This is the latest branch of Management Science (I have just invented it). Forget the company car and the share options, power dressing and the mobile phone. There are clear indications in any building, from the foyer to the executive rest-room, which will demonstrate quite empirically where an individual or organisation stands in the pecking order. The traditional measure was always the length of carpet or the size of the desk. Nowadays, with everyone going on training courses whenever they get the chance and with TV series written for morons and furnished by megastores, a whole range of styles is within range of even the meanest company or the executive at the foot of the ladder. Ergo the need for far more subtle indicators than simply noting the size of executive share options or the inverse ratio between company profit and the chairman's salary. You need to analyse items such as the type of bikkies served with tea. Plain biscuits could indicate a firm manly style, especially in the more traditional City firms. Shortbread suggests the firm has the word "Dunedin", "Cheviot" or "Lammermuir" in its range of products. Digestives simply indicate that the MD is being henpecked about his waistline. Custard creams in the top drawer will indicate that he is being henpecked by his wife, crumbs in the executive washroom show it's his secretary. Chocolate digestives serve to demonstrate that share options are likely to be on the agenda. Chokky bikkies in silver paper means that it must be that start-up costs are being underpinned with enterprise funding.

At this afternoon's meeting of the great and the good I observed that there were three plates of fairly ordinary biscuits: one had a chocolate digestive on top, one a jammy dodger and one a cream wafer in a silver wrapper. This is a cunning blend of the luxurious with the penurious and suggests that papers had been circulated to someone in Finance, the expectation being that he wouldn't turn up.

I can now reveal (after many years' research and a mouthful of fillings) the Great Biscuit Hierarchy. With it you will never do your estimates again before tea and (like me) you will have a cell in LOTUS to work in the Biscuit Co-efficient (before adding VAT please...) Companies will fall into the following categories:

Grade A: At Least Two Biscuits per Plate Wrapped in Shiny Paper.

This firm is confident in its own future and dividends should be promising. In a potential Grade A situation, the biscuit pecking order must be observed. Hence the strict obligation on the visitor not to accept one of the biscuits in shiny paper as this would destroy vital evidence.

Grade B: Nice Quality Biscuits, But Only One Type.

The management team is self-confident but lacks imagination.

Grade C: Nondescript Biscuits with a Jammy Dodger in the Middle.

Probably a firm which was subject to a management buyout in the last eighteen months and there has been a collective realisation that it is harder to make money now they are on their own than they thought when they were all on salaries and fringe benefits. They are still aware of image and someone has been on a marketing course. (Either that, or the MD's wife used to be in catering).

Grade D: One Small Catering Pack per Head.

You must be working for charity or a new university. A totally false economy, as everyone stuffs their pockets with them at the end of the meeting.

There are other indicative factors that are worth noting: Anyone who drinks tea without offering any to the visitor, for example, pays a 10% increase in office overhead charges if the contract goes through. This will rise to 15% if the client answers the phone while you are talking and says loudly that they will be free in five to ten minutes.

This is a theory I have been working on for a long time, and I find it quite infallible. I can now reveal the full workings of the system:

Hidden Hierarchies

Do not waste your money on market research or company surveys. All you need (based on many years' observation) is to apply Connell's Laws of Catering Hierarchies and their respective corollaries and caveats. This does not require special training - simply a fair amount of native wit mixed with low cunning. (The ability to read upside down is also useful, and is a common skill, I believe, among civil servants.)

Connell's Law of Biscuit Hierarchies

That the biscuits served at meetings reveal more about the company than last year's audit. The formula:

1. Count the number of biscuits on the plate
2. Multiply by a weighting factor - 0.5 for dry biscuits, 0.75 for digestives, 1.5 for chocolate digestives
3. Divide by number of people present
4. Add the length of the tea break plus the time the biscuits are actually left on the table
5. Then look at the cups - plastic x 0.25, canteen china x 0.5, own set x 1.5, stole from the Hilton x 2.5
6. And the spoons - new plastic out of a polythene bag x 0.5, old plastic x 0.25, old plastic with coffee stains on x 0.25, own stainless steel x 0.75, hotel crested (various) x 1.

Caveats

If the quality of biscuit is out of line with the quality of the decor then they are either on a rare winning streak, or somebody's sister works at Sainsbury's.

If the secretary comes in the moment the meeting starts and removes the plate of biscuits then the firm is on the point of bankruptcy.

Connell's First Biscuit Corollary

Who takes what and at what speed is a clear indicator of the willingness of committee members to work together and may be linked directly to the outcome of the meeting. "Does anyone mind if I have the chocolate one?" suggests barometric pressure of at least 1100 millibars and light airs from the suth'ard. "Oh, I can't resist custard creams," suggests the mercury is standing at around 900 millibars, and a fresh blow is possible. This may be no more than courtesy, it may even prove to be a quiet attempt to dominate the meeting, and could just be a frank and genuine confession, although this is unlikely if bankers are present. Hogging all the biscuits, keeping the plate up at one end of the table or eating two fancy biscuits one after the other are a sure sign of squalls ahead. This could be an indication of a lone maverick (did they ever check if Lee Harvey Oswald had cookies about his person when apprehended?) But if one committee member passes the plate to a confederate and they have the smart biscuits between them, then batten down the hatches for some real rough weather.

Connell’s Second Biscuit Corollary

A new variant emerged recently during some serious fieldwork top quality chokky digestives were placed (in a twee little wickerwork basket covered in cling film would you credit) right in the middle of an enormous table. No one could reach unobtrusively, let alone furtively, and there was no clear lead from the chair. So there they remained, to be carried off swiftly (and in triumph) by the committee clerk a few seconds after AoB was called, for the ladies of the typing pool. I hope they enjoyed them. Or perhaps they are made of plaster of paris (the chokky digestives, not the ladies of the typing pool), and only brought out on special occasions, like Jeremy Bentham at University College London. JB of course directed that upon his death he should be dressed in his favourite suit of clothes, including his hat, and embalmed. (On balance I suspect he had to be embalmed and then dressed, but I prefer not to dwell on the matter.) Be that as it may, he sits in his glass-fronted cabinet to this day at UCL and, as he wished, is still present at committee meetings and special occasions, like student registration in Freshers’ Week. The minutes usually record that Mr Bentham was present but did not vote. But I digress.

Connell’s Danish Pastry Corollary

A firm eager to please may up the stakes by putting Danish pastries on the table, though cutting them in half suggests that the accountants are out of control. All that does, of course, is to bring out the anarchist in everyone and they simply eat twice as fast or twice as many. And a Danish pastry cut in half is easier to secrete about the person and remove when the meeting is over.

Connell's Sandwich Corollary

There is actually a more sophisticated calculation based on sandwiches, but field testing has proved to be unreliable as the variables may be put down to the caterers. However, informal measurements suggest that the following factors may be worked into the calculation if biscuits have not been served or provide a dubious reading:

1. Fillings: score 1 .25 for salmon, shrimp, crab sticks or exotic chicken mixtures, 0.50 for beef, 0.25 for ham or cheese and 0.025 for sandwich spread; the ratio of salmon sandwiches to other fillings may be used as a tie breaker
2. Presentation: score 3 if the sandwiches are covered in cellophane, 5 if covered in paper and minus 10 if covered in mould; if they are served on something frilly: score 5 or if the waitress is wearing something frilly: score 25

Following on from the success of the Great Biscuit Hierarchy (teatime in-house will never be the same again), I have now started to take measurements in order to apply the same principle of placing the company in its proper context by creating a Hierarchy of Receptionists, as I find that the state of the receptionist inevitably reflects the financial state of the company. More anon…