Parkinson’s Law of Buildings
"Why You May Want To Tear Down That Monument" by Jonathan David Lewis Forbes Agency Council By 1933, the precursor to the United Nations, the League of Nations, was considered largely defunct. In 1937, it moved into a lavish new headquarters called the Palace of Nations. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has struggled with an identity crisis. In 2018, it moved operations into a massive new headquarters in Belgium. In 2016, Lego celebrated its largest sales year in its history by announcing a new, state-of-the-art headquarters. The next year, sales dropped 8% and Lego announced 1,400 layoffs. What is going on? Why do organizations often build incredible structures as they decline? This strange phenomenon was actually first noted by British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson . He called the phenomenon “Parkinson’s Law of Buildings” . Parkinson’s Law states that “…a perfection of planned ...