. A bit of an exaggeration, but if there’s something getting in the way of your people, that should be your #1 priority. Remove those obstacles as they come up, give them no excuses and watch them succeed.

Fairness, Justice, and Other Oddities

The world seems to be divided into those who produce the results and those who get the credit.

These people — those who take credit for the work of others — unfortunately do exist, and we all know someone like that. In my experience these individuals don’t last long and eventually hop to the next employer where they can stay hidden for a time. My advice: if you’re caught in a situation where someone is taking credit for your work, update your resume and move on – you’ll be happier and the person taking credit will be forced to explain the deficit.

Firing People

Keeping him is unfair to other people who must make up for his failure and untangle his mess.

It sucks, but it does have to be done occasionally. If someone truly isn’t carrying their weight, and you’ve done everything in your power to help them, then it’s time to let them go. The negative impact to morale and team performance than an under-performer can have is massive. This will usually result in one of two outcomes for your top performers: you’ll lose them, or they’ll stop performing as well. Townsend mentions that the person being fired might do well in another company or industry. For those individuals that are well-intentioned, I do believe it will be what’s best for them as well.

Hubris, the Sin Of

Managers tend to make their biggest mistakes in things they’ve previously done best.

When I first read this sentence I could do nothing but aggressively nod my head – especially working in technology. I cannot count the number of times someone new was brought in, had X experience at Y company, and just knew how to solve all of company Z’s problems. It didn’t matter how many people provided words of caution, or even outright proof that something just wouldn’t fit. Even suggesting minor changes to help the ill-fated plan succeed would receive looks of harsh criticism. There’s a real simple trick to help with this: don’t assume you know more than the people that actually know the work, understand the processes and deal with the people. Take their input and apply it to your previous experiences to come up with a plan that not only has buy-in, but a much higher chance of success.

Job Descriptions – Straight Jackets

Judgement jobs are constantly changing in nature and the good people should be allowed to use their jobs and see how good they are.

I’ve always hated job descriptions that attempt to get into the specifics. I’ve found they can be useful to set the initial stage of what you expect in a role, or to maintain consistency throughout an organization with regards to levels of seniority. Beyond that, if I hear someone use the words “job description” then there’s a good chance the manager, the employee, or both, need to be changed. If the employee is using it as a defense, they’ve either been put into a position where they feel they need to put up blocks, or they’re not a performer. Similarly, if a manager is citing a job description they’re either not challenging their employees in the right way, or they’re stifling growth.

Leadership

“To lead people, walk behind them.” – Lao-Tzu

True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders. In combat, officers eat last.

“As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate…When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!'” – Lao-Tzu

Meetings

Generally speaking, the fewer the better.

A number of people should and will say “Pass”….No stigma for non-attendance….Every six months have a secret ballot — “Do we need a weekly staff meeting?”

I won’t pretend to know what makes the perfect meeting, but over time I’m come to understand what contributes to bad meetings. If I walk out of an ad hoc meeting and there’s no clear sign of progress — no action items, no follow-ups to make, no new information distributed — then it’s a waste of time for me. For recurring meetings, I think the agenda should be dynamic and open to change. As Townsend mentions, meetings should routinely be measured for necessity. I’ve had a few people come back with “but if we cancel this meeting, we’ll have no way to tell people about X” – fair enough. Change the meeting — agenda, format, duration, etc. — to cover only X in that case, and remove all the other fluff. The meeting will probably be shorter, have more value per minute and less likely to carry the reputation of unnecessary.

Message to Chief Executives

“Our big trouble today is getting enough good people.” This s crystal-clear nonsense. Your people aren’t lazy and incompetent. They just look that way. They’re beaten by all the overlapping and interlocking policies, rules, and systems encrusting your company.

I’ve been in startups that simply can’t get people quick enough, or maybe can’t train the people as fast as the business demands, but in a relatively stable environment I’d have to agree 100% with Townsend. If the people you have really aren’t good enough, then do your job and make them great!

Mistakes

Admit your own mistakes openly, maybe even joyfully….If you beat a baby every time he falls down, he’ll never care much for walking.

Beware the boss who walks on water and never makes a mistake. Save yourself a lot of grief and seek employment elsewhere.

This is something that came somewhat natural to me. I’ve always been quick to admit my mistakes, accept that no matter how convinced I am that I might be wrong, and happy to have someone show me where I’ve made an error. Early in my career, I was fortunate to have managers/mentors that were also open to making mistakes. This is one of those pivotal behaviors that can make or break a team. If the manager is open to failure, it can create an environment of trust, innovation and open collaboration. Conversely, if mistakes equal punishment, people will quickly stay in the box, halt all innovation, and escalate everything that requires a judgement call.

