Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joan C. Tonn is an organizational psychologist and associate professor in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

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Mary P. Follett

Yale University Press

Contents

List of Illustrations................................................................................................ixPreface..............................................................................................................xi1. Introduction......................................................................................................12. A Childhood That Was Rarely Happy.................................................................................73. "An Eager, Fearless Mind".........................................................................................164. "What Shall We Do with Our Girls?"................................................................................275. "Very Unusual Privileges".........................................................................................386. "The Great Milepost and Turning Point"............................................................................537. The Speaker of the House of Representatives.......................................................................698. "To I. L. B.".....................................................................................................949. Self-Realization and Service......................................................................................11210. Ward 17..........................................................................................................13311. Substitutes for the Saloon, Schools, and Suffrage................................................................15412. Private Funds for Public Purposes................................................................................18113. "My Beloved Centres".............................................................................................20414. The Functions, Financing, and Control of Community Centers: Issues for the National Movement.....................23515. The War Years....................................................................................................25316. The New State....................................................................................................26517. Not Neighborhood Groups but an Integrative Group Process.........................................................30418. "Too Good a Joke for the World"..................................................................................32919. Creative Experience..............................................................................................36020. Professional Transition, Personal Tragedy........................................................................38921. "You Have Been Extraordinarily Helpful to Executives"............................................................41522. "I am Almost at the Same Moment Happy and Unhappy"...............................................................45423. "Prepared to Go or Stay with Equal Graciousness".................................................................47924. Afterword........................................................................................................491List of Abbreviations................................................................................................494Notes................................................................................................................497Bibliography.........................................................................................................583Index................................................................................................................605

Chapter One

More than one hundred years after the publication of her first book in 1896, Mary P. Follett (1868-1933) remains one of our preeminent thinkers about democracy and social organization. Without the benefit of modern research methods, Follett developed such original, penetrating analyses of leadership, power and authority, conflict, and group behavior that her ideas form the basis of much of our modern discourse about organizations and management. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, of the Harvard Business School, has observed that "many so-called new management ideas are previewed in Follett's work." Warren Bennis, at the University of Southern California, is even more emphatic: "Just about everything written today about leadership and organizations comes from Mary Parker Follett's writings and lectures." The continued vitality of Follett's thought is attested by the 1995 decision of the Harvard Business School Press to republish a selection of her writings, along with essays by several leading thinkers in management and organizational studies in the United States and elsewhere on the contemporary significance of Follett's writings.

Follett's work has always been well known in the fields of management and public administration, but now other academic disciplines - political theory, psychology, sociology, mediation and dispute resolution, social work - are also discovering the significance of her work. Nor has Follett's influence been limited to the United States. Today her ideas are being studied in countries as diverse as Japan, Germany, Australia, Italy, France, and Peru.

Despite this widespread interest, until now there has been no published biography of Follett. Thus, the question has remained unanswered: Who was this amazingly perceptive woman?

As an adult, Mary Follett was hardly captivating in physical appearance. She was tall (five feet seven or eight inches), bony, and angular. The heavy, dark brown braids of her childhood gave way in middle age to a buoyant "Gibson girl" style, but later in life she resumed her braids, woven close to her head like a tight-fitting cap. Follett paid considerable attention to her clothing, but her choice of old-fashioned styles and high-necked blouses made her appear stiff and solemn.

Yet her plainness faded as soon as she spoke. The warmth of her voice, the elegant gestures of her hands, her stylish wit, and her attentive listening were irresistible. Follett, one admirer recalled, was an "inductive worker par excellence." He recalled that she "would talk to anyone who cared to talk to her, and [she would] really listen. She was continuously testing her ideas against the facts brought to light as the results of these countless conversations." Follett relished these exchanges because "differences of opinion, rightly welcomed and followed up, were, she believed, the food of our souls, the materials of our growth." Differences, if handled collaboratively, could lead to something new.

A summa cum laude graduate of Radcliffe College, Follett continued reading history, economics, philosophy, political theory, psychology, sociology, and biology for the rest of her life. But her real passion was teasing out of these fields corresponding strands of thought that might illuminate human relationships. An erudite cross-fertilizer, she delighted in challenging distinguished academics to stretch beyond their disciplinary boundaries. At the same time, she could illuminate for any audience the most complex concepts with homely, unforgettable metaphors drawn from the minutiae of daily life.

She was hopeful and optimistic, and many who listened to Mary Follett found themselves coaxed to a larger vision of their role in society - and then inspired by her passion to a program of action. One of few not moved by her...