

Ask HN: Any exceptions or antidotes to Parkinson's Law? - kristianp

I have read about parkinson's law and have seen it in effect at the medium-sized business where I work.  We seem to hire similar numbers of managers as 'front-line' people, if not more.  Apart from lay-offs, are there any ways to avoid this arguably unnecessary increase in bureaucracy?
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pbhjpbhj
Get the company to agree a common uniform wage across all workers. Put
managers on lower wages that front-liners : my then civil service boss was the
first one that showed this idea to me, that you shouldn't necessarily pay
managers higher wages than workers.

In a coal mine, say, the guys downstairs at the [actual] coal-face are
arguably working harder and at greater risk than the guy in the office that
administrates the shift changes, etc..

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yannis
From Parkinson himself!

Organizations can be cured of injelititis spontaneously, when an individual
conditioned to hide his intelligence penetrates to the top post and "suddenly
throws off the mask and appears like the demon king among a crowd of pantomime
fairies."

Well, this appears to me that the only way to get rid of the problem is to
'play stupid' until you are the CEO!

