In Empowerment LO18400, Doc said:
> I'd be interested (knowing that you're involved in reading Follett's
> book) what you think about her thoughts on power.
The book I have been reading is Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of
Management. Pauline Graham, Ed. Boston: Harvard Business School Press,
1995. ISBN: 0-87584-736-6.
I can not describe how I feel as I read this book. Alternately elated,
amused, awed by the beauty of Follett's ideas and the elegance of her
expression, amazed that someone was writing this stuff 70 years ago
(around the time of Taylor, whose Principles of Scientific Management I
very recently read -- a very different style, to say the least),
bewildered that I could study management for so long and now know about
her... empowered...
For now, the best way I know of to say what I think about Follett's ideas
is to offer my favorite passages from her chapter on Power:
"It seems to me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of
some person or group over some other person or group, it is possible to
develop the conception of power-with, a jointly developed power, a
co-active, not a coercive power. (...) Every demand for power should be
analysed to see if the object is 'independent' power or joing power. That
should be one of hte tests of any plan of employee representation -- is it
developing joint power?" [p 103]
"Circular behavior is the basis for integration. If your business is so
organized that you can influence a co-manager while he is influencing you,
so organized that a workman has an opportunity of influencing you as you
have of influencing him; if there is an interactive influence going on all
throught he time between you, power-with may be built up. Throughout
history we see that control brings disastrous consequences whenever it
outruns integration." [p 107]
"Do we not see now that while there are many ways of gaining an external,
an arbitrary power -- through brute strength, through manipulation,
through diplomacy -- genuine power is always that which inheres in the
situation?" [p 108]
"I do not think that power can be delegated because I believe that genuine
power is capacity. To confer power on the workers may be an empty
gesture. (...) [The workers'] problem is how much power they can
themselves grow. (...) Where the manages come in is that they should
give the workers a chance to grow capacity or power for themselves." [p
111]
"These expressions [dividing power, transferring power, conferring power,
sharing power], while containing indeed a partial truth, nevertheless at
the same time *hide* an important truth, namely, that power is
self-developing capacity. (...) The division of power is not the thing to
be considered, but that method of organization which will generate power."
[p 113]
"The manager cannot share *his* power with division superintendent or
foreman or workmen, but he can give them opportunities for developing
*their* power." [p 115]
That is just from one short chapter. Her other chapters on authority,
control, conflict, giving orders, and so on, are equally enthralling.
So, Doc, and others, what do you think?
Regards,
Dale
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--Dale H. Emery -- Collaborative Consultant High Performance for Software Development Projects E-mail: dale@dhemery.com Web: http://www.dhemery.com
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