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Mary Parker Follett Quotes

1868–1933 United States

Mary Parker Follett (September 3, 1868 – December 18, 1933) was an American social worker, management consultant and pioneer in the fields of organizational theory and organizational behavior.

United States
Academics
Business theorists
Sociologists

Also known as: Mary Follett

Random Mary Parker Follett quote

15 quotes

The study of human relations in business and the study of the technology of operating are bound up together.

The essence of society is difference, related difference.

Man can have no rights apart from society or independent of society or against society.

The group process contains the secret of collective life, it is the key to democracy, it is the master lesson for every individual to learn, it is our chief hope or the political, the social, the international life of the future.

Group organization is to be the new method in politics, the basis of our future industrial system, the foundation of international order. Group organization will create the new world we are now blindly feeling after, for creative force comes from the group, creative power is evolved through the activity of the group life.

Democracy is a great spiritual force evolving itself from men, utilizing each, completing his incompleteness by weaving together all in the many-membered community life which is the true Theophany. The world today is growing more spiritual, and I say this not in spite of the Great War, but because of all this war has shown us of the inner forces bursting forth in fuller and fuller expression.

Democracy has meant to many "natural" rights, "liberty" and "equality." The acceptance of the group principle defines for us in truer fashion those watchwords of the past. If my true self is the group-self, then my only rights are those which membership in a group gives me.

Individuality is the capacity for union. The measure of individuality is the depth and breadth of true relation. I am an individual not as far as I am apart from, but as far as I am a part of other men. Evil is non-relation.

As the psychic coherence of the group can be obtained only by the full contribution of every member, so we see that a readiness to compromise must be no part of the individual's attitude. Just so far as people think that the basis of working together is compromise or concession, just so far they do not understand the first principles of working together.

It is a mistake to think that social progress is to depend upon anything happening to the working people: some say that they are to be given more material goods and all will be well; some think they are to be given more "education" and the world will be saved. It is equally a mistake to think that what we need is the conversion to "unselfishness" of the capitalist class.

What then is the essence of the group process by which are evolved the collective thought and the collective will? It is an acting and reacting, a single and identical process which brings out differences and integrates them into a unity. The complex reciprocal action, the intricate interweavings of the members of the group, is the social process.

There is no such thing as vicarious experience.

Attributed to Follett in: Michele Barrett (1991)

We can never wholly separate the human from the mechanical side... But you all see every day that the study of human relations in business and the study of operating are bound up together.

Attributed

We can confer authority; but power or capacity, no man can give or take. The manager cannot share his power with division superintendent or foreman or workmen, but he can give them opportunities for developing their power

Attributed Follett in: Pauline Graham (2003)

Power is not a pre-existing thing which can be handed out to someone, or wrenched from someone. We have seen again and again the failure of "power" conferred. You could give me dozens of cases. The division of power is not the thing to be considered, but the method of organization which will generate power.

Attributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Mary Parker Follett (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.