Still the Frontier of Research into Real-World Bureaucracies

C. Northcote Parkinson (1957), Parkinson's Law, and Other Studies in Administration (Cambridge: Riverside Press: 1568490151).

I have been rereading Parkinson's Law. Once again, I am very impressed. Quite possibly the best--the very best--the absolute best serious scholarly study of bureaucracies and their functioning ever written.

A few of the absolutely choice bits:

p. 2: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.... Granted that work (and especially paperwork) is thus elastic in its demands on time, it is manifest that there need be little or no relationship between the work to be done and the size of the staff to which it may be assigned. A lack of real activity does not, of necessity, result in leisure. A lack of occupation is not necessarily revealed by a manifest idleness..."

pp. 5-6: "Seven officials are now doing what one did before.... [T]hese seven make so much work for each other that all are fully occupied, and A is actually working harder than ever. An incoming document... [o]ffical E decides that it falls within the province of F, who places a draft reply before C, who amends it drastically before consulting D, who asks G to deal with it. But G goes on leave at this point, handing the file over to H, who drafts a minute that is signed by D and returned to C, who revises his draft accordingly and lays the new version before A. What does A do? He would have every excuse for signing the thing unread, for he has many other matters on his mind. Knowing now tha the is to succeed W next year, he has to decide whether C or D should succeed to his own office. He had to agree to G's going on leave even if not yet strictly entitled to it. He is worried whether H should not have gone instead, for reasons of health. He has looked pale recently--partly but not solely because of his special troubles. Then there is the business of F's special increment of salary for the period of conference and E's application for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions. A has heard that D is in love with a married typist and that G and F are no longer on speaking terms--no one seems to know why. So A might be tempted to sign C's drarft and have done with it. But A is a conscientious man. Beset as he is with problems created by his colleagues for themselves and for him--created by the mere fact of these officials' existence--he is not the man to shirk his duty. He reads through the draft with care, deletes the fussy paragraphs added by C and H, and restores the thing back to the form preferred in the first instance by the able (if quarrelsome) F. He corrects the English--none of these young men can write grammatically--and finally produces the same reply he would have written if officials C through H had never been born. Far more people have taken far longer to produce the same result. No one has been idle. All have done their best. And it is late in the evening before A finally quits his office..."

p. 17: "...the center block is all important. This bloc essentially comprises the following elements: a. Those who have failed to master any one of the memoranda written in advance and showered weeks before on all those who are expected to be present. b. Those who are too stupid to follow the proceedings.... c. Those who are deaf.... d. Those who were dead drunk in the small hours.... e. The senile.... f. The feeble, who have weakly promised to support both sides..."

p. 34: "When first examined... the cabinet council usually appears... to consist... of five. With that number the plant is viable, allowing for two members to be absent or sick.... Five members are easy to collect and, when collected, can act with competence, secrecy, and speed. Of these original members four may well be versed, respectively, in finance, foreign policy, defense, and law. The fifth, who has failed to master any of these subjects, usually becomes the chairman or prime minister..."

p. 50: "Since it is impracticable to decide whether one man is better in geology than another man in physics, it is at least convenient to be able to rule them both out as useless. When all candidates allike have to write Greek or Latin verse, it is relatively easy to decide which verse is the best.... While it would be totally wrong to describe this system as a failure.... There was no guarantee, to begin with, that th eman with the highest marks might not turn out to be off his head.... Then again the writing of Greek verse might prove to be the sole accomplishment that some candidates had.... On accasion, a successful applicant may even have been impersonated at the examination by someone else, subsequently proving unable to write Greek verse when the occasion arose..."

p. 56: "An administration equipped with movie cameras, television apparatus, radio networks, and X-ray machines would not appear to be in a worse (or better) position than one employing magic wands, crystal balls, wishing wells, and cloaks of invisibility..."

p. 81: "He dare not say, 'Mr. Asterisk is too able', so he says, 'Asterisk? Clever perhaps--but is he sound? I incline to prefer Mr. Cypher'. He dare not say, 'Mr. Asterisk makes me feel small', so he says, 'Mr. Cypher appears to me to have the better judgment'. Judgment is an interesting word that signifies in this context the opposite of intelligence; it means, in fact, doing what was done last time. So Mr. Cypher is promoted and Mr. Asterisk goes elsewhere.... If the head of the organization is second-rate, he will see to it that his immediate staff are all third-rate; and they will, in turn, see ot it that their subordinates are fourth-rate. There will soon be an actual competition in stupidity, people pretending to be even more brainless than they are..."

