I first read Up The Organisation by Robert Townsend in 1984 when I was still in college. It started to help me establish my very own management style and ways of doing things. I lent the book to a good friend of mine 2 years later and have never seen the book again.

Then in the 90's, I were so happy to find Further Up The Organisation, an updated version of the one I lost and I bought 2 copies. So far I have only worked for 2 organisations during the last 14 years but have received 6 promotions so far, now already the Chief Executive since 1995 at the age of 32. Thanks to Robert Townsend.

The books offer solutions on various subjects at work, but more importantly stimulate the readers to agree or to disagree to the ideas and prompt them to think or re-think how and why they are doing that way.

Until a few years ago, everytime when I was in a bookstore, I would go to the relevant section to look for further updates of the book.

The publisher should re-print the book and sell them again.

As a member of the up and coming CEO's of the world (my plan), Further Up The Orcanization is an execellent piece of stimuli for those of us who like to engage our brains in the big picture. If you are one that is fortunate enough to be able to see the forest through the tree and understand how the total solution is the right solution then this book is for you.

It is easy to read and fast. The topics are arranged from A to Z with a one page snap shot of the "answer" to business question and organization issues. While other books attempt to help you understand everything from your inner business self to business lessons through the eyes of a piss ant (remember those who can't do teach, or in most cases write books on the subject), Townsend's book should be considered the manual. Be ensured that if you follow these simple practices your company will be on the way to the top 100 (the company I work for lives by this book and we are ranker number 5 by Fortune this year, our first year under review).

For those fortunant enough to be stepping out on your own, this book is a reminded and a refresher for you to being successful. Interesting that a book writen first in the early 70's then updated in 85 still holds so true for today, ie not a business fad book. After all the bible is still on the best seller list.

Good job and thanks to Robert Townsend.

Terril Perrine

As a beginning PhD business man (1973) I read and used Up the Organization to build a successful PhD managed, high tech analytical lab. The insights added in Further Up the Organization stand today as the critical backdrop to leading your people and organization through rapid change and growth. This serves as a compatible platform for initiating JIT, TQM and other management fads that might work "if-you-do-it-right". The section on computers and their priests plays as well in the desktop world as it did in the mainframe world. Unfortunately we cannot stop Microsoft from givings features we don't need but which eat memory and CPU cycles.

The sections on PEOPLE, TOO MUCH, LEADERSHP, MISTRESSES, FIRING PEOPLE, AND INCENTIVE COMPSENSATION are classics which remain as useful today as in 1970. You would never know that this book is almost 30 years old.

When I have a difficult management or people problem, I review the relevant sections for a grounding in common sense. I have tried to order a copy for each of my employees, but it is out of print. Let us hope that Robert Townsend puts a few updates on this commen sense book and saves more business folks from themselves!

HINT! HINT!

Outstanding book, for anybody who has ever loved and lost a beloved companion animal. Will put a lump in your throat, a tear in your eye, and a feeling of warmth deep within your heart. Arlene Millman, author of BOOMERANG - A MIRACLE TRILOGY (The tale of a remarkable Boston Terrier).

I have been in the veterinary industry for over 15 years. Sadly, we often send condolence cards to owners when their pets pass away. Many years ago I started seeing a particular quote by Irving Townsend on these cards. It read, "We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necesssary plan." It took over 15 years to stumble across the book that contains this quote, but it was worth the wait. I recommend it from the heart. A truly memorable experience.

Irving Townsend revisits the lives of some of his favorite animals and the ways they have touched him. Read about Prince, the horse saved from an auction, who blossomed and came into his own; the cat without a name who shared his life for a few months to recover from an injury. These are the characters, but he tells their stories as they affect him. It is his sense of loss that we feel and understand. An excellent book for anyone who has ever loved or lost a pet or companion animal.

As a high school youth this book was my introduction to subtlety. And as a kid in Pittsburgh I had much to learn on this subject. One would hope that in today crass atmosphere such ploys are still advantageous but I doubt it. In fact I'll wager that there is not one person in a thousand who can identify this book as the source of the popularity of the word "ploy" although the word is widely used. Read it, it's fun.

