Fins-MPF-03 Albie M. Davis, Liquid Leadership: The Wisdom of Mary Parker Follett (1868 - 1933) (August 1997) Liquid Leadership: The Wisdom of Mary Parker Follett (1868 - 1933) * By Albie M. Davis ** Many people tell me what I ought to do and just how I ought to do it, but few have made me want to do something.. - Mary Parker Follett, The New State (p. 230). Mary Parker Follett's words, written some seven decades ago, seize our attention today as though she was speaking with us personally about our most contemporary concerns. Sometimes they dangle tantalizingly ahead, pointing toward a yet-to-be experienced tomorrow. "Who was Follett?" first-time readers ask, "and why have I not heard of her earlier?" The natural inclination is to find a professional tag to hang upon her. "Was she a management consultant? A political scientist? A historian? A philosopher?" and so forth. She was each of these, and more. She avoided all such labels, however, and out of respect for the universal nature of her thinking, I must as well. For the purposes of this brief article examining her views through the lens of leadership, I shall forgo a lengthy accounting of her personal history and say only that she was a remarkably experienced and insightful turn of the century American woman who did not let real or imagined boundaries interfere with her desire to understand the ways people related in groups. Born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1868, her natural talents were sparked by a series of dedicated teachers who nurtured her promise. Her pursuit of knowledge about "the laws of association" took her to many venues including the Congress in her early twenties (Follett, 1896), the heart of Boston's burgeoning immigrant fed communities in her thirties and forties (Follett, 1918, 1924) and to the world of business and beyond in her fifties and sixties (Follett, 1940, 1940/73). The last ten years of her life she was a sought after advisor and speaker by business leaders in the United States and England (Davis, 1989). It is interesting to speculate about why Follett, who never managed a for-profit business enterprise herself, held such strong appeal for business leaders. Credit, of course, must go to the soundness of her theories so firmly grounded in her own and other's experience. In making a particular point, she would draw upon illustrations ranging from the behavior of husband and wife across the breakfast table to the interactions among leaders at international peace talks. She was masterful at weaving the threads of her experience with that of her readers or listeners. Still, Follett had another vital quality, one more difficult to define, but one that shines throughout her writing--she had a way with people and a way with words. Not long after Follett's death, her companion, Dame Katharine Furse, summed up Follett's genius for communication in a letter to a mutual friend, Ella Lyman Cabot. "What I miss most now is Mary's power of expression," she reminisced. "She knew how to find words for all that is finest and best, never elaborate tiresome words, but the right words every time" (Furse, 1934). One of Follett's most ardent admirers was Lyndal Urwick, who, along with Henry C. Metcalf, first edited and published her talks before business leaders (Follett, 1940). Urwick's account of his initial meeting with Follett offers a rather humorous clue to her extraordinary charisma (Urwick, 1963). The setting is York, England, circa 1926, where Urwick is a high level manager for Seebohm Rountree, owner of a large international candy company. At the insistence of his boss, Urwick reluctantly gives up a long-planned trip to London with his beautiful new wife to attend instead a conference where Follett will be speaking. In describing their encounter at the conference, he freely admits to feeling grouchy. There was rather a dull paper on the Friday evening. Mary Follett spoke in the subsequent discussion. But I was feeling tired and rather fed up. I wasn't particularly struck by her contribution. After the meeting was over, Rountree grabbed me and introduced us. As I looked at her I remember thinking, "What on earth is my dear Seebohm up to? He's always most considerate of those working with him. And here he's practically forced me to cancel a weekend to which I had greatly looked forward in order to meet this gaunt Boston spinster. From what she said in the discussion she's a pure academic. What in the world can we have in common?' Then Mary started to talk with me. And in two minutes I was at her feet, where I remained for the rest of her life" (Urwick, 1963). Democracy as an infinitely including spirit ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why is it important for the readers of this journal to meet Follett? Because A Leadership Journal proudly proclaims that its articles "are embedded in a 'community-based leadership approach' that is facilitated by and through relationships." (Reed, 1996). Follett was a pioneer of just such an approach. In her 1896 look at the powers of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, she chronicled the nature of leadership at the top (Follett, 1896). By 1918, after twenty years of work at the grass roots, she used The New State to spell out her ideas for bottom-up democracy. "Democracy is an infinitely including spirit," she concluded. "We have an instinct for democracy because we have an instinct for wholeness; we get wholeness only through reciprocal relations, through infinitely expanding reciprocal relations" (Follett, 