Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
At the beginning of my career Up the Organization was hugely influential to me because it told me that you could be part of an organization and still be a maverick within the organization. What Robert Townsend preached was how to break the rules and still fit in.
Next book, Up the Organization.
Up the Organization is written by Robert Townsend who was the client at Avis (the car rental company) when Avis came up with the ‘We Try Harder’ campaign. Robert Townsend was always seen as a bit of a maverick both within his company and within the industry. The book has just been reprinted and I find it interesting that, even 40 years later, the book still speaks to a large audience. I will admit that I have not read it in about the last 30 years, but at the beginning of my career it was hugely influential to me because it told me that you could be part of an organization and still be a maverick within the organization. What he preached was how to break the rules and still fit in. I learned how to break the rules – I occasionally wish I had better learned the lesson of how to fit in.
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Steve Lance, author of The Little Blue Book of Advertising, has been working in advertising for more than 30 years. He has worked as creative director at NBC, creative director of the entertainment division at Della Femina, Travisano & Partners, and set up his own company, PS Insights. He has won a number of prestigious awards including an Emmy award with Ritchie Kahn for the NBC news campaign ‘Proud as a Peacock’, and a Platinum Aurora award for the rebranding of Accenture.