C. Northcote Parkinson (1957), Parkinson's Law, and Other Studies in Administration (Cambridge: Riverside Press).

p. 2: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.... Granted that work (and especially paperwork) is thus elastic in its demands on time, it is manifest that there need be little or no relationship between the work to be done and the size of the staff to which it may be assigned. A lack of real activity does not, of necessity, result in leisure. A lack of occupation is not necessarily revealed by a manifest idleness..."

pp. 5-6: "Seven officials are now doing what one did before.... [T]hese seven make so much work for each other that all are fully occupied, and A is actually working harder than ever. An incoming document... [o]ffical E decides that it falls within the province of F, who places a draft reply before C, who amends it drastically before consulting D, who asks G to deal with it. But G goes on leave at this point, handing the file over to H, who drafts a minute that is signed by D and returned to C, who revises his draft accordingly and lays the new version before A. What does A do? He would have every excuse for signing the thing unread, for he has many other matters on his mind. Knowing now that he is to succeed W next year, he has to decide whether C or D should succeed to his own office. He had to agree to G's going on leave even if not yet strictly entitled to it. He is worried whether H should not have gone instead, for reasons of health. He has looked pale recently--partly but not solely because of his special troubles. Then there is the business of F's special increment of salary for the period of conference and E's application for transfer to the Ministry of Pensions. A has heard that D is in love with a married typist and that G and F are no longer on speaking terms--no one seems to know why. So A might be tempted to sign C's draft and have done with it. But A is a conscientious man. Beset as he is with problems created by his colleagues for themselves and for him--created by the mere fact of these officials' existence--he is not the man to shirk his duty. He reads through the draft with care, deletes the fussy paragraphs added by C and H, and restores the thing back to the form preferred in the first instance by the able (if quarrelsome) F. He corrects the English--none of these young men can write grammatically--and finally produces the same reply he would have written if officials C through H had never been born. Far more people have taken far longer to produce the same result. No one has been idle. All have done their best. And it is late in the evening before A finally quits his office..."

p. 17: "...the center block is all important. This bloc essentially comprises the following elements: a. Those who have failed to master any one of the memoranda written in advance and showered weeks before on all those who are expected to be present. b. Those who are too stupid to follow the proceedings.... c. Those who are deaf.... d. Those who were dead drunk in the small hours.... e. The senile.... f. The feeble, who have weakly promised to support both sides..."

p. 34: "When first examined... the cabinet council usually appears... to consist... of five. With that number the plant is viable, allowing for two members to be absent or sick.... Five members are easy to collect and, when collected, can act with competence, secrecy, and speed. Of these original members four may well be versed, respectively, in finance, foreign policy, defense, and law. The fifth, who has failed to master any of these subjects, usually becomes the chairman or prime minister..."

p. 50: "Since it is impracticable to decide whether one man is better in geology than another man in physics, it is at least convenient to be able to rule them both out as useless. When all candidates alike have to write Greek or Latin verse, it is relatively easy to decide which verse is the best.... While it would be totally wrong to describe this system as a failure.... There was no guarantee, to begin with, that the man with the highest marks might not turn out to be off his head.... Then again the writing of Greek verse might prove to be the sole accomplishment that some candidates had.... On occasion, a successful applicant may even have been impersonated at the examination by someone else, subsequently proving unable to write Greek verse when the occasion arose..."

p. 56: "An administration equipped with movie cameras, television apparatus, radio networks, and X-ray machines would not appear to be in a worse (or better) position than one employing magic wands, crystal balls, wishing wells, and cloaks of invisibility..."

p. 81: "He dare not say, 'Mr. Asterisk is too able', so he says, 'Asterisk? Clever perhaps--but is he sound? I incline to prefer Mr. Cypher'. He dare not say, 'Mr. Asterisk makes me feel small', so he says, 'Mr. Cypher appears to me to have the better judgment'. Judgment is an interesting word that signifies in this context the opposite of intelligence; it means, in fact, doing what was done last time. So Mr. Cypher is promoted and Mr. Asterisk goes elsewhere.... If the head of the organization is second-rate, he will see to it that his immediate staff are all third-rate; and they will, in turn, see to it that their subordinates are fourth-rate. There will soon be an actual competition in stupidity, people pretending to be even more brainless than they are..."

Posted by DeLong at July 02, 2002 02:04 PM | Trackback