Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation From Stifling People and Strangling Profits

—Tom Peters

"The sagest (and even most outrageous) book ever written about how business should be run."
—Harper’s Magazine

"Bob Townsend's words still ring true, truer than they seemed almost 40 years ago."
—Warren Bennis

"Robert Townsend's book continues to light up the business world with straightforward and practical management advice that is as pertinent today as when originally published. A must-read for all managers!"
—Ray Davis, president and CEO, Umpqua Holdings Corporation

"Townsend proves that the best business wisdom is timeless. In an era filled with business buzzwords and ethical misdirections, Townsend's bluntness makes for refreshing and hilarious reading for the next crop of CEOs."
—Ben Casnocha, chairman, Comcate, Inc., author, My Start-Up Life

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.