Managing Leadership^®

Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) was once described by Peter Drucker as the “prophet of management,” and she may indeed be the most far-seeing and innovative thinker the field has yet produced. Her principle work on management was accomplished during the 1920s; yet, for all the libertine tone of that period in the United States, respectable women were still expected to be silent, discrete, and pliable. And still, hard-nosed executives crowded into her famous lectures in the US and the UK to hear her speak on concepts that were clearly cutting edge for the time, and which remain incompletely understood today. Moreover, she did so with a grace and charm that were both unassumingly firm and humble - also largely unmatched today.

Follett spent most of her life studying and writing about societal organization; in particular, the future of democracy in America. Gradually, her work in these areas took her into the fields of group dynamics, negotiations, and the relationship between conflict and creativity, and she began a transition into study of business management. In her 56^th year, with less than a decade remaining to her, the transition was complete, and she commenced a highly popular series of lectures on business and management in the US and the UK.

In brilliant, lucid prose, she explained profound and enduring concepts of management ranging from conflict, through negotiations, to principles of self-management which are only now being “discovered” from the so-called “new sciences.” She pioneered the application of a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of management, herself drawing from fields as diverse as law and even chemistry; she was possibly the very first to make extensive use of the emerging field of psychology in understanding collaborative groups and how to manage them. She anticipated the application of general systems theory to the study of management by 50 years.

In clear, frank language that speaks directly and engagingly to us, today, she foresaw and explained in applicable detail principles of leadership, loyalty, group cohesion, organizational design, power, authority, and self-management that are still only being rediscovered now, and that were almost uniformly better understood and explained by her than by her successors.

Like a true prophet, Mary Parker Follett seemed destined to fade into obscurity for declaring ideas that were at once radical and fundamental. As the world sank into the Great Depression in her later years, and began, in the very year of her death, its tragic march toward a new world war, her message was lost. The titanic events of the next decade, and the subsequent economic boom and rise of new corporate models drove her memory further away. But, finally, she was rediscovered by some who saw that she had anticipated much of what is taken as ground-breaking management science today, and did so in a more coherently comprehensive and integrated manner. Along with much of her thinking, Mary Parker Follett herself is, at long last, being rediscovered, to the great benefit of management science.

The editor of “Prophet of Management,” Pauline Graham, has done a true service in gathering some of Follett’s most salient work from her principle writing and lectures into one place for the modern reader. Grouped into categories revealing the wide range of Follett’s interests, from conflict, power, authority, creativity, to individuals and group dynamics, the book makes her thinking accessible and useful to you no matter your immediate needs. Nevertheless, once you read any part of it, you will undoubtedly find yourself captivated by the insight of her thinking and the charm of her discussion, and will continue on to read the entire work - which is strongly recommended.

One caution, though: As I’ve said before, Mary Parker Follett uncovered and elaborated important insights about the the art and science of management that are still only now being “discovered” by modern observers. Moreover, she did so with a focus and depth of understanding that remains unsurpassed. If you need any evidence of her superiority over virtually any modern writer or “thinker” on management, you will find it in the commentaries written by such contemporary “gurus” accompanying several of the sections into which this book is organized. Most of these reveal some or all of the commentators’ lack of understanding of the material they deign to remark upon, their breathtaking self-absorption and arrogance as they condescend to express their admiration for her at the same time that they misrepresent her thinking as foreshadowing their own, and their lack of the unprepossessing forward-looking, dynamic instincts with which Follett’s work was imbued.

This excellent book, then, is sadly marred by these really awful commentaries, but there is one exception: Tokihiko Enomoto’s essay in the section entitled “The Individual in the Group” is an insightful and genuinely illuminating elaboration of Follett’s work in this area, and worth reading in its own right.

Every manager, bar none, should have this book in his or her library. Be sure to read and contemplate it carefully. This and Peter Drucker’s “The Effective Executive” are among the three most important books you will own - but read this one first. You will be a better manager for it.

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