A fatal defect in majority rule is that by its very nature it abolishes itself. Majority rule must inevitably become minority rule: the majority is too big to handle itself; it organizes itself into committees ... which in their turn resolve themselves into a committee of one.
Mary Parker Follettthere is a pernicious tendency to make the opinions of the expert prevail by crowd methods, to rush the people instead of educating them.
Mary Parker FollettThe leader is one who can organize the experience of the group ... and thus get the full power of the group. The leader makes the team. This is pre-eminently the leadership quality - the ability to organize all the forces there are in an enterprise and make them serve a common purpose.
Mary Parker Follettadministrative purpose usually outruns the facts. Indeed the administrative official's ardor for facts usually begins when he wants to change the facts!
Mary Parker Follettwhile the executive should give every possible value to the information of the specialist, no executive should abdicate thinking on any subject because of the expert. The expert's information or opinion should not be allowed automatically to become a decision. On the other hand, full recognition should be given to the part the expert plays in decision making.
Mary Parker FollettWe have thought of peace as passive and war as the active way of living. The opposite is true. War is not the most strenuous life. It is a kind of rest cure compared to the task of reconciling our differences ... From War to Peace is not from the strenuous to the easy existence; it is from the futile to the effective, from the stagnant to the active, from the destructive to the creative way of life ... The world will be regenerated by the people who rise above these passive ways and heroically seek, by whatever hardship, by whatever toil, the methods by which people can agree.
Mary Parker Follett