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Mary Parker Follett Mary Parker Follett (1868 - 1933) was one of the first people to apply psychological insight and social science findings to the study of industrial organization and is recognized by many well-known management theorists, including Drucker, Moss Kanter and Mintzberg, as a great management philosopher. Follett's work focused on human relations within industrial groups, and many businessmen became convinced of the practical applications of her ideas. She, in turn, viewed business as a vital, exciting and pioneering field within which solutions to human relations problems were being tested out, to the ultimate benefit of the rest of society. (Felon, 1982). Follett was expected to become an academic, but instead she went into voluntary social work in Boston, where her energy and practicality (as well as her financial support on occasions) achieved much in terms of community-building initiatives. For over 30 years, she was immersed in this work, and proved to be an innovative, hands-on manager whose practical achievements included the original use of schools as out-of-hours centers for community education and recreation. This was Follett's own idea, and the resulting community centers became models for other cities throughout America. (Colin, 1987).
Follett set up vocational placement centers in Boston school centers, and represented the public on the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Board. From 1924, she began to give regular papers relating to industrial organization, especially for conferences of the Bureau of Personnel Administration in New York. She became, in effect, an early management consultant, as businessmen began to seek her advice about their organizational and human relations problems. In 1926 and 1928, Follett gave papers for the Rowntree Lecture Conference and to the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. In 1933, she gave an inaugural series of lectures for the new-founded Department of Business Administration (now the Department of Industrial Relations) at the London School of Economics (LSE). Later in 1933, Follett returned to America, where she died on the 18 th December of that year, aged 65.
The New State was written during 1918, and argues for group-based democracy as a process of government. Through this book, Follett became widely recognized as a political philosopher. It was based on her social work experience rather than on business organization, but the ideas it contains were later applied in the business context. (Felon, 1982). The New State presented an often visionary interpretation of what Follett viewed as a progress of social evolution, and the tone is occasionally infused with religious poesy. The text argues that democracy "by numbers" should give way to a more valid process of group-based democracy. This form of democracy is described as a dynamic process through which individual conflicts and differences become integrated within the search for overall group agreement.
Through it, people will grow and learn as they adapt to one another's views while seeking a common, long-term good. The group process works through the relating of individuals' different ideas to each other and to the common interests of the group as a whole. Appropriate action would, Follett held, become self-evident during the consultation process. This would eventually reveal a "law of the situation", representing an objective which all could see would be the best course for the group as a whole to pursue. Conflict or disagreements were viewed as positive forces, and Follett considered social evolution to progress through the ever-continuous integration of diverse viewpoints and opinions in pursuit of the common good.
The New State envisages the basic group democratic process following right through to the international level, feeding up from neighborhoods via municipal and state government levels into the League of Nations. Sometimes, Follett refers to an almost autonomous group spirit, which develops from the community between people, as the group process begins to work. (Felon, 1982). The Creative Experience was also written during 1918, and again focused on democratic governance, using examples from business to illustrate ideas. Dynamic Management -- The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett and Freedom and Co-ordination were both published posthumously and edited by L Urwick. Freedom and Co-ordination collects together six papers given by Follett at the LSE in 1933, and these represent the most developed and concise distillation of her thoughts on business organization.
Follett's business writings extended her social ideas into the industrial sphere. Industrial managers, she saw, confronted the same difficulties as public administrators in terms of control, power, participation, and conflict. Her later writings focused on management from a human perspective, using the new approach of psychology to deal with problems between individuals and within groups. She encouraged businessmen to look at how groups formed and how employee commitment and motivation could be encouraged. The participation of everyone involved in decisions affecting their activities is seen as fundamental, in that Follett viewed group power and management through co-operation as the obvious route to achievements that would benefit all. Follett envisioned management responsibility as being diffused throughout a business rather than wholly concentrated at the hierarchical apex.
Degrees of authority and responsibility are seen as spread all along the line. For example, a truck driver can act with more authority than the business owner in terms of knowing most about the best order in which to make his drops. Leadership skills are required of many people rather than just one person, and final authority, while it does exist, should not be over-emphasized. The chief executive's role lays in coordinating the scattered authorities and varied responsibilities that make up the organization into group action and ideas, and also in foreseeing and meeting the next situation. (Goddard, 1988). Follett's concept of leadership as the ability to develop and integrate group ideas, using "power with" rather than "power over" people, is very modern. She understood that the crude exercise of authority based on subordination is hurtful to human beings, and cannot be the basis of effective, motivational management control.
The power of single individuals, Follett considered, could erode overall organizational and social achievement and she advocated the replacement of personal power with the authority of task or function and with the "law of the situation" as revealed through group process consultation. Partnership and co-operation, she sought to persuade people, was of far more ultimate benefit to everyone than hierarchical control and competition. Follett viewed the group process as a form of collective control, with the interweaving experience of all who are performing a functional part in an activity feeding into decision-making. Thus, control is realized through the co-ordination of all functions rather than imposed from the outside. (Colin, 1987). Charles Handy The British business thinker Charles Handy has carved a niche for himself as a social philosopher.
His books are international bestsellers and include Understanding Organizations (1976), The Age of Unreason (1989), The Hungry Spirit (1998), and, most recently, The Elephant and the Flea (2002). Irish-born, Handy worked for Shell in London and Southeast Asia until 1972 when he left to teach at London Business School. He also spent time at MIT where he came into contact with many of the leading lights in the human relations school of thinking including Ed Schein. Handy's work examines the changing nature of work, working life and of organisations. He has brought major questions about the future of work and of society on to the corporate and personal agenda. Among other things, Handy has championed the "shamrock organisation" built around "a core of essential executives and workers supported by outside contractors and part-time help." (Hare, 1996).
Handy believes we live in the age of the unreasonable man (or woman). Change is increasingly discontinuous and results in unintended consequences - or paradoxes. In its forays into chaos theory and randomness, even science, he says, is moving away from its search for predictability. His prose style echoes Waugh's sardonic view of life and is uncluttered by managerial buzzwords as befits one schooled in classics. He summarizes the paradox of work this way: "We seem to have made work into a God and then made it difficult for many to worship. " (Calare, 1995). The paradox of organizations, he maintains, is that the more successful they become, the less we know about running them.
The corporation, Handy believes, used to be a castle, a lifetime home for its defenders. Today "it's more like an apartment block, an association of temporary residents gathered together for mutual convenience. " (Calare, 1995). As organizations change, so too will other aspects of our lives. Less time will be spent at work - 50, 000 hours in a lifetime rather than the present figure of around 100, 000. Handy does not predict, as people did in the 1970 s, an enlightened age of leisure. Instead, he challenges people to spend more time thinking about what they want to do.
Time will not simply be divided between work and play - there will be "portfolios" which split time between fee work (where you sell time); gift work (for neighbors or charities), study (keeping up-to-date with your work) and homework and leisure. (Hundley, 1978). Handy's views on leadership are fresh and challenging. He believes that, as globalization and new technology turn the world economy inside out, the business...
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