Abstract
Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) has attracted some interest in recent years and, in writing this book, Margaret Stout and Jeannine M. Love reflect that growing interest. But they also have some critical points to make about some of those who have, perhaps, picked up parts of Follett’s writings and misinterpreted her meaning. They identify examples in management theory and in political theory. This book, then, represents a deliberate unfolding of the philosophical underpinnings of her work, substantially in her own words, in order to encourage a deeper engagement with the key texts and not just with selected ones. It is perhaps a work for someone familiar with some of Follett’s work rather than someone coming to it completely fresh.
At the heart of Follett’s philosophy is the integrative process, that is a dynamic understanding of a world that is not static. Nor are we static, defined and known. Rather, we are defined and take shape through our interactions with others. This is perhaps familiar territory for many today but, in the first decades of the twentieth century, this was challenging stuff. The bulk of the book draws out the ways in which Follett developed this simple, yet profound, philosophical standpoint by drawing upon epistemology, psychology, ethics and political theory. For readers of this journal, the relevance becomes clearer as we reach this latter theme and as the work goes on to consider economic and administrative theory. Follett’s thinking about the roles of groups and about their place in politics and decision-making offers an intellectual framework that, had we been engaging with her ideas at the time, would have been very helpful in thinking about ways of approaching partnership working. Her thoughts on representation, and particularly the relationship between a representative and their constituency, the nature of the role and the responsibilities owed, might have offered a basis for challenging some of the practices we actually observed (Ashworth, 2000; Rowe, 2006; Rowe and Devanney, 2003). The discussion of her idea of the Service State suggests a profound rethinking of the nature of power and the relationship between public administration and the citizenry. Stout and Love (p180) quote from The New State: To say: ‘We are good men, we are honest officials, we are employing experts…you must trust us’ will not do; some way must be devised of connecting the experts and the people…then some way of taking the people into the counsels of city administration. (Follett, 1998: 234) This insight into the future we usually call in business anticipating. But anticipating means more than forecasting or predicting. It means that far more than meeting the next situation, it means making the next situation. (Follett, 2013: 53)
In that sense, then, the book achieves a key purpose. It leaves the reader aware that there is something of value in the works of Mary Parker Follett. It should send us to the library shelves to ferret out the originals or to pester the librarian for copies if there are none to be found. And it probably will. But I am not sure. And this is because of the way in which the book presents the ideas. They sound intriguing. There does seem to be something of value to be rediscovered. But I am not sure what that is and where to find it.
This problem stems from the choices made about the presentation of this book. It sets out (though this only became very clear to me in Chapter 11) to challenge those who have dabbled a little in the works of Follett to read further and more deeply. It seeks to develop the thinking of Follett, connecting the ideas that some have grasped to a broader philosophical project. This is a worthy purpose, but the book then does not work well as an introduction to the newcomer. I have little sense of which works I might start to read first. Is it The New State (Follett, 1998)? Or should I start with the edited collections of Follett’s later lectures, published posthumously as Dynamic Administration (Metcalf and Urwick, 2003) and as Freedom and Co-ordination (Urwick, 2013)? Chances are, I will turn to her article, ‘Community as a process’ (Follett, 1919), and see how I get on.
But I am left with a deeper unease. The choices made are perhaps best understood when contrasted with other ways of writing a work of this nature. A more biographical approach would have brought to the fore the context in which these ideas were being developed. We get some glimpses into the environment and the influences, at Harvard, in the UK and elsewhere. But these are fleeting glimpses. In argument with whom was Mary Parker Follett developing her thinking? How do these debates affect the development of her thinking? How did she come to the philosophical standpoint elucidated in this book? This is not some personal historical interest, though I would confess to that. After all, she was a woman in a man’s world, setting forth ideas that challenge received understandings of power and authority. This is interesting, and I am sure there are volumes to which I could turn to satisfy this curiosity. But I think there is a more profound point here. Follett, it seems to me from reading this volume, argued that we develop and are understood in a context, in an environment and through interactions with others. We know what we think and who we are by engaging in discussion and debate with other people. But this is largely missing from this work. There is no clear sense of a chronology, of the ideas in each major work and how those ideas shift focus and develop with time and through that process of interaction, that integrative process. Instead, we have ideas presented as static, as fully developed. Is this not to do those ideas a disservice?
In summary, the book under review makes plain the value of engaging with Follett’s work. It sets out the connections between her separate writings and the value of reading them as a whole. And it does indicate the value of Follett’s work to the challenges we currently face in public administration and beyond. I will go to find Follett’s work in the library. But I would have appreciated a sense of the way the ideas developed over time and in contestation with what other ideas. I would also have liked to know how I might approach the corpus of Follett’s work.