Potter caqptures the essence of British humor. He wrote circa 1950 and was a master at capitalizing on observations for the purposes of gaining an edge in the most humorous of cicumstances. The British understatement and preoccupation for the unimportant things in life is the starting point for Potter to describe how life should be lived. From how to decorate ones office, how to walk in a museum, how to properly answer the telephone, to what to wear for golf has been reduced to a science so that the other person will ultimately feel uncomfortable and off balance. If one can possibly think British, then this book may be one of the funniest books ever written.

Will the race of man inevitably destroy itself looking for power, wealth and immortality?

More to the point, why should today's twenty-somethings commit their energy and talents to companies run by down-sizers and up-braiders?

The author of a 25-year old business bestseller attempts to answer these questions for a teen- and twenty-something generation in The B2 Chronicles: How Not to Butt Heads with the Next Generation, by Robert Townsend.

A quarter century after penning the best-selling Up The Organization: How to Stop the Corporation From Stifling People and Strangling Profits, former Avis Rent-a-Car CEO Robert Townsend directs his message to tomorrow's instead of today's CEOs.

The book starts with a cosmic computer crisis looming. Seventeen computer whiz kids have intercepted a secret nuclear destruction scenario formulated years ago by the world's superpowers. The protagonist Crunch (author Townsend's persona) agrees to help save the world.

Crunch opens a storefront in San Pedro, California, and advertises for teenagers to help "test pilot" new virtual reality games provided by game manufacturers. Woven in with this plot is Crunch's theory about energy and how it is allocated to tasks. A computer program called QuoVadoTron, which made him and his young whiz kid associate Dooley Stepnowski rich, measures a company's energy level on a daily or weekly basis, over twenty degrees of energy from "Fetchwork 0" to "Stretchwork 10." The fictional software can project how management decisions will affect employees' level of commitment and thus, what level of energy they will devote to meeting goals and objectives. If you get the feeling this book is hard to describe, you're right. But I know of at least one CEO who might get it in a flash: T.J. Rodgers of Silicon Valley's Cypress Semiconductor.

From QuoVadoTron, the story wanders to other games invented by young Dooley. Each game requires an assistant, and each assistant is obtained by having a contest and hiring the winner. Everything is a game, every action and decision is a spreadsheet entry that has potential consequences for the future. At the end of a successful game, all hands celebrate.

Ther'e a fish story, some health food advice, an emphasis on play, enjoyment of literature and music, and some light moralizing, all delivered in Townsend's Brautiganesque plain style.

The common thread is that work ought to generate high energy levels. If it doesn't something can be done about it. Namely, hire younger people whose energy isn't spent, assuming that smart kids of today will have a reason to work tomorrow.

Some ideas which come out in this crazy quilt of song lyrics, stories and management theory:

-Universal downsizing-- no organization or institution should have more than 250 members;

-Bureaucrats have their function-- everyone should learn to tap into government and get money out for their favorite causes;

-For disadvantaged youth, it's hard to top the education and early retirement benefits of a military career;

-Good grades in school and having fun are not mutually exclusive;

-There's a strong connection between education level and living well, assuming your past life has earned you a rich present one.

Is it too much to expect a generation weaned on Beavis and Butthead to read this book? Maybe. But Robert Townsend's head and heart are both in the right place. Most of what's worthwhile tomorrow will be accomplished by people born after 1970. They should read this book, then pass it along to their elders.

Robert Taylor: Air Combat Paintings Volume II is a dazzling spectacle of an artbook, filled with black-and-white as well as full color images of aerial combat paintings, especially those related to World War II air battles. An extensive, in-depth commentaries and history adds a special depth to the origin and moment captured in these heart-stopping works of art. Robert Taylor: Air Combat Paintings, Volume II is a recommended treasure trove of great air combat illustrations for aviation and military history buffs. Also highly recommended is the companion compilation, The Air Combat Paintings of Robert Taylor: Volume 1 (0715314300, £20.00).

I seriously recommend this book to anybody who has a job, let alone anyone who is a manager.

You can dip into it at any page - it is an "alphabet book" - 1 entry for every letter of the alphabet. It has some great ideas, is very funny and is very readable.

The edition I read also had a special guide for women in the workplace. Although I am not a woman (- but then neither is the author), I found this section also very helpful and inspiring.