Nepotism, the Smell of It

And what the nepotists can’t seem to understand is that it doesn’t matter whether they’re playing family favorites or not….the smell of it will scare off or turn off the very people you need most.

It’s true – either you get it, or you don’t. Nepotists can justify it however they want, and they may very well be fair and just with their family in the workplace. That’s not what matters. What matters is the perception from the other side of the table – the non-family employees. With nepotism everyone is in a bad spot. The family member, even if they’ve earned praise or a promotion, will always have a shroud of favoritism following them around. Any non-family employees will feel their running uphill when it comes to any form of career progression. To the nepotists: it’s not about you or your family, it’s about how everyone else perceives the situation.

No-No’s

Reserved parking spaces. If you’re so bloody important, you better be the first one in the office.

Townsend has a list of all the things that would hurt an organization, and I just loved this line.

Objectives

Is what I’m doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective?

Sound advice when it comes to focusing on “the goal”. We (people) seem to struggle with two opposing extremes: we either plan strategically and get caught-up in the details, or while working on the details we get bogged down with how much work is required to reach a strategic target. Always tough to find that balance between “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and “paralysis by analysis”. If the answer to the above — is what I’m doing today getting us closer — then you’re probably on the right path.

Organization Charts: Rigor Mortis

Nobody thinks of himself as below other people. and in a good company he isn’t.

So as to not misrepresent this quote, Townsend does mention that organizational charts do have their uses: educating outsiders, who does what, salary reviews. His point is that it shouldn’t be used as a tool to determine rank/importance. A list of employees (in alphabetical order), their department/title, and who they report to is probably sufficient to satisfy any requirement a hierarchical chart would satisfy. I’ve also come across the idea of a “Reverse hierarchy” as well – not entirely sure how I feel about that. On paper it seems to convey the idea that key decisions are made at the front lines, but in practice it may come across as a back-handed approach to a traditional hierarchy. I think for a reverse hierarchy to be effective it needs to be strongly represented as a core value from the top.

People

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.

This seems to be less of an issue, in my experience, today than it probably was in the 1970s, but you still see it. Management is working under the assumptions that people can be, and need to be, coerced into the working and are largely disengaged. Townsend suggested this model takes the following form:

1. People hate work.

2. They have to be driven and threatened with punishment to get them to work toward organizational objectives.

3. They like security, aren’t ambitious, want to be told what to do, dislike responsibility.

This may have worked in the past where authority carried an disproportionate amount of positional power (see the quote above), but times have changed. Townsend suggest considering the below model as a new frame of reference:

1. People don’t hate work. It’s as natural as rest or play.

2. They don’t have to be forced or threatened. If they commit themselves to mutual objectives, they’ll drive themselves more effectively than you can drive them.

3. But they’ll commit themselves only to the extend that they can see ways of satisfying their ego and development needs.

If you’re still working on the former model then you’re most likely not reading this page. If you’re somewhere between models, consider the quote below.

You can’t motivate people. That door is locked from the inside.

Promises

The world is divided into two classes of people: the few people who make good on their promises (even if they don’t promise as much), and the many who don’t.

Promotion, from Within

I use the rule of 50 per cent. Try to find somebody inside the company with a record of success (in any area) and with an appetite for the job. If he looks like 50 per cent of what you need, give him the job. In six months he’ll have grown the other 50 per cent and everybody will be satisfied.

This is a tricky one. Most organizations I’ve been with are looking for someone to be performing at (i.e. 100%) or very close to the next level before being considered for a promotion. I’ve seen people disappointed when it doesn’t work out for various reasons: poor expectation setting, timelines with no solid backing, management poorly assuming HR will agree with their recommendations, the list goes on. In a lot of situations, this can lead to an employee performing two roles (a problem in and of itself), quickly diminishing morale, and tenuous belief in any future discussions. Fifty percent might be a bit low, but I completely support the idea of promoting from within even if that person has a few areas to develop. It shows employer support for career progression; and gives an opportunity to someone that, presumably, deserves it.

How to do it wrong: go outside and get some expensive guy who looks like 110 per cent of what you want and a year later, after raising salaries all around him, you’ll still be teaching him the business. The people around him will be frustrated and ineffective.

I’ve seen this many times in action as well. It’s incredibly frustrating to everyone on the team, absolutely kills morale, drops engagement through the floor, and can set the new person up for a difficult transition.

Racism

Stamping out racism will be a process, not an act…

Townsend mentions a few other minorities in this section, but the underlying message is what’s important. When changing any aspect of company culture, especially if it’s long-standing and deep-rooted, it requires support from the top and reinforcement at all levels of leadership. A piece of paper with some signatures or a company-wide email is superficial and insufficient to create any real change of this magnitude.

