The matters most debated in a deliberative body tend to be the minor ones where everybody understands the issues. C. Northcote Parkinson More Quotes by C. Northcote Parkinson More Quotes From C. Northcote Parkinson Delay is the deadliest form of denial. C. Northcote Parkinson denialpoliticalprocrastination The void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation. C. Northcote Parkinson voidcommunicationpoison 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. C. Northcote Parkinson agendaslawmean The vacuum created by a failure to communicate will quickly be filled with rumor, misrepresentations, drivel, and poison. C. Northcote Parkinson rumorvacuumspoison Parkinson's First Law: Work expands to fill the time available. C. Northcote Parkinson lawworkfirsts Expenditure rises to meet income. C. Northcote Parkinson expendituresincomeinspirational No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not know that there was such a law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date. C. Northcote Parkinson ignorancekingslaw The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take. C. Northcote Parkinson decisionopportunitymen Administrators make work for each other so that they can multiply the number of their subordinates and enhance their prestige. C. Northcote Parkinson administratorsprestigenumbers Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. C. Northcote Parkinson lawworknumbers Perfection of planned layout is achieved only by institutions on the point of collapse. C. Northcote Parkinson collapseinstitutionsperfection Expenditures rise to meet income. C. Northcote Parkinson expendituresincomesurvival When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body. C. Northcote Parkinson bodyorganizationreal 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. C. Northcote Parkinson initiativelife-ismen 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." C. Northcote Parkinson phrasesworkmen 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. C. Northcote Parkinson perfecttimediscovery The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom. C. Northcote Parkinson boredomprogressblessing Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich. C. Northcote Parkinson governmentusepeople If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. C. Northcote Parkinson delayimportantdecision A committee is organic rather than mechanical in its nature: it is not a structure but a plant. It takes root and grows, it flowers, wilts, and dies, scattering the seed from which other committees will bloom in their turn. C. Northcote Parkinson plantflowerroots
