Mary Parker Follett Quotes
I am free when I am functioning here in time and space as the creative will. ... freedom by our definition is obedience to the law of one's nature.
Follett, Mary Parker. The New State: Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government. Longmans, Green and Co., 1918, p. 71.
Political opponents of FDR claimed the New Deal programs would destroy individualism. That was one of the likely outcomes of the Great Depression had the New Deal programs not worked to improve the economy and bring relief to the millions of unemployed, starving and destitute people who would likely have turned to Fascism as did Italy and Germany. Roosevelt and his staff used this phrase often.
Mary Parker Follett was an American social worker, management consultant, philosopher and pioneer in the fields of organizational theory and organizational behavior. Along with Lillian Gilbreth, she was one of two great women management experts in the early days of classical management theory. She has been called the "Mother of Modern Management". Instead of emphasizing industrial and mechanical components, she advocated for what she saw as the far more important human element, regarding people as the most valuable commodity present within any business. She was one of the first theorists to actively write about and explore the role people had on effective management, and discuss the importance of learning to deal with and promote positive human relations as a fundamental aspect of the industrial sector.