Reorganizing

Should be undergone about as often as major surgery. And should be well planned and as swiftly executed.

We tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.

Townsend attributes the second quote to Petronius Arbiter, but Quote Investigator has a lot to say about that not being the case. I’ve been involved in many situations that have an element of reorganization. Beyond the confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization that Townsend says this creates, it also acts an an excuse (legitimate or not) for lack of progress, operational deficiencies, and unassigned accountability. If you’re looking at reorganization as a means to solve problems, I would suggest you carefully balance the total cost — dollars, morale, lost productivity, confusion — against the value of the anticipated end state.

Small Companies

Carefully examine every new expense and activity to see whether it’s a necessity or an ornament.

Thanks

A really neglected form of compensation.

I know I’ve heard this or something similar at every organization I’ve worked with: if I do something wrong, I hear about it right away from multiple people; but when I do something beyond my regular duties…silence. Always reminds me of this clip from Office Space. Take a look at Mistakes for some of my other thoughts on the subject. A genuine “thank you” can go a long way. For the small things, a quick “thanks” does the trick; for the larger, be specific about what was done, and how it made a difference to you. If you don’t mean it, don’t bother. Fake thanks is easy to spot and poisons future recognition.

Titles Are Handy Tools

Titles are a form of psychic compensation, and if too many titles are distributed, the currency is depreciated.

Too Much vs. Too Little

The best organizations are sufficiently understaffed so that if somebody does something that overlaps or invades your area of responsibility, your second reaction is: “Great!”…This feeling comes right after the first flash of territorial hostility. Organizations that have time to get into jurisdictional disputes are almost always overstaffed.

At face value I would have to disagree with this quote and, for the most part, it goes against Townsend’s general theme of employee empowerment, engagement, equality, and encouraging an environment of innovation. Then I had to remind myself that Townsend was most likely pointing the finger at heavily-bureaucratic organizations that are largely overstaffed, and do spend most of their time arguing over who’s doing what work. To that end, I’d take his recommendation figuratively and not literally.

Vacation Policy: Go When You Please

Vacation for people who make more than $150 a week should be left up to each individual. No responsible people will abuse the freedom.

Note: $150 / week would translate to about $1,500 today.

I found this surprising considering it was written in 1970. It’s only in recent years we’ve been seeing a lot of next generation companies with unlimited vacation, or similar, policies. From what I’ve read, the data supports this type of work arrangement provided: the role can support it – this would be difficult for hourly, transactional, or staff that are critical in nature; the organizational culture supports it; and, expectations on results, vacation notice, and communication are clearly expressed. Abuse of such a policy would need to be dealt with quickly and effectively or it would just be a matter of time before a few rogue individuals, and their negligent management, would spoil it for everyone. This seemed to be one of many areas where Townsend was a bit ahead of the curve.

Further “Up The Organization”

Up The Organization Free Pdf

Encourage Treason

Up The Organization By Robert Townsend Pdf Free

If you’re genuinely interested in your people, how can you do anything but rejoice if they get an offer you can’t match?

I’ve been on both sides of this fence a few times. Luckily, in most cases, I had managers that were nothing but supportive of my choices. On the management side it can be a difficult situation to be in. The team will have to pick up the slack, you’ll need to replace that position, train the new employee, and hope that it all works out in the end. It’s happening, so embrace it, learn from it, and treat it as an opportunity. As for rejoicing for the departing employee – absolutely. Showing your staff that you’re supportive of these types of large life changes can bring many benefits. It builds a large amount of trust; the type of trust required for employees to feel comfortable being completely transparent with you. It maintains a positive relationship with the departed employee. They’ll speak highly of you (and hopefully the organization), and be more likely to be open to future opportunities with you. There’s really no downside to embracing their choice and being genuinely excited and supportive of their decision.

Up The Organization By Robert Townsend Pdf Free Pdf

Organization Charts and Rectangular People

It wouldn’t hurt to assume, in short, that every man — and woman — is a human being, and not a rectangle.

Cutback

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But the capacity of people to find answers, if they know it’s worth the trouble, has never been tested to its practical limits.

Up The Organization By Robert Townsend Pdf Free

In this section, Townsend was writing on how to approach an organization that is facing cutbacks of some sort (finances, staff, etc.) I really liked the way this quote came across: the capacity of people to find answers has never been tested to its practical limits. I think we forget this sometimes, and the reminder usually comes in the form of someone younger and less experienced than me, that has yet to be programmed on what their limits are. You can test this yourself. Take a few problem-solving-type individuals that haven’t been poisoned by the environment, have enough cumulative functional and business knowledge, describe the problem to them, remove any administrative roadblocks, and check back on them in one-tenth of the time previously invested into the issue. Fair chance your problem is solved.