Parkinson's Laws: Summary

As you know, ignorance of the laws does not exempt from liability, but studying them helps to make life easier, protects the business from illegal interference from the outside, protects the family from unnecessary problems, and helps save money.

And this is not only about the laws that are prescribed in the constitution of a particular state, or the laws of physics, which, when used skillfully, can also be useful on the farm. Today let's talk about the laws of Parkinson.

First, let's get acquainted with their author. Cyril Northcote Parkinson was born at the beginning of the last century in an English family. His parents were creative people: his mother gave music lessons, his father was a painter. And their son was fascinated by history in his youth. He graduated from Cambridge College, first received a master's degree, and then a Ph.D. No wonder that Cyril Parkinson was a very observant person, he traveled a lot. He shared his observations with students at lectures both in his native England and abroad.

Since 1950, for 8 years, he was a professor at the University of Malaya in Singapore. At the same time, he published his laws, collecting them in a book, which he called "The Laws of Parkinson." However, at this point some of his countrymen had already managed to get acquainted with the works of Parkinson. Initially, the chapters of his future book were published in the British journal The Economist. And there they were published in a satirical column.

There was no more humor in the laws of Parkinson than completely serious judgments on the formation of bureaucratic apparatuses, the organization of a successful business, and the creation of a successful family. There it was possible to draw up information relevant to everyone, namely: how to save on electricity, how to pay taxes to the state. As a result, by the middle of the last century, Parkinson’s book had become a real bestseller and still remains a reference book not only for executives of large companies, senior officials, but also for some housewives around the world.

In fact, Professor’s conclusions are universal for any sector of the economy and each social layer of the population. In them you can find reasoning about the growth in the number of managers and the answer to the question of why the power and money go to someone literally themselves, while others cannot succeed. To understand that the book of an Englishman is a work of all time, just familiarize yourself with its brief content. Among other things, the observant British even created a law of retirement age. On a topic that became relevant for Russians in 2018, a scientist from Britain said that any employee begins to lose his grip 3 years before reaching retirement age, no matter what this age is. But let's get acquainted with the observations that have become laws in order.

Cyril Parkinson formulated his first law as follows: the volume of any work will always increase in order to fill the time allotted for its implementation. It sounds differently as follows: work in any case will take all the time that is allocated to it. For example, if a student knows that his student should be ready by September, then in 99% of 100 cases he will finish it at best on August 31. Although, if desired, he could do it much faster. But in the vast majority of cases, a person puts off until tomorrow what can be done today. The same applies to employment.

Well, what kind of employee, knowing that his task must be completed by a certain date, will be in a hurry to complete it, unless, of course, he is promised a big bonus for it, or his last name is not Stakhanov. The same applies to officials. But there the situation develops even more paradoxically. Their number is constantly growing, according to Parkinson's observations, at least 5% per year. And this is not because their work is being increased, it’s just that in the bureaucratic apparatus with its implementation they are not only pulled to the last, but they are also trying to shift part of it to another.

Parkinson’s second law speaks of our needs and opportunities. According to the observation of the Englishman, the former never go separately from the latter. I.e the more a person earns, the more he spends. Costs always grow with revenue. Hence the well-known postulate that there is never much money. Moreover, this applies not only to the personal budget of everyone, but also to business planning. The same rule applies to the state treasury. The higher the standard of living of a population in one country or another, the higher the taxes there.

Often they are increasing in connection with the growing needs of the authorities. And this, recall, was noticed even more than half a century ago.

Parkinson’s third law reminds us of the need to sometimes say “stop”. The Englishman, having studied the experience of various companies, the great ancient civilizations, finally came to the conclusion that any development leads to complication and, as a result, “bury” what was created earlier.

You need to understand that the limit to perfection, contrary to popular belief, still exists. A rose cannot be more red than a talented breeder brought her. And the horse cannot run faster than its capabilities, even if it is run by the most magnificent rider.So a person, having created something extraordinary, sooner or later must go on to create something new, and not engage in the continuous improvement of what already causes no complaints. In general, do not rub the rug to the holes.

