Dynamic Administration

The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett

Henry C. Metcalf, L. Urwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134466092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Mary Parker Follett was a prominent business philosopher of the period, who agreed with Sheldon about the need to emphasize human factors in management, but placing greater stress on the need to develop a science of cooperation. According to Follett, what she called her 'Law of the Situation' could be a means for bridging the gap between an ideal of scientific management and the unilateral position that it seemed to involve in practice. In effect she was proposing the same collaboration between leaders and subordinates that was usually to be found between leaders of the same rank.

IX

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONTROL¹

LAST summer in England I was interested in two letters on the coal strike sent to the London Times by two bishops. One said that we must not confuse economic and moral issues, that the coal strike was a purely economic issue and should be treated as such. A few weeks later another bishop wrote to The Times, not in answer to the first, but independently, and said that the coal strike would never be settled if it was not understood that the issues involved were not economic but moral issues.

Undepartmentalized Thinking—Emphasis on the Whole as a Unit of Study

I was interested in these letters because I am coming more and more to think that we cannot departmentalize our thinking in this way, that we cannot think of economic principles and ethical principles, but that underneath all our thinking there are certain fundamental principles to be applied to all our problems.

Let me give another illustration. A man, the owner of a store, marked a certain grade of women’s stockings which he had been selling for $1 a pair down to 87 cents, because he thought the price had been too high. His son reported later that the reduction had spoiled the sale of that item, that customers felt that something must be the matter with it; they wanted a “dollar stocking” as they had always had. Now I do not know what the rest of that story was, but one can imagine the son, being modern, talking of the “psychology” of the customer, while one can imagine that the father, brought up in an age which did not talk psychology in season and out, and being an upright, conscientious business man, was thinking of something he called an “economic” price. Here again I should like to ask: Could not that problem have been solved by some principle which was not wholly psychological or wholly economic? Here again, would it not be possible to undepartmentalize our thinking? I think we should do this—undepartmentalize our thinking—in regard to every problem that comes to us. I am going to say before the end of my talk how I think this could have been done in the stocking controversy. I do not think we have psychological and ethical and economic problems. We have human problems with psychological, ethical, and economic aspects, and as many more as you like, legal often. I know a lady who asked her maid to lift a large pot of ferns from one place to another in the room. The maid replied that the lady was stronger than she was and she thought she should do the lifting. Here you see was a problem with an economic aspect and a psychological and an ethical. It could not have been satisfactorily solved by any one of these disciplines alone.

If we have to undepartmentalize our thinking and get down to principles that are fundamental for all the social sciences, fundamental indeed for all the life processes, surely we have to do that especially for the subject of this paper. The aim of organization engineering is control through effective unity. If, therefore, we wish to understand control, we should begin by trying to understand the nature of unities. And as our thinking on this subject has of recent years been greatly enriched by the thinking in other fields, I want to speak briefly of what we are learning of unities from biologists, psychologists, philosophers. Professor Henderson, a biological chemist, tells us that we have to study a whole as a whole, not only through an analysis of its constituents. He says: “The old physiologists described the circulation of the blood, the beating of the heart, or the properties of gastric juice, and could tell you separate facts, but could not connect these facts so as to make a satisfactory picture of the organism.” Again he says: “Physiology is far from seeing the organism as a whole yet, but we can put together the carriage of oxygen, of carbonic acid, the alkalinity of the blood, and see how these three are parts of one process. We can study how this bit of integration is itself an adaptation.” Professor Henderson is always looking on the functioning of a whole as the adapting and integrating of parts. (Is not that the chief job of the organization engineer?) And he goes so far as to say—after stating the fact that doctors used to study separate diseases but now tend to study man as a whole—that this may be the beginning of a new science, the science of human biology.

