Mary Parker Follett (3 September 1868 – 18 December 1933) was an American social worker,
management consultant
Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants ...
, philosopher and pioneer in the fields of
organizational theory
Organizational theory refers to the set of interrelated concepts that involve the sociological study of the structures and operations of formal social organizations. Organizational theory also attempts to explain how interrelated units of organiz ...
and
organizational behavior
Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself".Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995 ...
. Along with
Lillian Gilbreth
Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth (; May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time-and-motion studies. She was described in the 1940s as ...
, she was one of two great women management experts in the early days of classical management theory. She has been called the "Mother of Modern Management". Instead of emphasizing industrial and mechanical components, she advocated for what she saw as the far more important human element, regarding people as the most valuable commodity present within any business. She was one of the first theorists to actively write about and explore the role people had on effective management, and discuss the importance of learning to deal with and promote positive human relations as a fundamental aspect of the industrial sector.
Life
Follett was born in 1868 in Quincy, Massachusetts, to a wealthy
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
family. Her family was composed of Charles Allen Follett, a machinist in a local shoe factory, and Elizabeth Curtis (née Baxter) Follett, respectively of English-Scottish and Welsh descent, and a younger brother. Follett attended
Thayer Academy
Thayer Academy (TA) is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory day school located in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. The academy, conceived in 1871 at the bequest of General Sylvanus Thayer, known as the father of the United Sta ...
, a collegiate preparatory day school in
Braintree, Massachusetts
Braintree (), officially the Town of Braintree, is a municipality in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although officially known as a towBraintree is a city, with a mayor-council government, mayor-council form of government, and ...
, and spent much of her free time caring for her disabled mother. In September 1885 she enrolled in Anna Ticknor's
Society to Encourage Studies at Home
The Society to Encourage Studies at Home (1873 – ca. 1897) (often abbreviated as SH) was the first correspondence school in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts by Anna Eliot Ticknor.
History
The Society to Encourage ...
.
From 1890 to 1891, she studied at the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
and then moved to study at Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
(later known as
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and h ...
). For the next six years, Follett attended the university on an irregular basis, eventually graduating ''summa cum laude'' in 1898. Her Radcliffe thesis, ''The Speaker of the House of Representatives'', was published in 1896. She would go on to apply to
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and get accepted.
Over the next three decades, she published many works. She was one of the first women ever invited to address the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 milli ...
, where she spoke on cutting-edge management issues. She also distinguished herself in the field of management by being sought out by US President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
as his personal consultant on managing not-for-profit, nongovernmental, and voluntary organizations.
Follett died in 1933 in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
Mary Parker Follet defined management as "the art of getting things done through people". Follett's educational and work background would shape and influence her future theories and writings. One of her earliest career positions would see her working as a social worker in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston from 1900 to 1908. During this period her interactions with the Roxbury community would lead her to realize the importance of community spaces as areas to meet and socialize.
Her experience in developing vocational guidance and evening programs in public schools, she would develop what would be her life's work and her theories in group dynamics. "The New State," her second writing published in 1918, would evolve from a report into her second published work. This publication would go on to lay the foundational theories for her most important theories and become a major center of attention of her career.
By participating in local recreational, educational, and advocacy groups Parker developed her ideals of participatory democracy and her ideals of society as "integrative." Observing people led Parker to believe that the boundaries of a person's identities are porous, affected by the society around them, which, in turn, is affected by the identities of the people within it. Thus the self and the society, according to Parker, are in a cycle in which they constantly help to create one another.
Organizational theory
In her capacity as a management theorist, Follett pioneered the understanding of lateral processes within hierarchical organizations (their recognition led directly to the formation of matrix-style organizations, the first of which was DuPont, in the 1920s), the importance of informal processes within organizations, and the idea of the "authority of expertise," which really served to modify the typology of authority developed by her German contemporary,
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
, who broke authority down into three separate categories: rational-legal, traditional and charismatic.
She recognized the holistic nature of community and advanced the idea of "reciprocal relationships" in understanding the dynamic aspects of the individual in relationship to others. Follett advocated the principle of what she termed "integration," or noncoercive power-sharing based on the use of her concept of "power with" rather than "power over."Mary P. Follett. ''Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett'', ed. by E. M. Fox and L. Urwick (London: Pitman Publishing, 1940).
Follett contributed greatly to the win-win philosophy, coining the term in her work with groups. Her approach to conflict was to embrace it as a mechanism of diversity and an opportunity to develop integrated solutions rather than simply compromising. She was also a pioneer in the establishment of
community centers
Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole c ...
.
Writings
Follett's unique background often led her to take positions on major issues that mediated between the conventional viewpoints. In ''The New State'', she took the position on societal change that:
''It is a mistake to think that social progress is to depend upon anything happening to the working people: some say that they are to be given more material goods and all will be well; some think they are to be given more "education" and the world will be saved. It is equally a mistake to think that what we need is the conversion to "unselfishness" of the capitalist class.''"
