Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
by Greg Niemann
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Book Reviews of Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS
Book Review: An Untold Story?
Summary: 4 Stars
The subtitle, "the untold story," is intriguing. Does it disclose some previously unknown facet of the company? Or does the book fail to tell the whole story? Take your pick.
The book combines aspects of an anecdotal biography with aspects of a promotional corporate history. It begins with a biographical sketch of James Emmett Casey, who founded United Parcel Service as a teenager, delivering packages on a bicycle. It is a real-life Horatio Alger story. About halfway through, the book switches to a summary description of the present-day UPS. Throughout the book, Jim Casey is used to personify the company and to serve as the glue that holds the story together. The narrative moves with an uneven, sometimes fitful pace, often revisiting time periods that were covered earlier. The story is told in a conversational style, often switching to the first person when the author includes his personal observations.
Originally, UPS was a package delivery company for department stores. Over its first 50 years, it's operations spread from Seattle to the major cities on the west coast and the northeast U.S. During the next 30 or more years, UPS changed its business from department store deliveries to an all-points service for any shipper at any location. The present-day UPS operates on a global scale, using the very latest digital technology. Throughout its 100-year life, UPS has maintained a hard-working, semi-military culture and has to a great extent achieved employee-ownership. It is an interesting and informative story. However, it does have its faults.
In its effort to make Jim Casey the personification of the company, the book gives short-shrift to the second generation of managers, particularly the ones who guided UPS out of the department store business and into the common carrier world. Further, the book understates the importance of that shift; it is presented as merely following a lucrative opportunity. The fact is that the department store delivery business was dying. Had UPS not changed its operations, it is likely that it too would have gone out of business. The book also understates the obstacles to that change. Public service regulation existed, in part, to enforce government-established monopolies - and that enforcement included prohibiting companies like UPS from competing against the previously authorized carriers. The primary opposition to UPS' change of business was not the Post Office, it was the existing authorized carriers: Railway Express, the bus companies and the film carriers. Getting approval for nationwide rights in that era was viewed as impossible but the book does not even mention Preston W. Davis, the architect of UPS operating rights miracle.
Similarly, the book fails to mention two antitrust suits that could easily have nipped UPS' new business in the bud. UPS won one of them and settled the other.
With its faults, this is still a worthwhile read.
Book Review: Not Really a Case Study - Certainly Not a Critical Examination
Summary: 3 Stars
This book does have some value, but you have to go into it with knowledge of the author's approach.
Niemann is a 20+ year employee of UPS who doesn't so much tell the "untold story" as tout the greatness of "Big Brown." Unfortunately, while there are some valuable insights here of the type you would expect to find in a B-school case study, Niemann's work often degrades to the out-and-out propaganda of a corporate sycophant.
Niemann talks about brown-clad UPS drivers as "cult figures," revered by Americans for years - and now worldwide - as "charming but elusive" servants bearing "objects of desire" with "sincerity and consideration...and efficient vigor." The "eye contact," the "good manners," "maybe he even endears himself to your children."
This kind of pabulum is hard to swallow and it is too prevalent throughout the book. A classic case of corporate myopia - the mission statement writ large across the insides of everyone's eyelids.
I don't know about the average UPS customer, but my experience with the company is usually as follows: a guy runs into my office (he may be in brown, maybe not) asks me to apply my signature into the 6 cm by 12 cm screen on some curious wonder book using a tethered compu-pen. Moments later, he is long gone, I am ripping open a comb-bound PowerPoint from the Seattle office, I take a quick look and off I go on the rest of my day.
The times when I do feel the UPS corporate presence in my life are the dozen or so times a month when I wonder what teh official corporate policy is on parking, parking tickets, and the apparent impunity with which their drivers block lanes of traffic on major urban thouroughfares at rush hours.
Still, you can't help but wonder at the company's logistics, efficiency, and planning. But, even later (and more valuable) chapters, like "A Logistics Leader, wind up being more about the people, the policies and their achievements, than they are about anything that provides enough value to make this the read that it could (and perhaps should) be.
I have nothing against UPS - I bought the book. And, I can see the value of having an insider write the untold story of your company. But, he's got to be someone who's willing to do more than sit back and ruminate about old friends, new ideas and corporate accomplishments.
