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Category Archives: Mary Parker Follett

Problem solving where the problem is

Monday, July 21, 2008

The great management thinker Mary Parker Follett had much to say about the questions of decision making and the flow of power in organizations. Together, her ideas point to insights about organizational design that are without peer. Central to them is her concept of the “law of the situation.”

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Management from the top

Friday, July 18, 2008

There has been growing interest recently, albeit in fits and starts, in the capacity for self-management – even self-organization – of groups. As it happens, the most profound thinking on the topic was offered by the great Mary Parker Follett nearly a century ago, and it has scarcely been appreciated, much less meaningfully approached, by any of her successors. But they are intrigued, and seek to plumb the depths of the possibilities these concepts open up. . .

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Business leaders

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A short while ago I offered a review here of Captain D. Michael Abrashoff’s new book, It’s Our Ship. Lee Thayer, the author of The Leader’s Journey, made a comment filled with fascinating insights, one of which I think is of particular relevance in our current discussion. Here’s a quote from it:

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Empowering employees

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

This idea predates the modern leadership movement’s cooption of it, as we noted yesterday. But the effort to identify it as a leadership function has only clouded its real organizational meaning. . .

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Myth-busting

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Last Thursday, I told a story from my days in the Marines about an organizational success that transformed my unit from the worst to the best literally on the instant. Unfortunately, the event was so dramatic and impressive that I drew precisely the wrong conclusions about what brought it about. . .

Also filed in Individual Leadership, Military Managers, Organizational Leadership | | Comments (2)