The laws of the office revisited

Key Takeaways

• •

  Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion, explaining why meetings consistently occupy every minute blocked on corporate calendars.

• •

  The Peter Principle posits that employees are promoted based on success in their current roles until they reach a 'level of incompetence' where they are no longer effective.

• •

  Systemic Inefficiency in the modern office is often driven by these predictable behavioral patterns rather than individual failings, necessitating a structural rethink of productivity.

Episode Description

Live event info and tickets here. (https://tix.to/pm-book-tour)If something is going wrong in your workplace, there's probably a law that explains why. Meetings always seem long, and never end early? There’s Parkinson’s Law, which says work expands to the time allotted, or, restated: meetings will always take up all the time blocked on Outlook calendars. Is your boss bad at managing? Check the Peter Principle, which says people are promoted to their level of incompetence. A good worker does not a good manager make. And yet … here we are. Once you hear these laws, and a few others, you start to spot them everywhere. Today on the show, we picked a few of the most famous and powerful ‘laws of the office’ and tested them out on each other. Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift (https://www.planetmoneybook.com/). / Subscribe to Planet Money+ (https://n.pr/3HlREPz)Listen free: Apple Podcasts (http://n.pr/PM-digital), Spotify (https://n.pr/3gTkQlR), the NPR app (https://n.pr/3Bkb17W) or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook (https://n.pr/3h92GwS) / Instagram (https://n.pr/3FqLuws) / TikTok (https://n.pr/3sGZdrq) / Our weekly Newsletter (https://n.pr/3zrFvUB).This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone, Sarah Gonzalez, and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. Bryant Urstadt edited this show. Planet Money’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices (https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices)NPR Privacy Policy (https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy)