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MOTIVATING staff and making a business as efficient as possible are enormous challenges without easy answers.
There are, however, successful experiences that can be adopted and adapted carefully.
The book "Up the Organization" by Robert Townsend offers insightful experiences, plus epigrams aimed at stopping businesses from stifling people and strangling profits. This is a reprint of his classic best seller.
True, books with short, clever aphorisms on similar subjects are coming out all the time.
But Townsend himself was a successful, popular executive with Avis and American Express who lived by these principles and the book has withstood the test of time.
The basic principle of keeping employees motivated is no big secret - always bear in mind the needs and interests of employees.
Townsend goes further in emphasizing: "True Leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders. In combat, officers eat last.''
He cites practices that can stimulate employee enthusiasm.
Employee stock ownership gives employees a real stake and they see themselves as owners of the company, so when it does well, they do well.
Incentives motivate people, not just endless salary step increases based on seniority.
Letting employees above certain levels set their own hours and schedule is one of the most "incentivizing'' approaches.
This move also requires businesses to measure the performance according to results and quality, not hours spent in the office.
Indeed, unless the job involves no thinking at all, people need contemplation and stimulation for innovation and quality work. Sitting in front of a computer all day does not make for innovation and high morale.
Giving key people some more freedom in setting their hours may well produce satisfactory results.
Townsend's most radical suggestions concern the elimination of all bureaucracies, especially in small- and medium-sized companies.
He says companies should get rid of the entire organization chart, eliminate personnel departments, public relations departments and purchasing departments.
Unrealistic as the advice may seem, Townsend's explanation makes sense.
Unless the company is very large, a personnel department may well be replaced by one or two personnel staff keeping track of payroll and benefits.
As to PR, the top executives who are better informed should undertake the job of writing company releases. They can do much better as long as they're honest.
When it comes to purchasing, "Fire the whole purchasing department. The company will benefit from having each department dealing in the free market outside, instead of being victimized by internal socialism,'' stresses Townsend.
In addition, Townsend urges businesses to push decision making, especially easy ones, close to the people on the front lines who are likely to know more about what's really happening than senior executives.
This is really the book to get executives thinking about choices.
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