Business: Throw the Rascal Out!

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Nepotism is another danger. Townsend argues that the Ford brothers should have left the Ford Motor Co. when it went public. "When they didn't," he notes, "it seemed inevitable that their first classic misadventure should turn out to be named after a relative." He also gives a kick to management's all-purpose crutch, the computer — "big, expensive, fast, dumb machine-typewriters." The adding-technicians who operate them? "They're building a mystique, a priesthood, their own mumbo-jumbo ritual to keep you from knowing what they — and you — are doing." He is wary of automation. "I've never known a company seriously injured by automating too slowly," he writes, "but there are some classic cases of companies bankrupted by computerizing prematurely."

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Corporate viability, in Townsend's view, means a running skirmish with the business establishment. "When the vast majority of big companies agree on some practice or policy," he writes, "you can be fairly certain that it's out of date. Ask yourself: 'What's the opposite of this conventional wisdom?' And then work back to what makes sense." Essentially. Townsend calls for an end to institutionalized submissiveness. "Most of us," he sardonically asserts, "come from good solid European stock whose record of rapacity, greed, cruelty and treachery would make Genghis Khan look like Mahatma Gandhi. To go down now without a whimper (much less a bang) is completely out of character."