The same goes for business. If your business has turned from a small coffee shop into a respectable restaurant, do not try to make it a fashionable hotel. From the very beginning of running a business, you have greatly increased your worries. Remember how easy it was to manage a team of 10 people, and how difficult it is for you now.

It is not surprising that such an outstanding husband of his Fatherland, and of the whole world, had a very outstanding wife. She also contributed to the Parkinson system of human values. Her feminine look, of course, was more focused on household chores. And what conclusion she came to: according to the law that Mrs. Parkinson deduced, the warmth that appears due to one of the family members through impeccable housekeeping by him is constantly growing and overwhelming him. And he can share it exclusively with those who are more cold-blooded in this sense.

In addition to the above “basic” Parkinson’s laws, other less ambitious, in essence, but no less relevant for each person are attributed to him again, regardless of his social status, income level, religion, nationality, gender and age.

• Axiom of Delay. According to her, there is no more reliable and cunning form of refusal than a request to wait for the fulfillment of a request or requirement. You don’t want or cannot do something, but you can’t say “no”, just say that you will do it a little later. How many times has your young man put off a trip to the registry office? He knows exactly how the axiom of delay works.
• Law of a thousand. It states that any enterprise or company with a staff of 1,000 has no longer needed outside help. There you no longer need to invite a cleaning company or freelancers. Such an organization becomes self-sufficient, there is everything and everything that is necessary for doing business.
• The law of the phone. It appeared long before cellular communications became widespread and mobile handsets became not a luxury, but a means of communication. So, the law of Parkinson’s telephone says: any telephone conversation is more effective, the less time is spent on it. Remember this when you prove to your colleague for the hundredth time that he is wrong by phone. Could it be easier to sit down and discuss everything using visual examples as evidence, rather than shouting into the telephone?
• The law of scientific research. According to this law, which initially seems to be aimed at a narrow circle of citizens, successful scientific research is impossible without increasing funding, which, in turn, leads to the fact that an endless study of anything else is impossible. Cash flow will inevitably run out. But does this only work in academia? See Parkinson’s third law above.
• The law of information. It is not about a person or organization, but about technology, which, however, is gradually becoming a part of society, and in some cases, of the family. If at the time of Parkinson's cars gradually flooded everything, now we are all surrounded by cars with artificial intelligence. In some industries, they have already replaced humans. So, according to the law of information, an increase in its amount occurs in order to fill the entire memory of the medium. And the need to increase the memory of these very carriers requires the creation of new ones.

It must be remembered that the author of the above laws himself was sure that everything he saw and recorded was not so scary, sad and bad, as it seemed initially. He considered the purpose of his research not to show mankind in what "unbearable" conditions it existed, but to make us think and rise above these very laws.

It is no coincidence that Parkinson presented them in a humorous, humorous manner. therefore smile and go through life not according to the rules described above, but strictly against them.

For instance, stop spending everything that you earned - enough for you some time ago and smaller amounts. Keep control of your needs, even if your capabilities have begun to greatly exceed them. Save money on this for more rational needs.

In the meantime, rent out the “idle” apartment. Spend the funds received to buy a house on the beach. The next time you don’t have to spend money on hotel accommodation during your vacation, and the best paradise for meeting with your grandchildren in old age can hardly be imagined.

Do not delay the payment of debts and loans - the sooner you save yourself from this financial dependence, the faster your business will go uphill. Do the "nest egg". Some believe that it should be at least 20 percent of all revenues. If you think this is too much, start saving as much as you can.

The financial “airbag” will be thinner, the main thing is that it will be. But to sleep with a pillow is always more convenient than without it.

It is everyone's business to follow the advice of the English philosopher or not. He, by the way, after retiring for 33 years, lived in a cozy place on one of the Channel Islands. He wrote books, painted pictures and sailed. Perhaps it is worth following his advice. And then you, most likely, are waiting for financial well-being, happiness in family life and all the other benefits that you can only dream of as a sane and purposeful person.