Politburo 2.0: It Would Be Better. Parkinson's law
No wider than the nearest circle
Sergei Chemezov, the head of the Rostec corporation and a member of the Politburo 2.0, recently said in an interview with RBC that there is no Politburo 2.0. Upset. It would have been better.
Let me remind you that the communication agency Minchenko Consulting ranked Chemizov among the members of the "Politburo 2.0" - a kind of power structure that allegedly runs everything in our country. In June 2019, a report was published on the balance of power in the circle of the President of Russia. Some were brought there, others were brought out. As a result, as the agency's specialists imagined, Vladimir Putin's “inner circle”, which they called “Politburo 2.0”, in addition to the head of “Rostec” included: Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, businessman Yuri Kovalchuk, businessman Gennady Timchenko, executive director of Rosneft Igor Sechin, businessman Arkady Rotenberg. In total - 9 people. Believe it or not, in terms of quantity, this is almost ideal for making decisions. Ideally - according to the fundamental Parkinson's law. The one that allows you to calculate the Coefficient of Inefficiency (Ci). And it determines the critical threshold for the number of top officials of any country beyond which, if there are more of them, fruitful work for the good of the fatherland cannot be expected.
Mathematicians from the Medical University of Vienna - Peter Klimek, Stefan Thurner, and Rudolf Hahnel - were convinced that the law, formulated more than half a century ago, still works. Hanel), united in a "group for the study of complex systems."
Quintet - no better for the homeland
It is a sin not to quote the wisdom of the chapter “Chairmen and Committees. Or the coefficient of uselessness "from the book" Parkinson's Laws ", first published in 1958:
Promotional video:
“… The committee belongs to the kingdom of living nature - it is not a crystal, but a plant. The committee takes root, grows, blossoms, withers and dies, and other committees grow from its seed in turn.
… The roots of the committee are the deeper and the more solid it is, the more weight and power it gives to its members. Almost all over the world such committees are called cabinets."
Parkinson argued that the ideal number of cabinet ministers is five - a quintet. They are easy to assemble. Once assembled, members are able to agree, act quickly, skillfully and quietly.
Seven or nine people in the office are also very good: “… in an office of nine people, three make politics, two provide information, one reminds of finances. With a free chairman, there are seven people. The other two, apparently, are needed for beauty."
The ideal committee consists of 5 people.
The nine members of the leadership community are also capable of effective work.
But in many countries, offices have grown. And Parkinson explained why. New members entered there: “… sometimes they seem to know something else that is necessary, but more often they are just very harmful if they are not brought into the office. To calm them down, you have to constantly consult with them. As they turn on (and calm down) the number of members creeps from ten to twenty …"
But this is still acceptable. Serious complications begin when the futility rate is exceeded.
Parkinson wrote: “When there are 20 to 22 members in a cabinet, it suddenly undergoes a special chemical or organic transformation, the nature of which is not difficult to understand and describe. Five useful members meet separately and decide something. The cabinet has practically nothing to do …"
Conclusion: 21 - the critical number of members - the same Ci. Further, the work of the offices becomes ineffective.
Dangerous "point"
Austrian mathematicians borrowed from the CIA data on the number of offices in different countries. We compared their performance indicators.
The achievements of the offices were analyzed according to the methodology used for their assessments by the UN and the World Bank.
There are four main parameters for analysis:
GE (Government Effectiveness) is the effectiveness of the government as a whole: the stability of power, its ability to develop and implement plans, the quality of bureaucracy, the level of utilities, the development of education, public transport, and healthcare.
HDI (Human Delevopment Indicator) - human development index: takes into account GDP, life expectancy and standard of living, education.
PSAV (Political Stability and Absence of Violence) - an indicator of political stability and absence of violence: calculated based on the likelihood that the work of the government will be disrupted by unconstitutional methods such as a popular riot or military coup.
VA (Voice and Accountability) - democratic government and accountability to its people: it takes into account the diversity of political rights, the presence of free media, the absence of state censorship, and the transparency of government actions.
In total, mathematicians "surveyed" 197 countries - from Monaco and Liechtenstein with "ideal" governments of five people, to Sri Lanka with a gigantic apparatus of 54 cabinet members. We built the corresponding graphs that linked the indicators with the number of offices.
The graphs compiled by scientists illustrate how the performance indicators of a particular committee change depending on its size.
And in fact it turned out: the larger the office, the worse its work. With rare exceptions. The existence of a critical number - the same Ci - was also confirmed. Klimek and colleagues did not find any catastrophic “failures” in such offices. But we noticed that governments with less than 21 members have consistently above average scores.
The inconsistency in the work of the committee increases with the increase in the number of its members.
Overkill at the federal level
How many cabinet do we have? It is different. Depends on how you count.
There are 21 ministers in Russia - their very critical "point" that scared Parkinson and the mathematicians who tested him. With the word Ci. In theory, such an office can still work fruitfully. After all, the critical value has not been exceeded. Consequently, our cabinet should provide quite decent indicators - at least slightly, but above average.
You can calculate it differently: add the prime minister and ten of his deputies - deputy prime ministers. Then 32 people will be "sitting" in the office - not yet an exorbitant number, but with a clear overkill. In the sense of expectation of effective joint activities for the benefit of the country and the people.
And the heads of federal services, agencies and the state corporation are better off not adding at all. The size of such an office will become simply catastrophic - over 80 people.
Parkinson himself did not rule out a fantastic increase in the number of people involved in power. But at the same time he noticed: “It may grow up to a thousand. Never mind. The cabinet is no longer a cabinet, and its former functions are performed by another, small community."
Small community? So we have it. These are the Prime Minister and his deputies: 11 people in the cabinet - the number is very close to ideal. But there are still fewer members of the Politburo 2.0. There are 9 of them, which, according to Parkinson's law, is more useful. If such, if I may say so, a cabinet exists and really rules.
The main thing is to decide where to go.
Conclusion: in Russia, two offices are worthy of trust - a real one and an allegedly mythical one. Both are theoretically correct - in law, so to speak, referring to Parkinson's. The main thing is not to get together - 20 people is not a very good number. Almost critical.
REFERENCE
Who is Parkinson
It is believed that the author of Parkinson's laws is Parkinson himself - Cyril Northcote Parkinson - British historian, writer, playwright, who was born on July 30, 1909, died on March 9, 1993. But some researchers believe that the name is fictitious, unites several authors. Like our Kozma Prutkov.
Cyril Northcote Parkinson is the most likely author of Parkinson's laws.
Parkinson's laws
Parkinson's Laws are collected in a book of the same name - Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress. Here are some of them - probably familiar to many:
If there is a way to delay making an important decision, a true bureaucrat will definitely find it.
Delay is the surest form of failure.
The institution, which employs over a thousand employees, creates so much internal work that it does not need contact with the outside world.
The amount of work of officials increases to the extent that it is necessary to take up the time allocated for its implementation.
The effectiveness of a telephone conversation is inversely proportional to the time spent on it.
People are not inclined to forgive those whom they have harmed, and even a person whose good advice they have neglected is hardly tolerated.
Some put Parkinson on the same shelf as Freud.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY