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Section 2. Management
Yogun Ay§e Esmeray, PhD in Management and Organization University of Toros, Turkey E-mail: [email protected]
Mary Parker Follett: The bombed-out prophet of the management
Abstract: This paper aims to disclose the reasons of displacement of the Mary Parker Follett and understand the reasons of relegation of her name to dark and dusty attic. The reasons for the changing popularity of Follett’s ideas will be explored through the paper by her biography and views. There is an urgent need to understand her philosophy to explore her curative approach to humanistic side of organization and management.
Keywords: Mary Parker Follett, Power with, Democracy, Prophet, Management History
Introduction
Follett was born in 1868 into a prominent Quaker family, Massachusetts. She has been educated at the Thayer Academy where she nurtured her ideas
philosophic thinking. She studied economics,
government, and philosophy and was influenced by Albert Bushnell Hart who specialized in historical fact and political analysis [1; 2; 3; 4]. While at Cambridge she developed material for her first book, The Speaker of the House of Representatives and quickly gained recognition as the first thorough study of this office and as a valuable contribution to the study of constitutional law [5].
In 1918, she published, The New State, which developed as a critique of running political theory. Third book, Creative Experience, was published in 1924. In 1933, the balance of her most relevant written work is found in Elliot Fox’s and Urwick, edited collection ofher papers and lectures, Dynamic Administration, is published after her death.
Mary Parker Follett has been called the prophet of management by Peter Drucker [6] and has been known as a pioneer in management and in organizational studies. In the past decade there has been a revival of sorts a renewal of interest in the works Mary Parker Follett by various academic disciplines and for different purposes. She had faded from the academic paper, either set aside to make room for other, more “scientific” scholars or, worse, intentionally lost because of her philosophy and the values she offered were considered suspect by dominant academic and social elites in America. She was absolutely well ahead of her century
by her democratic view on participation, power critiques, conflict interpretation etc. [7]. Ironically, contemporary researchers have generally ignored Follett and fail to recognize her early role in exploring the importance of humanistic view at workplace. Her ideas never settled down the merited place despite announcement as prophet of management and becoming a fashion between scholars, yet. This paper aims to revealing what happened and explore the possible drivers of unjustness hidden in the history’s dusty and dirty pages.
Footsteps of Follett
In the literature review, it is found that there are different causes of being pushed into dusty attic [8]. Why was she so dismissed to grandmother’s dusty attic? To answer this difficult question this paper will use three main topics to the reason of the unjustness. Limited recognition has been paid to Follett in organization history according to Parker
[2] because her work did not fit into any one school of thought. First of all which emphasized primarily by Drucker, was her ideas that easily bound to communism. Drucker [6] claimed that this not happened just because her gender but because of her ideas and philosophy. To make a stronger his claim he asks “there were a lot of “female stars” in a variety of fields during her time”, why not she? He explain that her work was ignored because her basics and ideas were so much the opposite of what mainstream elites in the 1930s and 1940s wanted to hear [9]. In time of her, American life has gradually been divorced from meaningful political discourse, civic participation, and involvement in
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Mary Parker Follett: The bombed-out prophet of the management
a varied associational life in the community. These communal, public activities have been crowded out by a plethora ofprivate activities associated with the old concept of the individual in the community. As a result of these break, people no longer have contact with the social place that gives their individuality meaning. The restlessness and apparent rootlessness of the American individual are not causes but rather symptoms of a loss of meaningful contact with others. in line with Drucker, Stivers [10] would suggest that Follett’s work has had a problematic history, not because gender issue, but her ideas do not fit well with mainstream organizational and management theory. In line with Drucker [6] there was also a vague belief that she was a socialist who is not an appreciated scholar for a society that shunned socialism like the plague. Second reason of unfair displacement in the history is obviously her gender, when all science was dominated with males. Gender was undoubtedly a crucial factor affecting Follett’s reception, as well. According to some researchers [11] explanation of Follett’s limited popularity is that some writers ignored her work because of her gender, evidenced by the fact that women did not receive recognition in management until the late twentieth century. She and Lillian Gilbreth [12; 13] her cohort in gender and in philosophy in many respects had access only to “female” careers. Women’s historic underrepresentation in labor market and the academy thus not surprisingly deleted her name from the list in her time. Despite lack of widespread attention to Follett’s work may have been due to her communitarian philosophy more than to her gender. But it is important to remember that, her philosophy was undoubtedly affected by opportunities accessible to her because of her gender. Despite all unjustness because of her gender, Follett never consider herself as a feminist ironically, but Morton and Lindquist [14] make a case for categorizing her work as feminist based on a formal philosophical analysis. Kanter [15] is convinced that Follett’s gender played a role in her displacement and because she was not an academic or a chief executive officer, denying her two means of ensuring lasting importance. According to Armstrong [16] primary reason for the lack of major attention to Follett’s work until recently, has been because it had
not yet found sympathy with researchers, a group more concerned with theory than with practice. Follett contended that ideas primarily sprang from activity rather than activity from ideas. Because of this reason Follett’s philosophy has found its niche among postmodernists scholar. Last and the darkest side of the reason box what pushed Follett to dusty attic is potential heterosexism in the management science in 1900s. By any standard, Follett was an uncommon woman for her time. According to Ella Lyman Cabot “her soul emerged like the sun in finding social work and Isobel Briggs,” addressing to the woman with whom Follett lived for close to thirty years in what was then known as a “Boston marriage.” She was most likely lesbian based on the limited available resources [17] which is crucial and dark side reason to exclusion of her from elite, heterosexist and male dominated management discipline. Follett met Briggs while she was still at Radcliffe. At the time, Follett was teaching political science part-time at a secondary school where Briggs, an Englishwoman some twenty years her senior, was the head-mistress [18].