Far too often, "Big Brown" winds up feeling like you're reading one of those sunshiny internal company pubs that gets rolled out along with a new initiative, and hey, part of the proceeds are going right back to the company's founder's charity - so maybe it is all in the UPS family.
That's fine, just know it when you buy the book.
JAW
Book Review: Corporate PR with some revealing moments.
Summary: 2 Stars
Being a member of the working class, corporate public relations efforts don't appeal to me; but I'll give this book a couple stars for the revealing moments it contains. Niemann writes of the effort UPS makes to control the thinking of its employees, and says there is "a kind of boot camp, indoctrinating employees with UPS's unique corporate culture and expectations." It reminded me of the many such indoctrination efforts contained in Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace (BK Currents), which takes a critical look at totalitarian tendencies in the corporate culture.
"Big Brown" also contains an interesting story about how workers in West Germany were less receptive when UPS introduced its work-like-a-slave attitude. Niemann writes that Germany's "labor climate was institutionalized by German laws that called for extended vacations, much time off, liberal unlimited sick day policies, short work hours and weeks, and other inflexibilities. The hourly employees listened to the stress and pressure to get the job done as if it were Greek."
Sadly, with the expansion of neoliberal policies that limit benefits and increase working hours, the unethical work ethic of places like UPS has been globalized. Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure
While UPS corporate PR can provide some interesting insights, there needs to be a book written on UPS from the point of labor. Giving labor's perspective is considered politically incorrect these days, but it's needed now as much as it ever was.
State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence
Book Review: A Fitting Centennial Tribute
Summary: 5 Stars
This just released title is an unofficial commemoration for the first hundred years of service for UPS, which was founded on August 28th 1907. The book is fast-paced, engaging and easy to read. The book lives up to its title, as it is not a corporate puff piece written for the centennial. Although the general overall success of the company is the main theme, mistakes and warts are exposed as well. UPSers will be familiar with story itself, although the book offers a deeper insight into areas few will probably be aware of. The biographical sketch of Jim Casey for example, makes this book worth the price of admission. One can see what drove this man forward to achieve extremely high levels of success. Jim Casey deserves to share the stage with other more well known service entrepreneurial giants, such as Ray Kroc of McDonald's fame. There are also interesting stories, for those who are familiar with the general history and culture of the company, about the other founders, who are often overlooked because of Jim Casey's larger than life legacy.
Overall, this book offers a realistic historical and cultural perspective for the past 100 years of service and every UPSer who decides to read this book should find a professional genealogical connection to the text. In fact, the book should serve as a trip down memory lane and the reader may even find oneself debating some of the issues the book tackles. The author outlines the current public vs. private company debate many UPSers are having amongst themselves, as an example. The timing of the release of the book makes sense, as one should obtain a greater appreciation of how the company got where it is today and it is a compelling story worth knowing to UPSers, customers and shareowners.
Book Review: How UPS Became The Global Force It Is Today
Summary: 4 Stars
UPS began in 1907 in Seattle as a messenger service, and quickly evolved to focus on delivering packages for local department stores - allowing consolidation. Today's urban drivers make about 200 stops/day (free aerobics program, and 1/3 more than at FedEx) with packages weighing up to 150 lbs.
Waiting time for new hires can reach 4-5 years before attaining regular driver status. Those that do average $70,000/year, receive 6-9 weeks vacation each year, and 100% paid medical insurance. The company practices promotion from within as much as possible, and its executives answer their own phones and have no private secretaries.
UPS, however, did not happen overnight. About 65 years were required to cover the nation - the process involved innumerable confrontations with the ICC and state commerce commissions, as well as arranging customers and setting up routes. The really bad news, however, is that it was caught napping by FedEx's foray into overnight delivery and took several years to effectively respond. (UPS had experimented with airplane delivery before, but had not succeeded.)
Today's challenges have expanded from competition to also include becoming more green (reduced mileage via use of computerized routing systems, experimentation with hydrogen fuel cells), increased service around the world, supply-chain management (eg. providing assembly of some customer products, servicing broken computers, direct delivery of Internet orders, etc.).