Customer Reviews

Top Down: Why Hierarchies Are Here to Stay and How to Manage Them More Effectively

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This book could be subtitled "A Survival Manual for Those Stuck in the Middle." In the modern hierarchical (read "authoritarian") organization, the beleaguered middle manager is indeed stuck in the middle. Author Harold J. Leavitt is a self-professed "humanizer" who acknowledges the dehumanizing, authoritarian tendencies of the modern hierarchical organization. However, he goes beyond automatic humanistic inclinations to ask an important question: "What's the alternative?" Hierarchies have structured human activity for centuries. They've learned to cloak themselves in commoners' clothes in order to do business in egalitarian cultures, but don't let that fool you. Large organizations are still ruled by hierarchies, and woe unto the middle manager who forgets it. Leavitt's book evinces empathy for the plight of the unsung middle manager who has to meet the company's objectives while helping it appear to be something it's not: caring and humanistic. We highly recommend this book to all managers caught in the middle - which is to say, all managers.

I've never had an inclination to write a book review on Amazon. However, after reading Hubert Shea's farcical review of Leavitt's Top Down, I felt compelled to do so. I've always been a fan of Leavitt's work, so it came as no surprise to me that Top Down was yet another of his brilliant books.

Hubert Shea's review berates Top Down. He seems to believe hierarchies no longer exist; that they've been replaced by "flat and lean" organizations. Having worked in several organizations, I find this notion absolutely absurd. In fact, even Leavitt (p.3) says, "So why bother to prove the world is still round?" Apparently, to some, the world is flat.

In Top Down, Leavitt does much more than argue the obvious existence of hierarchies. He challenges us, as readers, not to think hierarchies, but to think ABOUT hierarchies. He describes how hierarchies have changed in modern organizations with elements such as participative management and "Hot Groups." He opens our eyes to the fact that despite our disdain for them, hierarchies continue to be effective and thriving forms for modern organizations. Furthermore, he illustrates how we can humanize these inevitable hierarchies. Last, and certainly not least, Leavitt offers Top Down as a much needed resource to middle managers stuck holding the double-edged sword of authority in these modern times of organizational change.

Top Down is a book any individual working inside an organization should certainly read!

It was exactly the book I wanted to read. Easy to read. While I enjoyed it, made sense etc. I thought the authors one voice could have been made more substantial by referencing other studies and more contrasting points of view. But, having said that, it wasn't the point of the book. Seeing that it is virtually one of the few recent books written on the topic, and from someone so experienced..it definitely is an important contribution to the topic of organizational structure.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It is written in a plain and direct style that makes it an easy read. As a major in organizational psychology and a management consultant for major corporations, this book resonated loudly with me. The author explains how hierarchies fulfill basic human needs and the constant struggle between the humanizers - those that treat humans as masters and organizations as instruments - and the systemizers those who treat organizations as masters and humans as just another company resource. He also discusses the role of the leader/manager and more importantly, how middle managers can learn to cope more effectively with the inevitable staying power of hierarchies. A must read for all managers!

Mr. Leavitt describes organizations and the managers / leaders that populate them as they really are, not as we would like them to be. No wishful thinking in this book. The duty aspect of the manager's job (with respect to employees and society at large) is finely stressed in the last chapter. Thank you, Mr. Leavitt, for your lesson.

This book is not going to be a landmark contribution to effective organisation design. The author only gets 50% of the way to presenting a convincing case, that would be of practical value to the reader.

Stan Felstead - Interchange Resources UK.

Leavitt takes a much needed pragmatic approach to hierarchies in TOP DOWN. Not only does he illustrate just how axiomatic the hierarchy is to organizational structure, but he provides several prescriptions to alleviate its maladies. This is a fascinating and functional book that everyone-not just those in managerial positions-should peruse.

"Top Down" is particularly vacuous commentary on authoritarian hierarchies, as exhibited by corporate America. First, the author wants to make the overwhelmingly obvious point that American corporations are undemocratic hierarchies and that no outbreak of democracy is going to occur anytime soon. Apparently, those comments are meant for idealistic academics, because working people are well aware of the continuing master/slave nature of corporations. Secondly, the author continually flip-flops between discussing hierarchies as authoritarian control structures and as a means of organizing tasks; those are two distinct subjects. Democratic governance does not preclude hierarchies or other organizational forms. Speaking of corporations primarily as hierarchies and not as bastions of authoritarianism verges on dishonesty.

