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Parkinson's Law

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Parkinson's Law briefly stated is that 'work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.' If it doesn't seem that an entire book could be written about this thesis then you haven't encountered the imaginative genius and the stinging comic wit of C. Northcote Parkinson. He is able to use this little insight as an analytic tool to expose much of what is wrong with organizations and why much in both business and government seems at odds with common sense. For example, why the British Colonial Office has grown in number of employees as the actual number of colonies declined - so that it employed more people when the number of colonies had been reduced to zero than when they were at their highest number. Witty, brilliant and always right on the money, Parkinson can make what should be deadly dull - a description of bureaucracy - into a delightful excursion through the halls of pompus human folly. Really great stuff. This book is a classic and can be read and reread with great pleasure.

I've always considered Parkinson's Law to be the chief weapon of inept managers who "schedule aggressively" in an attempt to squeeze blood from stones, and thus compromise their project's effeciency, morale, and the like. After reading this book I've discovered that Parkinson's Law is *not* the often misquoted "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" but (paraphrasing:) "the number of administrators in an organization will grow at a steady rate irrespective of the amount of work that organization needs to do." Not only does Parkinson never suggest that we should "schedule aggressively" (he never suggests that work can contract indefinitely no matter how little time is made available), he ridiculues nice offices, large meetings, top-heavy management, insecure leadership, penny-wiseness and pound-foolishness, typical hiring practices, and more.

While reading most of this book I had a wry grin on my face, and I laughed loud belly laughs at a couple of points. My only complaints stem from the last two chapters, which indulged in both racism and ageism, respectively. I only skimmed those. Still, an enjoyable and motivational read, and useful knowledge when confronted by a manager who thinks of themself as Parkinsonian but hasn't actually read (or understood) Parkinson.

As Peter Drucker was beginning his interminable series of texts on the details of business strategy, Parkinson wrote a book that describes how it really works in most big organizations, whether they be in business or the public sector.

His basic premises that work expands to fill the time available, that the important decisions fall victim to the easily understood, and that bureaucratic organizations that grow too large no longer need any outside contact have been demonstrated to me over and over during a 30 year career in business.

The decade of downsizing we are witnessing demonstrates just how much fat there is in most organizations. Parkinson had it right over 30 years ago

This is one of more seminal books ever written. Once you read it you will NEVER again look at time management, the British Admiralty, a Board Meeting or a cocktail party in the same way. "Work expands to fill the time allotted to its completion" is the first and most famous rule, but the others (and the stories that illustrate them) are just as hilarious and dead on. Run, don't walk, to get this book, and you will be quoting and remembering it for the rest of your life.

While you're at it (and if you have a really dry, British and warped sense of humor), don't forget to check out "Gamesmanship" and "Lifemanship" by Stephen Potter.

Parkinson's Law gives, in synopsis form, an extremely practical guide to the rationales, realtime actions and quirks of human behavior that all too often manifest themselves only among the inhabitants of the business world. Parkinson's examples of boardroom behavior and decision making, or lack thereof, are extraordinarily and frighteningly accurate. I found it amazingly funny, easy to read and retain, though a bit dated given the time which has elapsed since it was originally published. On a personal note, this was one of the first books that my father gave me to read in preparation for life. Also included in my father's reading list for life were The Peter Principle, Yes, Minister, and Aristotelian Ethics. I would recommend this book, despite the time that has passed since it was originally published, to those who wish a quick primer as to what awaits them as they climb the business ladder and a few hints on how not to miss a rung.

I first received a copy of "Parkinson's Law" from a retired three-star general. Since that time, I've seen copies on the shelves of almost every powerful person I know, from professors and deans to lawyers and businesspeople. Based on this wide-spread popularity, I can safely conclude that C. Northcote Parkinson has written something that transcends his time and profession to become a true classic. He has written, in short, the definitive work on bureaucracy.

Chapter one contains the titular law, which is frequently misquoted. The actual law gives a mathematical formula for how fast an office will grow, simply by observing that every bureaucrat will demand two subordinates at certain times. Parkinson backs this up with analysis of various British government bodies. The Colonial Office, for instance, more than doubled in size even as the number of colonies was shrinking. This is a rock-solid rule, as far as I can tell, and particularly relevant to an America where we somehow spend $728 billion despite having fewer actual soldiers than at any time in the past sixty years.

Chapter three famously looks at budget meetings. The conclusion is that up to a certain point, committees will spend more time on items that cost less. Some trivially small item, such as coffee, is easily understood, so every committee member has an opinion about it. On the other hand, nobody really understands expensive items such as reactors, so nobody has much to say about them. This is a phenomenon which I've seen arising in real life time and time again.

Chapter four is perhaps the most fascinating and devastatingly accurate one in the book. The hypothesis is that whenever an organization builds a fancy new headquarters, its time is up. Parkinson offers mainly British examples, but we can see the truth of this in America. The Sears Tower went up at precisely the moment when the Sears Corporation went down. When construction began on the AOL Time Warner Center in 2000, that should have been our indication that the dot-com boom was on its last legs.

There are ten chapters in all, but I'll let you discover the delights of the later ones on your own. For sure, some chapters aren't quite so hard-hitting. Chapter two on the French Parliament may strike some as no longer relevant, while chapter nine on crime and economics in China contains some cringe-inducing racism. But on the whole, "Parkinson's Law" is a delightful little book (150 pages) that will explain while it amuses you. "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Who Moved My Cheese" may rule the bestseller lists, but C. Northcote Parkinson has the real answers for the business world.

This is timeless wisdom regarding the use of time, the wasting of time, empire building, and the misuse of ego. The book is fun to read. I have read this book several times since circa 1965; and the examples that Parkinson uses seem just as pertinent today as they did when he wrote them. If a young manager can grasp the significance of Parkinson's famous law regarding time available to complete a job and his Law describing a budget meeting, the young person will have a pithy tool for analyzing day to day work activities.

Parkinson's Law, written by C. Northcote Parkinson, is a wonderful book which explores the realities of human behavior within a bureaucracy. The author doesn't pay attention to theories or the idealized world, but instead writes about how people really function in organizations.

The title of the book is from Parkinson's statement that "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." He explains that "an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis." In contrast if all you have is five minutes to write a postcard, it takes just five minutes to write the postcard.

At a higher level this idea applies to many situations. For example people's stuff expands to fill their house and use up their income. Or in the computer world: Data expands to fill the space available for storage

Parkinson writes that it takes great discipline to fight the tendency to use up all the time available to do some job. And likewise it takes great discipline to save some of your income, or to avoid buying stuff just because you have room for it.

Parkinson has a number of other interesting observations. For example in his Law of Triviality he explains how a group of managers might spend hours on selecting a coffeepot and minutes on deciding matters of much greater importance.

I also appreciated his explanation on the effective size of a governing group. He says that the right number of people to lead an organization, like a business or a country, is about five. As the group gets larger, it takes longer and longer to get together and to agree on matters.

There are many other insightful comments on a variety of topics related to organizations. This is a great book to have teenagers read, and then to be reread every couple years. Just over a hundred pages it is a quick read, as well as being enjoyable.

If you haven't read Parkinson's Law before, I encourage you to read it this week.

In today's world of TQM and re-engineering, it is strange that most people have not read or even heard of Parkinson and his laws. A must-read for all Dilbert fans!

The Scott Adams of the 60's, C. Northcote Parkinson has "been there, done that" on every business experience that drives us all nuts -- from the boardroom to the assembly line, he captures all the business and management silliness and #@*&X that we all complain about daily. You will remember the "bicycle shed" budget story forever. This book has been on my bookshelf for 30 years -- it doesn't get old