Life & Wisdom Quote by Laurence J. Peter

A neat little grenade tossed into the middle of bureaucratic self-importance, this line captures Laurence J. Peter at his most deadpan: the modern organization doesn’t just delegate work, it delegates the appearance of work. The joke lands because it inverts the supposed purpose of committees. Committees exist to divide labor and concentrate expertise; Peter suggests they’ve metastasized into status machines so bloated that actual labor has to be shunted into a lower caste just to keep the whole ritual functioning.

The specific intent is satirical but diagnostic. Peter isn’t merely mocking meetings; he’s mapping how institutions protect themselves. A committee confers legitimacy, spreads responsibility thin, and makes decisions feel “collective” even when no one is truly accountable. The subcommittee, then, becomes a backstage crew hired to keep the stage show running. The important people get the agenda, the minutes, and the optics; the less important people get the homework.

Context matters: Peter, best known for the Peter Principle, wrote in an era when postwar corporate and government structures were expanding, professional management was becoming a culture, and “process” increasingly substituted for outcomes. His line anticipates our own workplace theater: endless stakeholder syncs, task forces, steering committees, and working groups that exist largely to reassure everyone that something is being governed.

The wit is in the ruthless economy. “So important” is doing double duty: it’s praise on the surface, indictment underneath. If you need a committee to manage your committee, Peter implies, you’re not managing anything at all. You’re just managing yourselves.