Plunkett Chapter 2 Management Thought: Past and Present
Mary Parker Follett
“Many people tell me what I ought to do and just how I ought to do it, but few have made
me want to do something.”
These words are just as relevant today as they were when Mary Parker Follett wrote them
in 1918 in her book The New State.
She was a visionary in the field of management. Mary Parker Follett was born in 1868,
graduated from Radcliffe summa cum laude in 1898, and published her first book in
1909. She is the originator of what many people think are “new” business ideas: win-win,
strength in human diversity, situational leadership, and a focus on process. Her ideas
were advanced for her own time and have survived the test of time.
The following quotes are from papers she presented in1933 to the London School of
Economics.
“First of all, it is among business men (not all, but a few) that I find the greatest vitality
of thinking today, and I like to do my thinking where it is most alive.
Another reason is because industry is the most important field of human activity, and
management is the fundamental element in industry.
The third reason why I am working at business management is because I believe in
control, and so do our most progressive business men"
She continued...
"It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person
or group over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of
power-with, a jointly developed power, a co-active, not a coercive power. (...) Every
demand for power should be analyzed to see if the object is 'independent' power or
joining power. That should be one of the tests of any plan of employee representation -is it developing joint power?"
"Circular behavior is the basis for integration. If your business is so organized that you
can influence a co-manager while he is influencing you, so organized that a workman has
an opportunity of influencing you as you have of influencing him; if there is an
interactive influence going on all through the time between you, power may be built up.
Throughout history we see that control brings disastrous consequences whenever it
outruns integration."