In spite of all the talk about flatter, looser organisations, top down hierarchies are - and always will be inevitable in the business world. But there are ways to make the hierarchical structure more humane for the people who work in them. This book shows how It argues that every organization today even those that "disguise" themselves as open or flat structures are still hierarchies. Rather than resisting this reality, this is book offers managers realistic ways to "tame" hierarchies to make them more humane, egalitarian places to work.

"Top Down" is particularly vacuous commentary on authoritarian hierarchies, as exhibited by corporate America. First, the author wants to make the overwhelmingly obvious point that American corporations are undemocratic hierarchies and that no outbreak of democracy is going to occur anytime soon. Apparently, those comments are meant for idealistic academics, because working people are well aware of the continuing master/slave nature of corporations. Secondly, the author continually flip-flops between discussing hierarchies as authoritarian control structures and as a means of organizing tasks; those are two distinct subjects. Democratic governance does not preclude hierarchies or other organizational forms. Speaking of corporations primarily as hierarchies and not as bastions of authoritarianism verges on dishonesty.

Curiously, the author readily admits that authoritarian hierarchies are un-American in their disenfranchisement of people and in subjecting them to a control regime little better than a ruthlessly run feudal estate. Corporate America infantilizes employees, creating fear, dependency, and conformity. The much heralded claim of efficiency is gained at a high cost: the reduction of intelligent beings to timid, tunnel-vision followers. It can hardly be ignored that corporations are constantly going off track, making bad decisions, if not engaging in criminal activities. Perhaps thinking, empowered employees could head off such disasters, even if less "efficient."