MARY PARKER FOLLETT

(1868-1933)

Born 1868

Died 1933

Citizen, American.

Mary Parker Follett was born in Massachusetts, America and spent much of her life there. She was an American social worker, management consultant and pioneer in the field of organizational theory and organizational behavior. She was one of the great women management guru in the early days of classical management theory and one of the first women ever invited to address the London School of Ergonomics.

She applied psychological insight and social science findings to the study of Industrial organization. Her work focused on human relations within industrial groups and pioneered the understanding of lateral processes within hierarchical organisations, the importance of informal processes within organisations and the idea of the Authority of Expertise. She viewed business as a pioneering field within which solution to human relation problems were being tested out.

Follett also devoted herself to social work and writing books. She was instrumental in the formation of social centres in America. She served as member of the Massachusetts’ Minimum Wage Board and in 1917 she became vice-president of the National Community Centre Association. She also served as personal consultant to the president Theodre Roosevelt on managing not-for profit, non-governmental and voluntary organization. She carried out intensive research into government while was with the president and later published her first book The Speaker of the House of Representative (1890). Later, over a period, she published many works and few of the famous books of her are:

· The New State published in 1918.

· Creative Experience published in 1924.

· Dynamic Administration published posthumously in 1941.

She advocated the idea of Reciprocal Relationship in understanding the dynamic aspect of the individual in relationship to others. Her ideas on negotiation, power and employee participation were highly influential in the development of the fields of organizational studies, alternative dispute relation and human relations movement.

Mary Parker Follett’s writings were known to a limited circle until republished at the beginning of this decade. Follett is increasingly recognized today as the originator, at least in the twentieth century, of ideas that are today commonly accepted as cutting edge in organizational theory and public administration. These include the idea of seeking "win-win" solutions, community-based solutions, strength in human diversity, situational leadership, and a focus on process. However, just as her ideas were advanced for her own time, and advanced when people wrote about them decades after her death, they remain too often unrealized. We recognize them as an inspirational and guiding ideal for us today.

Reference:

1. Sandra Anderson and Carol Bake, Business;The Ultimate Resource, New York, Perseus Publishing House, 2002.

2. Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia.

3. Art Kleiner, The Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws and the Forerunners of Corprate Change, New York, Doubleday, 1996.

T.K.Biswas

Documentation Officer

Central Labour Institute

Directorate General Factory Advice Service

& Labour Institute,

Sion, Mumbai