The Rules of Management, 3rd Edition

RULE 35

Don’t try justifying stupid systems

I was travelling on the railway the other day (yes, there are still some of us who do) when we encountered a problem. It was fairly simple. Someone had messed with a security door at the buffet and triggered an alarm – or something. This brought the train to a standstill, probably quite rightly. But it did this in a very long tunnel. The train couldn’t move until the fault had been rectified, which involved finding the train manager (they used to be called guards, remember?) and getting him to reset the triggered alarm. All fairly simple.

I was running very late for a meeting, so asked if there wasn’t a better system – i.e. letting the buffet staff reset the alarm. The train manager spent about 20 ...