Following a reference to the Law propounded by Professor C Northcote Parkinson of Manchester University in the 1950's, and the subsequent request by, was it Bovey Farmer, for me to open up a new thread; well here it is!

Parkinson's Law is that "Work expands in proportion to time available for its completion."  In other words the human being will generate increasing volumes of work the longer you allow for that work to be completed. Parkinson's mind was first drawn to the notion when he was studying the numbers of Admirals and Staff Officers employed by the armed services during the fifties. He noticed that by 1954 there were more Admirals than there were ships and that this was some forty times greater than the number of Admirals per ship during the time of Nelson. As his research took him further into government bureaucracy he discovered that every single department  was structured as a pyramid and that the every pyramid was growing in inverse proportion to either the importance or numbers of front line public sector civil servants.

He noticed this tendancy in the NHS. Armed Services, Foreign Office (where more and more bureaucrats where being employed as the Empire shrank) By the time of 1964 there were fourteen times more foreign office officials than there were at the height of the British Empire. Professor Parkinson then wondered why it should be that the number of bureaucrats was expanding and observed the processes by which expansion occured.

He noticed that when one person was employed, that person, contrary to popular belief, threw themselves into work with vigour and worked very long hours. So enthusiastic was that new bureaucrat to succeed that he/she took on more and more work to such an extent that their bosses soon realised that they were overburdened and needed an assistant. It did not matter whether the employee's work was necessary or effective, the sheer volume was such that an assistant was necessary. So an assistant was hired. However, the first employee now percieved himself as under threat from the second employee who 'might' be seen as a rival and so a second assistant was required to balance the threat.

According to Parkinson these two new employees now repeat the process and so the Pyramid grows both in footprint and in height.

Parkinson then wondered why the original bureaucrat should feel the need to work so hard that his bosses decided that assistants were necessary. He concluded that the reason was based in an underlying sense that their work was unecessary and so they worked hard in an attempt to anaesthetise their own feelings of doubt. They receive the backing of their bosses when they ask for assistants, because the bosses too have the same doubts as to their own usefulness and they believe that the bigger the department the more important and necessary they themselves are. (This is the same basic syndrome that causes the herrings to shoal at the advance of the dolphins and the sheep to gather at the approach of dogs)

Those of us who have worked in large organisations, private or public will have seen the operation of Parkinson's Law, indeed even the Church of England is not immune to it. There are now more Bishops that there were during the churches heyday.

The above piece was written entirely from memory, but Parkinson wrote a number of works which were extremely popular in the fiftties and sixties, indeed many were published in Penguin paper backs.  He had a lovely turn of phrase and the impact of his thinking has informed my own approach to management throughout my working life. Another of his works was The Law  and the Profits.

Thank you Peter. As an ex Ministry man l understand the pyramid idea, mainly, l thought, because more staff meant a movement up the pay scale for the manager.

But l can see Parkinson's argument and have to agree with it.

The reverse is now due to happen, the front line staff will be made redundant, but the managers will remain, as they have to organise the depleated numbers of workers as efficently as possible. That of course involves lots of meetings and memo's, and staff to ease the admin, of all the meetings.

Sometimes l wish l was Prime Minister !!! 

Another useful factor to bear in mind in these situations is The Peter Principle.  This states that in a hierarchical organisation everyone will be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.  In other words. if you are good at your job you stand the chance of promotion.  You may keep being promoted until you get a position in which you no longer shine, ie. are not very competent.  The effect of the principle being that ultimately all the management positions in an organisation will be held by incompetents until they retire.

I think a lot depends on the shape of the Pyramid. Parkinson's example of 1 person supervising two is an extremely sharp pointed one, whilst a trend begun a couple of decades later where very flat pyramids are the shape of the organisation is not a good idea either. As an example, I was once the number 2 in a department of a newly amalgamated organisation of maybe 200 office staff - the No1 was temporary, awaiting a favourable retirement, with the CEO above him. The next level below me was a flat 11 secretarial staff who all reported directly to me. Have you ever tried to single-handedly keep 11 competent secretaries gainfully employed? The Board could not understand why I wanted one, preferably two assistants, to keep these ladies employed. They could not understand why I refused a substantial salary increase instead and resigned. There is no ideal number of people to supervise, it all depends on the work involved.

The major problem in any organsation though is one to which I drew attention in my "What I would do list" for the Charlie Flindt thread. The human desire to create an Empire on which the sun will never set, and this automatically leads to Jacobus' well put point that everybody has an ability limit, but virtually nobody knows what even their own limit is and so they end up being promoted beyond that limit. I have seen it happen many times. Personally I like being the Boss, but on reflection consider I was probably best suited to being Number 2 and staying in the back office rather than being a higher profile front man.