I recently had the pleasure to review a new book that contains a collection of writings by Mary Parker Follett that appear particularly relevant and insightful to anyone working in the fields of negotiation and conflict resolution.
The book titled ‘The Essential Mary Parker Follett: Ideas We Need Today’ is co-authored by Albie Davis, Jennifer Jones-Patulli, Sebastien Damart and Francois Heon. At each turn of the page, there are concepts that are highly relevant to our current theories and practice of negotiation, and I would venture to suggest that there are some that we are yet to catch up with.
It appears that many of our more contemporary developments in Negotiation theory and practice are rooted in or are strikingly familiar to Follett’s writings on concepts such as integration, power, relating-circular response, and constructive conflict. One may only need to read a book that contains Follett’s writings, such as the ‘Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management’; ‘Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett’; or the more recent ‘The Essential Mary Parker Follett: Ideas We Need Today’; and compare the the popular book ‘Getting to Yes: Negotiating an Agreement without Giving In’ to realise how advanced Follett’s writings on Negotiation Theory and Practice were. For those who are not familiar with the work of MP Follett, perhaps this book may be a good entry point to explore further. What makes this surprising is that MP Follett was a woman, born in 1868 and died in 1933, during a time when her writings appear out of place – no so today, when her ideas are needed to deal within many of the worlds challenges and opportunities – would I venture that her ideas will be essential for tomorrow, as we may be now just catching up and onto the concepts of this Negotiation visionary.
I highly recommend the latest MP Follett book ‘The Essentials of Mary Parker Follett: Ideas We Need Today.’ as a valuable addition to your Negotiation library. To order the book you may access it at Amazon and through the Books library section of The Negotiation Channel.
Given the level of contribution that Mary Parker Follett has made to the field of Negotiation, The Negotiation Channel will dedicate a series of interviews with leading Negotiation experts, talking about the key concepts and ideas laid out by Follett. The interviews will be conducted via webinar and we welcome your registration and participation in each. The interviews will be recorded and accessible for members of The Negotiation Channel.