Although I have already read a borrowed version, I am currently here at Amazon buying a personal copy for my collection.

It is not on my "Great Books of All Time/Desert Island" list, but it is on my next-ranking, "Very Useful Books" list.

Basho

3/25/03 Though my book disappeared at some point(purchased in the mid '70's..Townsend'w writings were so controversal ,that his ideas are those that whether you agree or not ,you don't forget..Statements like"playful indolent " referring to certain employees..sentences like why don't CEO's just pick up the phone..why do they need secretaries ? show how swiftly the corporate system would just be a back shed mom & pop organization with gluts of people unemployed and except for manual labor(streets,building repairs,UPS,Fed Express,USPS and farmers,the majority of people would be receiving govt. handouts,and of cours the handsomely paid CEO's and a few slave middle management and slave clerks....It's true the system is just 'a paper chase' but would an idle society be better ?,most readers would ask of Robert Townsend.

I recall when this book first came out, Townsend's assertion that secretaries were unnecessary caused a revolt among the secretaries at his company; they staged a benign strike, to demonstrate how the company would (not) function without them.

I picked up this book again many years later, and read the vignette called "Chairman of the Executive Committee." This is a title you give someone when you boot him upstairs, in preparation for retiring him. It's a nice-sounding title, it appears to be powerful, and in practice it means nothing.

Reading Newsweek Magazine one day, I happened to notice that Katherine Graham had been dubbed "chairman of the executive committee." I made a copy of that vignette from Up the Organization and mailed it to Ms. Graham (care of Newsweek), and asked whether she realized she had been booted upstairs to the holding pen. The note must have struck a nerve; I got no reply.

If you work in a corporation, you will enjoy this book, as long as they don't make you chairman of the executive committee.

Written the way one can understand and enjoy reading. No pseudoscientific jargon. A thin small book. Nevertheless contains all the essentials of a successful business. I read this book about twenty five years ago (in Polish translation) and consider it the best book about business I ever read. This book is out of print. Is this a reason for a massive failure of dot com's?

This book is OK if you are a Pro/e user with moderate experience. It explains about start parts - which I've found to be lacking in all the proe users I've met for exaample. Also the assembly techniques are ok. I would take exception to the book being aimed at advanced users. Anyone who has used proe extensively will find this book unfulfilling. Also it contains little or no reference to sheetmetal.

I have bought about 4 books now on Pro/E. First two were introductory and that was fine because i was just starting to learn Pro/E. The other two were junk. However, this book is great. The book is definetly designed for a user who has already covered the basics. If your just learning, start with some basic tutorial books and then get this one. Shows some real good stuff and well laid out.

I felt this book was well written and easy to understand. We all know how boring technical literature can be and how difficult some examples are to follow. This book gives clear step-by-step direction that is straight to the point and delivers a message of not only advanced techniques, but also of proper modeling and design fundamentals.

This book is for someone who had tried but failed to lead his people to excel. It could be very inspiring to those people if they have the wisdom to pick the good points from the book and create their own style, they would rate it 10(best). But if you had read the earlier (80's) books of Townsend "Further Up/Up the Organisation" (which I rated 10+), you would rate this one 1(worst).

The authors of this interesting work explore a new leadership style suited to the new characteristics of organization and the direction leadership is taking today. The ideas are presented as a lively dialogue between Bennis and Townsend; this format may appeal to some and turn-off others. While we found it added some pizzazz, at times it gets in the way of the content. The book covers such topics as: developing leadership traits, the personal side of leadership, empowerment, and choosing a leader. Also included is a self-development plan. The number of books on leader seems to be infinite but this is one that is informative and worthy of your time. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, HR consultant.com InfoCenter and Stern & Associates.

Several insightful and practically applicable info, almost all from Townsend. Theoretical info provided by Bennis is of little use. Some useful advice includes: (1) how to select leaders and (2) protecting your group from unnecessary busy work from the top (3) delegate when someone can do the job 50-70% well and (4) promote from within

This is a very interesting combination : very important economic models and concepts are explained and tested in the light of the economic life of medieval english villages. This makes the theory much more vivid. One problem tough, the notation is rather heavy.