"In England it is thought well to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others." - Voltaire, (commenting on the case of court-martialed Admiral John Byng, who, having failed to prevent the French fleet from taking Minorca, was executed by firing squad on the deck of his flagship).
Among the sentences that have been most useful in my life, right up there with "No, I don't know who put that there," is the magnificent insight known as Parkinson's Law, which goes: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
That line first appeared in an essay in 1955, but it also was the opening sentence of C. Northcote Parkinson's book "Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress," published in 1958. Parkinson was a naval historian who became an expert on bureaucracy.
He observed, for instance, that between 1914 and 1928, the number of British warships had declined from 62 to 20, while the number of Admiralty officials increased from 2,000 to nearly 3,600. This led him to a two-part explanation: "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals," and "Officials make work for each other."
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Thus, someone who feels overworked would not ask for a second person at the same level (a potential rival), but for a pair of subordinates. Having subordinates is, itself, a lot of work, and so it isn't long till we have three people doing what was formerly done by one, all feeling pressured and in need of assistance.
Now, more than five decades after Parkinson penned his law, we can still see it in action, but these days in reverse, with staffs shrinking rather than expanding.
Executives cut staffing and the work still gets done, and gets done in the time available for its completion. Employees complain - but then, employees have always complained. But here's the relevant issue: Where does it end?
I suppose the Reverse Law would go something like, "Work is compressed till employees reach the shrug-point."
The shrug-point would be where employees are so exhausted that they no longer care about new directives, saying: "You can up the quota or change the deadline, but it doesn't matter, we're doing all we can. If you don't like it, you can fire me, but that will only slow things down more." And the manager knows it's true.
Parkinson also made this Zippo of an observation: "The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take. He becomes fussy about filing ... and is apt to use two or three different-colored inks."
Dale Dauten is co-founder of AgreementHouse.com, a company that resolves business disputes. Contact him at daledauten.com