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"Injelitance" Quotient. An organization in incipient decay can be recognized not only through the perfection of its architecture but also from its high "injelitance" quotient. Injelitance, says Parkinson, is "a high concentration of incompetence and jealousy" typified by "any individual who. having failed to make anything of his own department, tries constantly to interfere with other departments and gain control of the central administration." If such a man becomes boss, there soon develops "an actual competition in stupidity, people pretending to be even more brainless than they are." The only cure for such a situation, according to Parkinson, is the old Trojan Horse ploy: "An individual of merit penetrates the outer defenses . . . babbling about golf and giggling feebly, losing documents and forgetting names . . . Only when he has reached high rank does he suddenly throw off the mask . . . With shrill screams of dismay the high executives find ability right there in the midst of them."
Among other weighty matters probed by Parkinson are personnel-recruitment policies (first step: "Reject everyone over 50 or under 20 plus everyone called Murphy"); retirement problems (the aging top man must be made to retire "while still able to do the work better than anyone else" or his second in command will enter "the Age of Frustration [and] will never be fit for anything else"); and the high art of spotting key people at cocktail parties ("Their arrival will be at least half an hour after the party begins" and they will rotate about the room clockwise, shunning the walls where the "nobodies" are "deep in conversation with people they meet every week").
Burbling along in his low-decibel way, Professor Parkinson slyly camouflages the fact that there is as much truth as spoof in his pseudo-scientifically stated findings. Finally, he is as difficult to laugh off as he is easy to laugh with. Author Parkinson promises to make further researches into executive manners. One project: he would like to trace the significance of "the illegibility of signatures, the attempt being made to fix the point in a successful executive career at which the handwriting becomes meaningless even to the executive himself."