"When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout"
About this Quote
Panic, packaged as procedure: that is the joke, and the critique. Laurence J. Peter, best known for skewering workplace incompetence, turns a playground rhyme into a management manual from hell. The sing-song cadence (run in circles, scream and shout) mimics the comforting logic of a checklist, but the actions are pure entropy. It lands because it’s recognizably human and institutionally common: when stakes rise and clarity drops, people default to visible motion. Activity becomes alibi.
Peter’s intent isn’t just to mock fear; it’s to expose how fear gets laundered into “response.” The line is an x-ray of organizational life where doing something, anything, is rewarded over doing the right thing. Running in circles reads as busyness, screaming and shouting as “escalation,” “alignment,” “raising awareness.” In that subtext, panic isn’t a breakdown; it’s a performance that signals engagement while avoiding accountability. If the outcome is bad, at least everyone can say they tried very hard, very loudly.
Context matters: Peter wrote during a late-20th-century boom in bureaucracy, corporate rationalism, and managerial jargon. His humor punctures the myth that systems automatically produce competence. Under pressure, hierarchies often amplify noise, not insight, and leaders confuse urgency with strategy. The quote works because it’s almost too simple: four verbs, no adjectives, no nuance. That bluntness is the point. Peter isn’t offering advice; he’s warning you how quickly “crisis management” can degrade into theatre when no one wants to admit they don’t know what to do.
Peter’s intent isn’t just to mock fear; it’s to expose how fear gets laundered into “response.” The line is an x-ray of organizational life where doing something, anything, is rewarded over doing the right thing. Running in circles reads as busyness, screaming and shouting as “escalation,” “alignment,” “raising awareness.” In that subtext, panic isn’t a breakdown; it’s a performance that signals engagement while avoiding accountability. If the outcome is bad, at least everyone can say they tried very hard, very loudly.
Context matters: Peter wrote during a late-20th-century boom in bureaucracy, corporate rationalism, and managerial jargon. His humor punctures the myth that systems automatically produce competence. Under pressure, hierarchies often amplify noise, not insight, and leaders confuse urgency with strategy. The quote works because it’s almost too simple: four verbs, no adjectives, no nuance. That bluntness is the point. Peter isn’t offering advice; he’s warning you how quickly “crisis management” can degrade into theatre when no one wants to admit they don’t know what to do.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Laurence
Add to List
