Up the Organization
by Robert Townsend
The Avis CEO's 1970 alphabetical blast at corporate nonsense: fire the personnel department, no reserved parking, call yourself, and 'the best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas'. Irreverent and still funny; the ancestor of Rework.
Read it if…
you want a short, sharp antidote to bureaucracy.
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Skip it if…
you want a system.
Try instead: Management Challenges for the 21st Century →
Three things you will actually use
- Decisions should be made as low as possible.
- Kill the memo culture.
- Leaders eat last, park last, answer their own phone.
Do this first
Read it in an evening; mark three entries to act on.
Our verdict
The 1970 anti-bureaucracy classic.
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