This emphasis on a whole as a unit of study we see in many places. Dr. Cannon’s physiology is the physiology of the integrated organism rather than of analysed parts. J.B.S.Haldane points out that the metabolic activity within the organism is a “whole” activity, the different sides of which are indissolubly associated, instead of being, as was formerly thought, isolable physical or chemical processes. A very suggestive treatment of wholes has come from those who have been working at the integrative action of the nervous system. Sherrington has shown us convincingly that the simple reflex, which has been treated as an isolable and isolated mechanism, is an artificial abstraction, that the nervous system functions as a whole. Kempf, a psycho-biologist, deals with what he calls “whole personalities.” He tells us of an integrative unity, of a functional whole. Many psychologists to-day are taking the idea of “organization,” “integration,” “total activities of the individual,” as the pivotal point in their psychology. (Here again are words and phrases with which we are coming to be very familiar in business management.) The Gestalt school gives us what is called explicitly the doctrine of wholes, which denies that physical, psychical, or social situations are made up of elements in a plus-plus relation. The whole, they tell us, is determined, not only by its constituents, but by their relation to one another. This is not new doctrine, but, being put forward as the cardinal feature of a whole school of psychology, it is having a large influence.² Moreover, those engaged in personality studies have been especially influenced by the Gestalt school, and they are having a direct influence on industry through personnel directors, employment managers, industrial psychologists. Their enlarged understanding of the nature of unities has affected hiring, promotion, and dismissal, for this view of wholes rather than of parts is what now guides us in our estimates of individuals. We used to describe people by naming a number of characteristics—he is selfish and he is so and so and so and so. But now we know that we do not get a very correct idea of a man thus described. We know that it is the way these characteristics are related that makes a man’s personality. Aggressiveness in Roosevelt³ may mean something quite different from aggressiveness in someone else. It is certain that biographies of the future will be very different from those of the past because of the larger understanding of this point. Again, consider the way we now use intelligence tests. Here is one list: “reasoning ability, imagination, verbal memory, incidental learning, judgment, learning in specific fields of knowledge.” It used to be thought sufficient to get percentages for each of these. Now we ask how they modify one another. If a man is over-confident (or overcautious, either) that may affect his reasoning ability so that his judgments may not be so good as one might expect from the way his reasoning ability was rated. All this is reflected in placement or promotion in industry. The men who hire have discovered that skill is often over-estimated in determining industrial value. They ask (if they are up to their job) what that man’s interest in his job is and how that affects his skill. They ask also his ability to work in a group or get along with his foreman, and how that affects his skill. Of course, it is equally true the other way round, that his degree of skill may be affecting his other qualities. He may, for instance, take so much interest in doing his work well that any resentment he may have against foreman or fellow worker gets smoothed out.

The importance of noting the relative significance of the different factors concerned has been pointed out by Cyril Burt, in his Study in Vocational Guidance, and also by Dr. Yoakum when speaking at these Bureau of Personnel Administration Conferences.⁴ And I think it is Dr. Yoakum who has also told us of another unity which it is necessary to consider. The personnel manager has to think of the efficiency ratings of the man, of the job analysis, of the promotion policies of the company, and of production and sales figures; and it is recognized to-day by some of the best personnel managers that the crux of their job is to understand the relations between these factors.

Let me give one more illustration from the field of industrial psychology. Fatigue studies used to consider the monotony of the task and its effect on the individual. Now a study is made of the different modes of expenditure of energy natural to that individual. In other words, we are always studying the total situation. All industrial psychologists feel that, Dr. Mayo⁵ has added a very valuable contribution to their work by his insistence on “the total situation.” And we must remember that we should always mean by that not only trying to see every factor that influences the situation, but even more than that, the relation of these factors to one another.

This is the most important, far the most important, trend in the thinking of to-day. In a certain hospital there is a consultation clinic for the man of moderate means. For the sum of $10 he can be examined by specialist after specialist. But there is no one doctor who reads the opinions of all these specialists to see what they amount to all together. The reports of the neurologist, the radiologist, and the others are forwarded to the doctor who has sent the patient to the hospital, and he says, “What on earth does all this mean? What does it add up to?” But certain doctors are hoping to remedy this defect, and that is yet another indication of the growing appreciation of wholes.

We see this in almost every field of study. You will find it very explicitly stated in an article in Science, on “Emergent Evolution and the Social,” written by Professor William Morton Wheeler, an eminent zoologist who has written on the social life of insects. I do not think he has sufficient grounds for his conclusions in that article, but the first part of the article is an interesting statement of the principle we are here considering.

Again, another illustration from zoology, an article on wild mice in the Journal of Mammalogy, shows that the local distribution of wild mice is not controlled by any single factor of the physical environment—by climatic conditions, or food and water supply, or antagonism between species, or nesting material—but is due to the relation of the mice to the biotic community as a whole of which they are members. This relating of the “behaviour of animals to the environmental complex” marks an interesting correspondence in the thinking in different fields. It has exactly the same significance as Dr. Mayo’s “total situation.”

In the field of anthropology, Malinowski says cultures are wholes, and you cannot alter any feature without producing repercussions which alter the whole.

In philosophy, our greatest thinkers have given us more than indications of this view of unity. Among living philosophers, I think Professor Whitehead is contributing most to our understanding of this truth.

To turn to the field of the social sciences, we find in our study of government the same truth—namely, that unities are determined not only by their constituents but by the relation of these constituents to one another. We see, for instance, how the realignments of nations change each nation. As the biologist tells us that every organism has a form or structure which is determined by the way the elements are placed in that structure, so we find on the social level, too, that rearrangement is always more than rearrangement; it changes the character of the things arranged.⁶ The regrouping of European nations has its effect on each nation.

In the study of government we find many examples which throw light on unities—genuine unities, pseudounities, attempted unities. We have not time for the many, but one may point to the League of Nations. One might point to the crop of autocrats which southern Europe seems to be reaping. I believe the cause of that lies in the fact that these nations find that unity is necessary and that they have not yet found out how to get it in a better way, or rather how to get nearer a genuine unity.