Curiously, the author readily admits that authoritarian hierarchies are un-American in their disenfranchisement of people and in subjecting them to a control regime little better than a ruthlessly run feudal estate. Corporate America infantilizes employees, creating fear, dependency, and conformity. The much heralded claim of efficiency is gained at a high cost: the reduction of intelligent beings to timid, tunnel-vision followers. It can hardly be ignored that corporations are constantly going off track, making bad decisions, if not engaging in criminal activities. Perhaps thinking, empowered employees could head off such disasters, even if less "efficient."

The author seems to contend that authoritarian corporate hierarchies are inevitable: that's the way that it has to be. Nothing could be more wrong. The US as a democracy has the political means of imposing all manner of restrictions on corporate behavior. The rise of unions in the WWII era was a countervailing power to the unilateral power of corporations. European works councils, legislatively mandated, have rights of information, consultation, and codetermination over many corporate decisions and do wield real power. Trade policy, visa administration, and job outsourcing are all in the purview of politics. But the perversion of American democracy through the infusion of corporate dollars and all manner of propaganda precludes its exercise to curtail corporate unilateral, anti-citizen actions. Countervailing power seems to have been thoroughly suppressed in the US, reminding one of suppression regimes which the American public regards as inferior cultures.

The author notes that corporations attempt to hide their nearly absolute hierarchical power, employing any number of participation and teamwork schemes. He sympathizes with managers caught in the corporate hierarchy that are expected to encourage "participation." He engages in a discussion of leadership versus management, which are the techniques of "humanizers" versus "systemizers," in other words, people-first versus organization-first philosophies. But those arrangements are so much window dressing; unilateral authority is not diminished. Urging middle-managers to be what they are not really permitted to be seems disingenuous, if not perverse.

The author suggests that a positive aspect of corporate hierarchies is the benefits both material and psychological that employees derive from the current corporate regime. No alarm in the author is detected. Do we simply aspire to becoming happy sheep?

The author claims to be a humanizer, but his commentary gives him away. Authoritarian, corporate hierarchies (or any other organizational form) are not defensible in a country that claims to be democratic, unless of course, our democracy is paper thin, more formal than actual. Maybe that is the case. If our current form of corporate organization is here to stay, and there is good evidence for that and is the author's point, maybe we really are a pseudo-democracy. Apparently organizational psychologists are unwilling to squarely face that point. The book can be read simply to see how shallow organizational theory can be.

It has been widely noted by management pundits including Peter Drucker that organisational structure should be flat and lean in order to help decision makers to face up with the business environment which is more uncertain and turbulent in the 21st century.

In this book, organisational behaviour expert Harold J. Leavitt believes that hierarchies will continue to persist despite of their obvious flaws. Analogous to the never-ending argument between the value of democracy propounded by western political scientists and the persistence of authoritarianism populated by selfish political leaders in Asia, Leavitt intends to sugarcoat the limitations of hierarchical structure and suggests that hierachies have unique pragmatic values, such as illusion of security and safety, achievement ladder, self-identification and evaluation, and organisational efficiency. If managers can behave like responsible and civilised human beings, hierarchical organisation is not all bad and can be a competitive tool for enterprises.

I buy this book because I have been used to believe that HBS Press often offers useful insights and many revolutionary and realistic roadmaps for managers. After persuing the book, I think, much to my regret, that this is a bad book. The only value I can find in this book is that those corner office executives who loves playing office power and politics within the hierarchies can learn how to be more human. Like Hilter, nobody would rail against his authoritarian empire if he practised Nazism with a human face. As a senior manager for a Fortune 500 corporation, my management credo is that hierachies do exist and they will persist but it does not mean that they remain the most effective and effective organisational structures. Uncertainty and turbulent market environment have already driven most of the large corporations into novel organisational forms which are less hierarchical and more networking.