Wisdom by Parkinson
13 pieces of wisdom
“An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.”
“Officials make work for each other.”
“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion; the thing to be done swells in perceived importance and complexity in a direct ratio with the time to be spent in its completion.”
“Expenditures rise to meet income.”
“Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.”
“The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.”
“If there is a way to delay an important decision the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.”
“The progress of science varies inversely with the number of journals published.”
“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.”
“Successful research attracts the bigger grant which makes further research impossible.”
“The effectiveness of a telephone conversation is in inverse proportion to the time spent on it.”
“An enterprise employing more than 1000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world.”
“It is the essence of grantsmanship to persuade the Foundation executives that it was THEY who suggested the research project and that you were a belated convert, agreeing reluctantly to all they had proposed.”