1918, p 157). It is a challenge to summarize Follett's philosophy for myself, let alone the reader, something akin to summarizing Einstein's Law of Relativity; E=mc2 is a stunningly simple quotation, but to fully understand it requires abandoning old well-established ways of thinking and entering less familiar terrain. So too with Follett. Her ideas are at once extraordinarily simple and exasperatingly complex. Nevertheless, in order to provide context for her views on leadership, I shall give it a try. Follett believed that all people are linked together through evolving relationships in which their differences, which are to be cherished since they are essential to the whole, serve as fuel for the continuous creation of the new--the vital--through the confrontation and integration of desires, a process which in turn leads to the continuous growth of the individual and the group. Her philosophy of interrelatedness led her to develop such concepts as "circular response," "the law of the situation," and "power with, rather than power over." In the concluding chapter of Creative Experience, titled "Experience as Evocation," she contrasts her thinking with that of others. "What I have tried to show in this book is that the social process may be conceived either as the opposing and battle of desires with the victory of one over the other, or as the confronting and integrating of desires. The former means non-freedom for both sides, the defeated bound to the victor, the victor bound to the false situation thus created--both bound. The latter means a freeing for both sides and increased total power or increased capacity in the world" (Follett, 1924, p. 301). This concept of social conflict as freeing is central for Follett, who believed, "To free the energies of the human spirit is the high potentiality of all human association" (p. 303). Leadership flows where needed ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By titling this introduction to Follett "Liquid Leadership" I mean to capture the fluid nature of her thinking in general. She had an uncanny ability to see the world as a moving picture rather than a still photograph. Perhaps a three-dimensional interactive hologram would be more to the point. "My response is not to a crystallized product of the past, static for the moment of meeting; while I am behaving, the environment is changing because of my behaving, and my behavior is a response to the new situation, which I, in part, have created" (p. 63). Her ability to think so fluidly was as disconcerting to some in her own time as it is to many of us today. She pokes fun at herself by letting us know that "a professor of philosophy told me that it made him dizzy to talk with me because, he says, he wishes always to compare varying things with something stationery." To the professor and those who desire such static science, Follett offers a chiding response, perhaps anticipating contemporary chaos theory, "You will have then to leave this universe; in this one we so often have variations in relation to other variations that we are obliged to learn to think in terms of those conditions" (p. 69). In keeping with her fluid, holistic thinking, leadership, as such, does not exist, certainly not as a static condition within a particular person. Leaders and followers are in a relationship, and just as a relationship does not reside in one or the other person, so too with leadership which is a dynamic force acting between and among people. The role of leader flows to where it is needed, to those who have the passion and perspective to use its creative potential to bring about something new. When the situation no longer requires leaders to be in a leading role and followers to assist them, leadership flows on. Follett called this dynamic interaction "reciprocal leadership" which she saw as "a partnership in following, of following the invisible leader--the common purpose" (Follett, 1940/1973, p. 303). The partnership envisioned by Follett calls upon all involved in the enterprise to play a crucial role in identifying concerns and creating solutions. "We want worked out a relation between leaders and led which will give to each the opportunity to make creative contributions to the situation" (p. 255). To the extent that leaders emerge during any situation, the role they must play is different than that recommended by some leadership theories. "The best leader knows how to make his (her) followers actually feel power themselves, not merely acknowledge his (her) power." Along with leadership, Follett introduces the notion of followship. "But if the followers must partake in leadership, it is also true that we must have followship on the part of leaders. There must be a partnership of following" (p. 255). Ironically, in her own day, she was pleased to see a reduction of leadership courses in college catalogues and even toyed with the idea of giving up the word leader for she felt it a mistake to identify leadership with ascendancy (p. 256). In the end she concluded, leadership "is far too good a word to abandon; moreover, the leader in one way at least does and should lead in that very sense. He should lead by force of example. If those led obey the law of the situation, they must realize that he is doing the same. If they are to follow the invisible leader, the common purpose, so must he. If everyone must work overtime, the president should be willing to do the same. In every way he must show that he is doing what he urges upon others" (p. 256). She offers an example of such egalitarian leading which seems fitting to share in a journal housed in South Carolina. "One winter I went yachting with some friends in the inland waterways of the South. On one occasion our pilot led us astray and we found ourselves one night aground in a Carolina swamp. Obviously the only thing to do was to try to push the boat off, but the crew refused, saying that the swamps in that region were infested with rattlesnakes. The owner of the yacht offered not a word of remonstrance, but turned instantly and jumped overboard. Every member of the crew followed" (p. 256). Integrating leadership lessons ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Being asked to write for the second volume of A Leadership Journal, I have the good fortune to respond to those whose thinking appears in the first. Follett would have liked the implicit "process" in such an opportunity. It is my turn to serve as a temporary leader on the leadership discussion. She has taught me to wonder, "What are others thinking? Where does my thinking mesh with theirs? Where does it differ? How might we integrate the thinking of all to give birth to new ideas?" Gerri Perreault's article which focuses, in part, on "relational ethics," confronts directly the "great man" or "Lone Ranger" notion of leadership and offers in its place one which recognizes the "self and others as connected and interdependent" (Perreault, 34). Here, Follett could not agree more strongly. "Individuality is the capacity for union" she notes. She follows with a powerful notion which deserves a moment of silent contemplation from the reader. "Evil is nonrelation." Then, relentlessly, Follett continues to hammer home her theme, "The source of our strength is the central supply. You may as well break a branch off the tree and expect it to live. Non-relation is death" (Follett, 1918, p. 62). Teaching as leading ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As mentioned earlier, a core value for Follett is the importance of every individual's ideas to the creation of a constantly evolving whole. She sees this "integration" occurring in the home, the community, the workplace and in world affairs. She especially sees it in the schools with teachers playing the challenging and exciting role of leader-learners. One delightful story by which she captures this concept appears in the last chapter of The New State (p. 364). Every pupil should be made to feel that his point of view is slightly different from any one's else, and that, therefore he has something to contribute. He is not to "recite" something which the teacher knows already; he is to contribute not only to the ideas of his fellow-pupils but also to those of his teacher. And this is not impossible even for the youngest. Once when I was in Paris I made the acquaintance of little Michael, a charming English boy of five, who upon being taken to the Louvre by his mother and asked what he thought of the Mona Lisa, replied, with a most pathetic expression, 'I don't think she looks as if she liked little boys." That was certainly a contribution to Mona Lisa criticism. Follett's appreciation of a five-year old boy's response to the Mona Lisa highlights her notion of the teacher as a life-long learner alongside her students. In a 1928 address delivered to a Boston University audience, she spells out her philosophy quite explicitly. "The teacher is not one who has lived and the student one who is going to live, but that both are living now, in the present, that it should be fresh life meeting fresh life" (Follett, 1940/1973, p. 306). She expands upon her advice saying, "If leadership does not mean coercion in any form, if it does not mean controlling, protecting or exploiting, what does it mean? It means, I think, freeing. The greatest service the teacher can render the student is to increase his freedom--his free range of activity and thought and his power of control (p. 304). To forestall misinterpretation, she asks her teacher-audience not to confuse her philosophy with those who promote "the pupil expressing himself." Some years ago a teacher told a class of little boys who were beginning clay modeling that they were to express themselves in clay. They of course began throwing the clay at each other, which was perfectly proper; that is the natural way for little boys to express themselves in clay (p. 304). She was mindful of the responsibility of teachers to encourage freedom on thought "within method, within the laws of group activity and group control" (p. 304). Leaders are born in neighborhoods ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Leadership is also the birth right of every community member, of this, Follett felt certain. She had seen this capacity express itself first-hand in her work to turn local schools into community centers. Here neighbors worked together to organize clubs around common interests, design courses of study and plan community events. "In neighborhood groups where we have different alignments on different questions, there will be a tendency for those to lead at any particular moment who are most competent to lead in the particular matter in hand," she observed. "Thus a mechanical leadership will give place to a vital leadership. Here in the neighborhood group leaders are born" (Follett, 1918, p. 223). Interestingly, her description of the community leader reads much like the job description for someone in my field of mediation, which, from my experience, is also at its most vital in the school and community setting. "The leader of our neighborhood group must interpret our experience to us, must see all the different points of view which underlie our daily activities and also their connections, must adjust the varying and often conflicting needs, must lead the group to an understanding of its needs and to a unification of its purpose. He (or she) must give form to things vague, things latent, to mere tendencies. He must be able to lead us to wise decisions, not to impose his own wise decisions upon us" (p. 229). Follett was not naive about community life. She knew from bitter experience that before a leader could help people reach agreement, he or she must elicit engagement. "We must remember that most people are not for or against anything; the first object of getting people together is to make them respond somehow, to overcome inertia. To disagree, as well as to agree, with people brings you closer to them." She was aware of just how volatile community relations could become, how quickly people form "enemy camps." But, she did not despair; instead she observed, "We could not have an enemy unless there was much in common between us. Differences are always grounded in an underlying similarity." She continues this thought with an insightful observation I find deeply moving and in concert with my own experience. "I always feel intimate with my enemies. It is not opposition but indifference which separates [humans]" (p. 212). Constructive caring ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The metaphor of leadership as a mature friendship would also appeal to Follett (Perreault, 36-37). Follett sought out friends who would challenge her thinking, not confirm her thoughts. "A friendship based on likenesses and agreements alone is a superficial matter enough. The deep and lasting friendship is one capable of recognizing and dealing with all the fundamental differences that must exist between any two individuals, one capable therefore of such an enrichment of our personalities that together we shall mount to new heights of understanding and endeavor" (Follett, 1918, p. 41). Always a believer in action over academia, she noted, "I learn my duty to my friends not by reading essays on friendship, but by living my life with my friends and learning by experience the obligations friendship demands" (p. 198). Yet, she might want to explore further the concept of "care ethics," which Perreault describes as placing "primacy on care and responsibility for others" (Perreault, 34). For many years Follett worked in Boston's teeming neighborhoods, fed daily by streams of immigrants leaving Europe and Canada to seek the "good life" in America. After two decades, much of which she devoted to turning quiescent neighborhood schools into active round-the-clock community centers, she was able to step back from her own work, and the work of other Boston reformers, to examine their accomplishments and engage in self-criticism. At present nearly all our needs are satisfied by external agencies, government or institutional. Health societies offer health to us, recreation associations teach us how to play, civic art leagues give us more beautiful surroundings, associated charities give us poor relief. A kind lady leads my girl to the dentist, a kind young man finds employment for my boy, a stern officer of the city sees that my children are in their places at school. I am constantly being acted upon, no one is encouraging me to act. Thus am I robbed of my most precious possession--my responsibilities--for only the active process of participation can shape me for the social purpose" (p. 235). Presaging President Kennedy's famous inaugural address, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," Follett concluded that "The question which the state must always be trying to answer is how it can do more for its members at the same time that it is stimulating them to do more for themselves." Midstream she corrects herself, adding, "No, more than this, its doing more for them must take the form of their doing more for themselves" (p. 237). Conclusion ~~~~~~~~~~ Ever the social anthropologist, Follett drew her inspiration and examples from wherever they presented themselves. Richard C. Cabot, friend and professor of medical ethics, wrote a tribute to Follett after her death in which he remarked that she was "a creative listener and a creative questioner. She took an intense interest in the ideas of philosophers, economists, psychologists and businessmen with whom she talked" (Cabot, 1934). He might have added that she did the same with "salesgirls" in Filenes Department store, longshoremen on Boston's wharves, elevator operators, ambassadors, nurses, Supreme Court justices, maids, friends--all who touched her life. Undoubtedly she was influenced by the many remarkable women with whom she worked side-by-side for so many years. In reflecting upon the power of leadership as the power of integrating, and thus the power which creates community, she uses the distinctly feminine imagery of a hostess at a dinner party. Most women and some men will recognize the myriad of interactive skills she is attempting to honor by her use of this overlooked commonplace illustration. With some hostesses you all talk across at one another as entirely separate individuals, pleasantly and friendly to be sure, but still across unbridged chasms. While other hostesses have the power of making you all feel for the moment related, as if you were one little community for the time being. This is a subtle as well as a valuable gift. It is one that leaders of men must possess. It is thus that the collective will is evolved from out of the chaos of varied personality and complex circumstances (Follett, 1918, p. 230). If Follett were alive today, she would undoubtedly find a way to invite all the authors contributing to the first volume of A Leadership Journal to a face-to-face gathering at her townhouse at the base of Boston's Beacon Hill or her summer retreat in Putney, Vermont. There over sherry or tea, a conversation about leadership would flow among the participants, building, growing, ever expanding individual and group thinking. The sparks might fly, but all the better for she loved the energy of difference. She felt confident that "all polishing is done by friction" (Follett, 1940/1973, p. 2). Eduard C. Lindeman, Follett's friend and colleague and author of several books on community leadership, captured the exhilarating nature of Follett as hostess in a testimonial to her published shortly after her death. He begins by observing that "Mary Follett was the most highly sensitized person I have ever known," He then traces her New England intellectual roots and the timeless nature of her thinking. "She was preoccupied with questions of quality rather than quantity, wholeness rather than parts, synthesis rather than dissection." He comments that her written reveals a mind "constantly growing in richness of content and fineness of perception." He ends on a more personal note, however, by recognizing "namely her great gift to me," which was time spent together in animated conversation. As a prelude to collaborating on common interests, Follett invited Lindeman, Herbert Crowley and Professor Albert Dwight Sheffield (and undoubtedly Ada Eliot Sheffield, Albert's wife and T.S. Eliot's sister, but more importantly, an experienced probation officer) to stay a week with her and Isobel Briggs, her companion of 30 years, at their summer home in Putney, Vermont. Upon reflection, Lindeman said, "It seems to me now that this was the most exciting intellectual event of my total experience" (Lindeman, 1934). That was her way--engaging all she met in an exploration of ideas, always grounded in experience, but never tied to the old, always instead seeking to create the new. "Experience may be hard," she believed, "but we claim its gifts because they are real, even though our feet bleed on its stones" (Follett, 1924, p. 302). At present there is no full biography about Follett. A brief biographical sketch can be found in "An Interview with Mary Parker Follett by Albie M. Davis," which is cited in the reference section. Additional biographical information and selected writings by Follett can be found in MARY PARKER FOLLETT: PROPHET OF MANAGEMENT (1995) edited by Pauline Graham and published by Harvard Business School Press, Boston. Over the course of the next three years I will be working on a book about Follett's practical philosophy titled Liquid Logic. Information about Ada Eliot Sheffield was obtained from a 1971 PhD thesis by Avrum Isaac Cohen. See References section for more information. ---------- * The article is pending publication in print format in, "A Leadership Journal: Women in Leadership--Sharing the Vision," Vol. 2, No. 1 (Summer 1997). (A Journal of Research, Theory, and Practical Applications in Leadership Studies.) Published by, The Leadership Institute, Columbia College of South Carolina, PO box 3815, Columbia, SC 29230-3815, Phone: (803) 786-3729, Fax: (803) 786-3806. Republished in electronic format by FINS with the permission of the author and publisher. ** Albie M. Davis, has served as a volunteer mediator with Urban Community Mediators in Dorchester since 1980. Currently she is Director of Mediation, District Court, Trial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts References ~~~~~~~~~~ Cabot, R. C. (1934, April). Mary Parker Follett, An Appreciation. Radcliffe Quarterly. 80-82. Cohen, A.I. (1971, January). Mary Parker Follett: Spokesman for Democracy, Philosopher for Social Group Work, 1918-1933, Tulane University School of Social Work, D.S.W. (71-28,507). Davis, A.M. (1989, July). An Interview with Mary Parker Follett. Negotiation Journal, 17-24. Follett, M.P. (1896/1974). The Speaker of the House of Representatives, New York: Burt Franklin Reprints. Follett, M. P. (1918). The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government, New York: Longmans, Green and Co. Follett, M. P. (1924). Creative Experience, New York: Peter Smith, 1951 reprint with permission by Longmans, Green and Co.. Follett, M.P. (1940). Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, ed. H. C. Metcalf and L. Urwick. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Follett, M.P. (1940/1973). Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, ed E. M. Fox and L. Urwick. London: Pitman Publishing. Follett, M. P. (1949/1987). Freedom and Coordination: Lectures in Business Organization, London: Garland Publishing, Inc. Furse, K. (1934). Letter to Ella Lyman Cabot, Schlesinger Library. Radcliffe College. Cambridge, Mass. Lindeman, E. C. (1934, Feb). Mary Parker Follett. Survey Graphic. 86-87. Perreault, G. (1996). Sharing the Vision: Leadership as Friendship and Feminist Care Ethics. A Leadership Journal: women in Leadership -- Sharing the Vision, 1(1), 33-49. Reed, T. K. (1996). Editorial Comments. A Leadership Journal: women in Leadership -- Sharing the Vision, 1(1), 1. Urwick, L. (circa 1963). Mary Parker Follett 1868 - 1933. Unpublished notes for a management class at the University of New South Wales, Australia, p. 1.