When Peter Harrigan learned that Lockheed Corp., his employer for a dozen years, would merge with Martin Marietta Corp., the first thing he did was go to the nearest bookstore.
The 44-year old corporate communication official at Lockheed's headquarters in Calabasas, Calif., was worried what his new boss would be like.
But Mr. Harrigan, like thousands of others like him, didn't have to rely on the rumor mill. Instead, he was able to get a fairly complete picture of what makes his future CEO tick by thumbing through a 367-page book.
The book, "Augustine's Laws," was written by Norman R. Augustine, the former Pentagon official who now heads Bethesda-based Martin Marietta and is the designated to head the new Lockheed Martin Corp. next year.
What these curious new employees find is a biting, yet funny look at the world of business management -- and mismanagement -- and how companies big and small can learn from the mistakes of others.
"I wanted more insight into Norm Augustine," Mr. Harrigan said. "I learned he has a good sense of humor and he's a better writer than I would have imagined. He provides an entertaining description of what this business [defense and aerospace] is all about, how it works and how it doesn't work."
The catalog of principles reflects not only Mr. Augustine's sense of humor, but also his thinking on serious topics such as the spiraling cost of military equipment, bureaucracies, the growth of government, and the consequences of poor communications, which he thinks can be the difference between a company surviving or drifting off into oblivion.
Middle managers, for instance, may shake with laughter or quake with fear when they read Law No. 11, which discusses how much time is wasted in meetings and thus reduces productivity:
If the Earth could be made to rotate twice as fast, managers would get twice as much done. If the Earth could be made to rotate twenty times as fast, everyone else would get twice as much done since all the managers would fly off.
The book is drawn from Mr. Augustine's own experiences during nearly 40 years in business and government -- a period that spans his days as a $1.69-an-hour roofer to his involvement in building a spacecraft to fly to Mars. In the 12 years since it was first published, time has not eroded the book's impact nor its popularity.
CBS correspondent Leslie Stahl once saw it in the Oval Office on the desk of President Bush, leading to speculation that Mr. Augustine would be named defense secretary.
It has been quoted in such publications as Atlantic Monthly, Fortune, Time and even National Geographic.
The Wall Street Journal observed, "Augustine's Laws have an underlying authenticity that is sometimes frightening. . . . One finishes the book alternately chuckling at the author's wit and mentally shivering at the possibility that many of these well-documented laws are true."
Although the book is currently out of print, Martin Marietta recently paid for a press run of several thousand copies to fill a flurry of requests from new employees, including those from General Electric Co.'s aerospace division and General Dynamics Corp.'s rocket business, which Martin Marietta acquired in rapid succession.
Mr. Augustine begins the book with a Yogi Berra quote: "You can see a lot by observing." He then sums up much of what he has observed in 52 "laws."
Though the author is one the nation's top defense and aerospace executives, he doesn't spare his own industry.
Ever since the Wright brothers ushered in the aviation age more than 90 years ago, Mr. Augustine notes, the cost of building airplanes has gone through the clouds, rising by a factor of four every 10 years, mainly because of new technology that keeps making fighter planes more sophisticated.
Thus, we have Law No. 16, which Mr. Augustine ruefully refers to as either the "First law of impending doom" or the "Final law of economic disarmament":
In the year 2054, which is within the lifetimes of people alive today, the entire national defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. The aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy three and a half days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.
"Augustine's Laws" draws upon the insight of others. For instance, there are three references to William Shakespeare, four to Winston Churchill and eight quotes by Mr. Berra. Mr. Augustine says of the former catcher for the New York Yankees: "He, without question, is my favorite philosopher. . . . How can you not revere a man who once said to a switch hitter, 'I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous?' "
When Mr. Berra says, "It isn't over till it's over," everyone knows what he means. That's not always the case with many people in government and industry who, according to Mr. Augustine, can speak entire paragraphs and be totally incomprehensible.
The widespread use of acronyms, he says, creates nearly insurmountable barriers to the communication that is as essential to business success as having a product to sell.
Mr. Augustine uses this example from an Air Force document: "The HQ USAR/RD sends the draft MENS through SAF/ALR to OUSDRE for OSAF, OSD, and DIA, and OJCS staff level comment." Such gobbledygook produced Law No. 9, or "Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent possible to make trivial ideas profound."
Another principle -- Law No. 32 -- warns against the use of consultants to solve business problems. Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold -- your problems into their gold.
A consultant, according to the book, "is an individual handsomely paid for telling senior management of problems about which senior management's own employees have told the consultant. . . . The consultant thus offers the advantage of generally having had no first-hand experience in the matters of interest, thereby assuring a clear mind uncluttered by any of the facts."
Mr. Augustine even takes a few shots at himself. For instance, he tells of a letter he received from Laurence Peter of "The Peter Principle" fame shortly after "Augustine's Laws" was published. "He said I had undermined his entire life's work. . . I have risen not one but two levels above my level of competence."
"Augustine's Laws" was first published in 1983, after being written as Mr. Augustine recovered from appendicitis. It started out as a collection of vignettes prepared for speeches and articles on management. At the encouragement of Mr. Augustine's daughter, they were turned into a book. It was expanded and revised in 1986 and has been translated into German and Japanese.
A third edition could be on the way. "There are some new laws that I'm working on," Mr. Augustine said. "One of them is that tornadoes are caused by trailer parks. I have a fair amount of evidence to prove that."
What does he mean?
"When you try to figure out what can go wrong with a business, you ought to sit down and look at where the trailer parks are. That's where the tornadoes will hit."
SOME OF AUGUSTINE'S LAWS
* The optimum committee has no members.
* Most projects start out slowly - and then sort of taper off.
* If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was.
* If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to.
* A hungry dog hunts best. A hungier dog hunts even better.