Follett’s Philosophy
The aim of Follett’s work was to create a better society [19] and her approach to the problems of governance began with the psychological analysis of the nature of the consent of the governed and the conditions under which it could be made artless [20; 21].One of Follett’s basic ideas was to emphasize the importance of “understanding of the human nature and interaction in the society” [2].
Participation; a belief that democratic procedures are the best means to achieve individual fulfillment within groups, because only through them would all participants feel both involved and responsible [22].
Giving order: The giving of orders is based on the law of the situation, rather than positional authority. Orders are given because they are demanded by the logic of the situation incorporating input from those with expertise in the area, which Follett contents decreases employee resentment [23]. Linked with the law of the situation and the giving of orders, Follett developed a dynamic view of the organization that supported her management philosophy. Power; Follett begins by defining power as the ability to make things happen and to initiate change, while viewing
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Section 2. Management
the urge to feel powerful as the satisfaction of being alive. In this context there would be varying degrees of power and intensity. The heart of her attitude about the exercise of power was her concept of “power-with rather than power-over”. The resulting “power-with” allows for the continuous creation and release of the abilities of everyone. “Power-over” allows only for the contribution of a few [24].
Constructive Conflict: Constructive conflict was one of Follett’s key principles at the heart of personnel relations in industry and community. More than 70 years ago, in the closing years of World War I, she insightfully addressed human complexity, conflicts, and the political chaos of dynamic communities and corporations without either simplifying or sanitizing her analytical lenses [25].
Conclusion
Today, where technological advancements are achieved in rapid succession and global competition has going deep every day [25] organizations need to be focus more on human side to adapting to existing conditions. A dynamic and flexible organizational structure is not enough organizations also need to be innovative, more ethical and self-learning in order to adapt themselves to the existing conditions. In this context, Mary Parker Follett, focuses on the democratic and humanistic practices in her period was the subject matter in this paper. Indeed her, vision is still illuminates today’s workplace and labor relations if she could not been displaced from the list by her contemporaries [26; 27]. In this paper, after Folletts short biography, possible causes of lost and replacement again merited place will be under subject focus. Despite world-wide famous and acceptance of Taylor, he was considered mechanical and restrictive by Follett. She strongly advocated, humanistic side of organization by ground on the nature of human.
In considering Folletts long-forgotten legacy, it is important to note that many of her works; such as conflict, power with rather than power over, which are still market in some circles today, that would have been hard to understand and appreciate in the 1920s. That’s why what happen to name of Follett is depicted by Drucker’s own sentence “she had become a “nonperson”. For example, in the famous book by Roger Fisher “Getting Yes” her ideas and example was used without any attribution [28]. Ironically Folletts, only fault was born in wrong time, comparing her visionary views with the classic’s mechanic and non-humanistic ideas and her poor dismissing from the list of after declaration of “persona non grata”. So metaphorically expression she was bomb out bridge of empowerment, leadership, participation, conflict and power that linked from classic times to future management. Follett’s ideas are becoming more and more important in today’s world as described above. Many theoreticians are reviewing her ideas in line with today’s circumstances. Mary Parker Follett is remarkable for numerous reasons. First, Follett was woman in a man’s world at the beginning of the 20th century, who received international recognition for her philosophy and management ideas. Follett’s work has been lost and found repeatedly in the 20th century, and in the 21st century we may see the same changing fortunes. She always demonstrated an enthusiastic, brave approach in all her writings without fear of failure or exclusion. And also literature, indicates, she apparently never try to fit her writings to mainstream view of time. To conclude this discussion here, cellist from Symphony Orchestra Institute Martha Bobcocks review of Follett [29] will be quoted “I would imagine that anyone who works in a symphony orchestra today would agree that she, not he, is 100 percent right”.
References:
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Mary Parker Follett: The bombed-out prophet of the management
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(3): 348-371. 2011.
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27. Salimath, M. S., David J. L., Mary P. Follett: Translating philosophy into a paradigm of lifelong learning. Management Decision no. 42 (10): 1284-1296. 2001.
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