Likewise, her position on the labor movement was as follows:
''Neither working for someone nor paying someone's wages ought to give you power over them.''"
Transformational leadership
Ann Pawelec Deschenes (1998) found obscure reference pointing to Mary Parker Follett having coined the term "transformational leadership". She quotes from Edith A. Rusch's ''The Social Construction of Leadership: From Theory to Praxis'' (1991):
''...writings and lectures by Mary Parker Follett from as early as 1927 contained references to transformational leadership, the interrelationship of leadership and followership, and the power of collective goals of leaders and followers'' (p. 8).
Burns makes no reference to Follett in ''Leadership''. However, Rusch was able to trace what appear to be parallel themes in the works of Burns and Follett. Rusch presents direct references in Appendix A. Pawelec (Deschenes) found further parallels of transformational discourse between Follett's (1947, 1987) work and Burns (1978).
From ''The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett'' (p. 247): "Moreover, we have now to lay somewhat less stress than formerly on this matter of the leader influencing his group because we now think of the leader as also being influenced by his group."
Influence
Although most of Follett's writings remained known in very limited circles until republished at the end of the 90's, her ideas gained great influence after Chester Barnard, a New Jersey Bell executive and advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, published his seminal treatment of executive management, ''
The Functions of the Executive
''The Functions of the Executive'' is a book by Chester I. Barnard (1886–1961) that presents a "theory of cooperation and organization" and "a study of the functions and of the methods of operation of Senior management, executives in formal orga ...
''. Barnard's work, which stressed the critical role of "soft" factors such as "communication" and "informal processes" in organizations, owed a telling but undisclosed debt to Follett's thought and writings. Her emphasis on such soft factors paralleled the work of
Elton Mayo
George Elton Mayo (26 December 1880 – 7 September 1949) was an Australian born psychologist, industrial researcher, and organizational theorist.Cullen, David O'Donald. ''A new way of statecraft: The career of Elton Mayo and the development ...
at Western Electric's Hawthorne Plant, and presaged the rise of the Human Relations Movement, as developed through the work of such figures as
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow (; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, cul ...
,
Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin ( ; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. During his professional career Lewin applied hi ...
Chris Argyris
Chris Argyris (July 16, 1923 – November 16, 2013) was an American business theorist and professor emeritus at Harvard Business School. Argyris, like Richard Beckhard, Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis, is known as a co-founder of organization dev ...
and other breakthrough contributors to the field of
Organizational Development
Organization development (OD) is the study and implementation of practices, systems, and techniques that affect organizational change, the goal of which is to modify an organization's performance and/or culture. The organizational changes are ...
or "OD".
Her influence can also be seen indirectly perhaps in the work of Ron Lippitt, Ken Benne, Lee Bradford, Edie Seashore and others at the National Training Laboratories in
Bethel
Bethel ( he, בֵּית אֵל, translit=Bēṯ 'Ēl, "House of El" or "House of God",Bleeker and Widegren, 1988, p. 257. also transliterated ''Beth El'', ''Beth-El'', ''Beit El''; el, Βαιθήλ; la, Bethel) was an ancient Israelite sanc ...
, Maine, where T-Group methodology was first theorized and developed. Follett's work set the stage for a generation of effective, progressive changes in management philosophy, style, and practice, revolutionizing and humanizing the American workplace and allowing the fulfillment of Douglas McGregor's management vision of quantum leaps in productivity. effected through the humanization of the workplace.Douglas McGregor, ''The Human Side of Enterprise'' (1960) McGraw-Hill, OCLC 573825859.
Legacy
After her death, her work and ideas would disappear from American organizational and management circles of the time but continue to gain followership in Great Britain. In the last decades, her work has been rediscovered. During the 1960s, her ideas would re-emerge in Japan, where management thinkers would apply her theories to business.
Management theorist
Warren Bennis
Warren Gamaliel Bennis (March 8, 1925 – July 31, 2014) was an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies.
Follett's legacy has been recognized by the establishment, in 1992, of the annual Mary Parker Follett Award for the outstanding paper to appear each year in '' Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal''. The award citation states that it is named "in memory of a pioneering woman in the field of management and accountability literature who was international and interdisciplinary in her approach."
Publications
Follett authored a number of books and numerous essays, articles, and speeches on
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose g ...
political philosophy
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, ...
,
psychology
Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
,
organizational behavior
Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself".Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995 ...
, and
conflict resolution
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information abo ...
.
* ''The Speaker of the House of Representatives''(1896)
* ''The New State'' (1918)
* ''Creative Experience'' (1924)
* ''Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett'' (1942) (a collection of speeches and short articles was published posthumously)