Section 2. Management
Yogun Ayşe Esmeray,
PhD in Management and Organization
University of Toros, Turkey
E‑mail: esmeray.yogun@toros.edu.tr
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 of her 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
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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
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 of private 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. İn 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
Follett’s 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 Follett’s 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 Follett’s,
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 Bobcock’s 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”.
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Mary Parker Follett: The bombed-out prophet of the management
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Section 2. Management
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