Further Up the Organization [Audio CD]

Robert Townsend (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1985

In this 60 Minute Audio CD, Robert Townsend, former CEO and the man that got AVIS to "Try Harder" tells in provacative style how to get rid of the enertia in American Business. This is your opportunity to learn from the master.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Bookcassette® format is a special recording technique developed as a means of condensing the full, unabridged audio text of a book to record it on fewer tapes. In order to listen to these tapes, you will need a cassette player with balance control to adjust left/right speaker output. Special adaptors to allow these tapes to be played on any cassette player are available through the publisher or some US retail electronics stores. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Robert Townsend, Author, is also the Author of the business blockbuster book, Up the Organization. Townsend was the CEO, who selected the "We're only number two... so We Try Harder" advertising campaign... which helped propell AVIS to a profitable and significant player in the Rent-A-Car market after 13 years of losses prior to his arrival on the scene.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Listen USA (April 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0886840511
• ISBN-13: 978-0886840518
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 2.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,493,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can build a successful "people business" from this!, January 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Further Up the Organization: How Groups of People Working Together for a Common Purpose Ought to Conduct Themselves for Fun and Profit (Paperback)

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!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best business books ever written., July 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Further Up the Organization (Hardcover)

This book belongs on every business owner's bookshelf -- not at the other end of the house, but right at hand. Currently ignored, it will likely re-emerge as a classic, perhaps ranking close to The Prince.

Hypesters need not read it. Business people who think should read it, re-read it, and refer to it. Cynical and fair, mercenary and humane, realistic and pessimistic and mostly optimistic, it is one of the finest business books of this century.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Only Worthwhile Book on Management, July 11, 2002

By 

GEORGE R. FISHER (Boston MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Further Up the Organization (Hardcover)

It's a great shame that this book is out of print.

It's well worth the trouble of finding a copy. I make a point of re-reading it at least once a year to keep my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds and other unfortunate places.

Townsend is a very sensible person who has sterling credentials as a succesful manager; we should all do half as well as he did. He believes in the power of doing simple things very well and allowing your staff to do what they know how to do.

"In Search Of Excellence" and "Who Moved My Cheese" and all the great morass of poor, high faulutin' salve for the over-inflated but tender and insecure egos of senior managers should be immediately put into the trash ... shame on you if you ever attend another Hammer-esque seminar. You don't need seminars and the tricks don't work.

What works in management is what works everywhere in life, in the long run: humility, hard work, loyalty downwards, rewarding success and knowing how to define it.

In a sense, nobody should need a book to tell them these things, but life is complicated and the world is full of charlatans, so we all need to be reminded from time to time to take a step back and laugh at ourselves.