Northcote Parkinson Quotes
The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation.
The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.
The Law of Triviality... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.
Administrators make work for each other so that they can multiply the number of their subordinates and enhance their prestige.
The vacuum created by a failure to communicate will quickly be filled with rumor, misrepresentations, drivel, and poison.
Perfection of planned layout is achieved only by institutions on the point of collapse.
Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.
When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body.
The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase "It is the busiest man who has time to spare."
The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.
Imagination is essential and it comes first, for without imagination we are aimless.
Perfection of planning is a symptom of decay. During a period of exciting discovery or progress, there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters.
If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich.
Deliberative bodies become decreasingly effective after they pass five to eight members.
It is now well known, however, that men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.
In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.
The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues.
The nice thing about standards is, there are so many to choose from. Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
In the foundation and development of a successful enterprise there must be a single-minded pursuit of financial profit.
A committee grows organically, flourishes and blossoms, sunlit on top and shady beneath, until it dies, scattering the seeds from which other committees will spring.
The mind reels at the multiplication of books intended to justify the author's promotion from assistant to associate professor.
It might be termed the Law of Triviality. Briefly stated it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in adverse proportion to the sum involved.