Parkinson’s Law and Board Growth

Back in the 1950s, you remember those don’t you, C. Northcoate Parkinson wrote an essay and then a book where he asserted that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

He later applied this to bureaucracies, where he noted that “the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done.”

These assertions have been found to be so universally true that they have been elevated by many to the level of a natural law.

Then John Murray applied this to committees, cabinets, and, by modern extension, to governing boards.


The principle is this: Any governing body, with real decision-making power, will be pressured to include representatives of more and more stakeholder groups.

Once the group reaches ≈20 members, it becomes inefficient and unwieldy. A new inner circle is formed to exercise real power.


That inner circle will find itself under the same pressures to expand.276px-King_Arthur_and_the_Knights_of_the_Round_Table

C. S. Lewis spoke of the inner ring in 1944.

There is always an inner ring, smaller than yours.

Nor is it even a formally organised secret society with officers and rules which you would be told after you had been admitted. You are never formally and explicitly admitted by anyone. You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it; and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it.

There are what correspond to passwords, but they are too spontaneous and informal. A particular slang, the use of particular nicknames, an allusive manner of conversation, are the marks. But it is not so constant. It is not easy, even at a given moment, to say who is inside and who is outside. Some people are obviously in and some are obviously out, but there are always several on the borderline. And if you come back to the same Divisional Headquarters, or Brigade Headquarters, or the same regiment or even the same company, after six weeks absence, you may find this secondary hierarchy quite altered.

There are no formal admissions or expulsions. People think they are in it after they have in fact been pushed out of it, or before they have been allowed in: this provides great amusement for those who are really inside. It has no fixed name. The only certain rule is that the insiders and outsiders call it by different names. From inside it may be designated, in simple cases, by mere enumeration: it may be called “You and Tony and me.” When is very secure and comparatively stable in membership it calls itself “we.” When it has to be expanded to meet a particular emergency it calls itself “all the sensible people at this place.” From outside, if you have dispaired of getting into it, you call it “That gang” or “they” or “So-and-so and his set” or “The Caucus” or “The Inner Ring.” If you are candidate for admission you probably don’t call it anything. To discuss it with the other outsiders would make you feel outside yourself. And to mention talking to the man who is inside, and who may help you if this present conversation goes well, would be madness.

This even effected Jesus.

He had His 500, whom he taught in public. Then He sent out the 72. Then He taught the 12 disciples in private. Then he brought the three (Peter, James, and John) to the transfiguration. And He loved John the most.

Larger groups always spawn inner rings, where the real action is and where decisions are made.

I know of a congregation that had a small Deacon Board. It had a Chairman, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and the Pastor. As the congregation grew, they added deacons for each ministry: children, youth, young adults, middle adults, mature adults, local outreach, global outreach, men, women, worship. Then they added deacons for stewardship, facility, and property. Then they added the staff business manager to the meeting.

This brought them very close to the magic 20 members, where no real work could be done in a board meeting.

So the work shifted to the staff.

Then the individual associate pastors, one for each ministry, would be invited to the meetings, since they had all the knowledge of how things worked.

That added 10 more. All effective work ceased. Completely. Nada. Nothing.

So a smaller committee of 5 was formed to create the agenda and bring completed staff work to the board meetings. See the post on The Corporate Model.

There was even an inner loop of two within this committee. No formality. No minutes. No agenda. Just lunch once every month or so.