C. Northcote Parkinson's Parkinson's Law: A modern-day interpretation of a management classic

by Leo Gough

Overview

Cyril Northcote Parkinson's insightful book demonstrates his witty and acerbic panache for bringing to light the absurdity of every day life. Working around the premise 'work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion' Parkinson explores the realities of human behaviour within a bureaucracy. He doesn't theorise, but instead writes about how people truly function in organisations. Clever, funny and revealing, Parkinson's law is as relevant now as it was in 1958 when it was originally released. Here, Leo Gough's interpretation of Parkinson's law illustrates the timeless nature of C. Northcote Parkinson's insights by bringing them to life through modern case studies. This brilliant interpretation is an entertaining accompaniment to one of the most famous books ever written.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908189714
Publisher:	Infinite Ideas Ltd
Publication date:	06/29/2011
Series:	Infinite Success
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
Sales rank:	297,970
File size:	1 MB

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. ‘Make-work’ in action 2. Full employment 3. Committees 4. Entrepreneurial values 5. Useless activity 6. Bureaucratic growth 7. The bureaucratic incentives 8. Work expands 9. Bureaucratic malevolence 10. How schemes grow wrong 11. The trouble with recruitment 12. From loyalty ties to bureaucracy 13. Fit for purpose? 14. Lookism 15. Countries are run by the wise? 16. The endless drive to remove bias 17. The hidden job market 18. Psychological tests 19. The cautious bureaucrat 20. Is management theory a waste of time? 21. Secrets 22. Comitology 23. How to waste time at meetings 24. The meaning of fancy offices 25. Megaprojects 26. Battle of the bureaucracies 27. Injelititis at the un?   28. Breaking barriers between organisations 29. How to increase support 30. Better brainstorming 31. What’s wrong with cronyism? 32. Reforming reforms? 33. Efficiency at the nhs 34. Thrift 35. The myth of talent 36. Lying to get a job 37. Management voodoo 38. Nepotism 39. Skunk works 40. Business travel 41. When an entire country cooks the books 42. Transparency 43. Centralised planning 44. The benefits labyrinth 45. It could happen here 46. Recruitment hell 47. Bad language 48. Cutting through bureaucracy 49. Networking 50. Predicting the future 51. Indifference 52. Retirement Index

Preface

Nobody really wants more bureaucracy and red tape. Governments and multinational companies spend vast sums on trying to make their bureaucracies more efficient. Some management consultants spend their entire careers trying to cure dysfunctional administrative systems. Stock market analysts preach the need for ‘lean organisations’. Consumers complain of faceless corporations and government departments that can’t seem to perform simple tasks in a timely fashion. So, if nobody wants more bureaucracy, why does it just keep on growing? The answer is Parkinson’s Law. According to Parkinson’s Law, bureaucracies tend to expand for two main reasons: first, that bureaucrats naturally make extra work for each other, and second, that bureaucrats like to increase the number of people they are in charge of. What’s more, the growth in personnel bears no relation to the productivity of the organisation. The Law proposes that ‘Work expands to fill the time available for its completion’. In other words, in the average administrative office, everyone will always be busy, no matter how much, or how little, real work has to be done. Cyril Northcote Parkinson was an obscure professor of history at a university in Singapore when he wrote Parkinson’s Law in the late 1950s. Based on an essay he published in The Economist magazine, it appeared as a book in 1958 and became an instant bestseller worldwide. It’s a gem of a book, stylish, witty, and satirical, that cuts through all the management theory guff to show how and why bureaucracies waste time. Parkinson became a celebrity and, after a few years as visiting professor at Harvard and Berkeley, gave up teaching to become a full-time writer and lecturer. Because it was written in the 1950s, Parkinson’s book reflects the norms of the time; for example, managers and bureaucrats are generally assumed to male, and the secretaries are assumed to be female. Some of the references to racial and cultural bias may make the modern reader feel a little queasy. Nevertheless, Parkinson was ahead of his time. He would have laughed at the explosion in management theory and business schools, and at the worldwide efforts of governments to make their civil services run more like businesses – all exercises in futility, he would have said. Parkinson’s Law – A Modern-Day Interpretation of a Management Classic shows how you can apply his devastating critique of office life to analyse, and perhaps resolve, the frustrations we all experience, whether we are consumers, committee members, managers, office workers or civil servants.