Some political scientists make the mistake of considering co-ordination and balance synonymous. Most of the political pluralists do this.⁷ The guild socialists tell us that their co-ordinating congress is an arbitrator, or court of appeal, to keep the balance between co-ordinate autonomies. According to the doctrine I am expressing, “co-ordinate autonomies” is an impossible expression. You cannot have co-ordinate autonomies because coordination is the building up of a functional total.

One of the most interesting indications in the field of government of the appreciation of the principle we are considering is the present effort in England to functionalize the departments of government and to provide for cross-relations between the departments which shall bring about a closer and more effective unity, not an arbitrary or artificial unity based on the dictum of constitution or law, but a functional unity.

To take another illustration from the field of government, many people think that democracy means all taking part. If it means only that, I do not believe in democracy. It is the fruitful relating, the interacting of parts, a co-functioning, that we want. We must provide the organization necessary for such interactions and also recognize and control those which we now have. To deny that they exist is a basic error. Professor Dewey says that it is the role of the public in government (I am using his words) to intervene not continuously but at certain junctures. He explains the phrase “not continuously” by saying that the public has its own life to lead, it is preoccupied with its own work and amusements. I do not think that there is any possible way in which Professor Dewey can support this statement. We have our own work? As a Vermont farmer, I go out and shear my sheep, but at Washington they are putting a tariff on wool—I hope. My amusements? I go to the movies and at the same time the government is censoring them—I fear. But I must not go into such questions as this. I have taken a moment for this only because I want to show that the basis for understanding the problems of political science is the same as the basis for understanding business administration—it is the understanding of the nature of integrative unities.

In economics, too, we find this same development in thinking. Ten or fifteen years ago we heard a great deal from certain economists about instincts; one instinct was to be satisfied thus and so, another by some other means. To-day I do not know any economist who is thinking in this way. They see that instincts interact, that the result depends on the way in which they interact.

We hear also from both economists and psychologists of a “want-system,” by which they mean that we cannot satisfy one want or desire after another, that my different desires act on each other, and that the total want-system is different from the addition of separate wants. Their use of the word “system” is significant. They are using it in the technical sense in which biologists use the word, in the sense of organized activity. We are all coming to see that our lives are controlled not so much by certain “drives” or wants as by their relation to one another.

I think the general recognition of want-systems would do away with a great deal of unnecessary discussion. Arthur Pugh, one of the ablest of the trade-union leaders in England—some people think the ablest—said to me this summer, “It isn’t more pay the workers are usually after; it is improvement in status.” I do not suppose he could have meant that literally, so I suppose he meant to emphasize a want-system in which status has an important place. We know that the worker wants a good many things—security in his job, work that interests him, congenial companions, recognition of his special ability, decent work conditions. Now, these wants have some relation to each other; they form, in the words we are using, a structure, a pattern, a whole, a unity.

In another field, psychiatrists look for a complex, not a single cause. There has been a marked advance in psychiatry in this respect.

Again, the probation officer, too, recognizes wholes, or the environmental complex, to use the expression of the zoologist. He sees not only that a number of things are influencing the boy’s life, but he tries to understand the way in which they are influencing one another.

Take an instance of a social worker. She is dealing with a girl of a difficult temperament who has a nagging stepmother, a job for which she is not fitted, and evening recreations of not the most wholesome character. The most successful social worker is not the one who deals with these one by one merely, but who sees their relation to one another. A more suitable job may change all the others and therefore the total.

I am emphasizing this matter of relation because, while it is customary now to speak of “the total situation,” that phrase means to many people merely that we must be sure to get all the factors into our problem. For instance, some of the industrial psychologists who are using this phrase tell us that when a workman is grossly rude to his foreman we must not jump too quickly to the conclusion that he has an habitually bad temper of an exasperating foreman; the cause may have been a quarrel with his wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• FOREWORD BY B.S.ROWNTREE
• INTRODUCTION
• I. CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT
• II. THE GIVING OF ORDERS
• III. BUSINESS AS AN INTEGRATIVE UNITY
• IV. POWER
• V. HOW MUST BUSINESS MANAGEMENT DEVELOP IN ORDER TO POSSESS THE ESSENTIALS OF A PROFESSION
• VI. HOW MUST BUSINESS MANAGEMENT DEVELOP IN ORDER TO BECOME A PROFESSION
• VII. THE MEANING OF RESPONSIBILITY IN BUSINESS—MANAGEMENT
• VIII. THE INFLUENCE OF EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION IN A REMOLDING OF THE ACCEPTED TYPE OF BUSINESS MANAGER
• IX. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONTROL
• X. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSENT AND PARTICIPATION
• XI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION
• XII. LEADER AND EXPERT
• XIII. SOME DISCREPANCIES IN LEADERSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE
• XIV. INDIVIDUALISM IN A PLANNED SOCIETY
• APPENDIX I: BIBLIOGRAPHY
• APPENDIX II: NOTES ON THE ENGLISH PAPERS