Augustine's Laws

Book excerpt: Such landmark books as "The Peter Principle, Parkinson's Law", and "Up the Organization" have had an indelible effect on the management culture of our time through their acute visions of the tangles and paradoxes of modern business. To that short list must now be added "Augustine's Laws"--A classic of the genre, a brilliant (and ruefully hilarious) book on the looking-glass world of business management and organizational misbehavior. it offers its readers multiple shocks of recognition and priceless insights into how things might be better run. The fifty-two "Augustine's Laws" set forth here cover every area of business. Each law formulates a home truth about business life that, once pointed out, is impossible to forget or ignore. Each law is imbedded in a literate, droll, quotation-laden text, whose contrapuntal humor brings into sharp focus all the knotty complexities a manager is ever likely to face. As a bonus, readers can also follow, law by law, the cautionary saga of the Daedalus Model Airplane Company, a concern founded in unfounded optimism by two business school graduates, and headed straight for oblivion -but not before every disastrous mistake known to managerial life is made.