How conflict can be a source of creativity: the pioneering work of Mary Parker Follett

There are some very important thinkers who have been forgotten, and we would do well to rediscover them. Such is the case with Mary Parker Follett. She was a pioneer of management in the broadest sense in the 1920s. Many of her innovative ideas were taken up and developed by people who went on to become very famous, such as Peter Drucker, who acknowledged that he owed a great deal to her. In particular, she wrote some very important things about the relationship between conflict and creativity that should be of interest not only to entrepreneurs and innovators, but also to business leaders and, let’s face it, politicians.

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The Creosote, this High-Performing Manager Who Destroys Your Organization

One of the important factors of organization decline is the type of managers it recruits and promotes. Among them is what I call the ‘Creosote manager’, the one who kills life all around him to flourish. Creosote people populate just about every organization that I encounter and that have so much trouble innovating. Would there not then be a causal link?

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