THE NEW STATE
By Mary Parker Follett

Chapter II
The Group Process: The Collective Idea

Let us begin at once to consider the group process.  Perhaps the
most familiar example of the evolving of a group idea is a
committee meeting.  The object of a committee meeting is first of
all to create a common idea.  I do not go to a committee meeting
merely to give my own ideas.  If that were all, I might write my
fellow-members a letter.  But neither do I go to learn other
people's ideas.  If that were all, I might ask each to write me a
letter.  I go to a committee meeting in order that all together we
may create a group idea, an idea which will be better than any one
of our ideas alone, moreover which will be better than all of our
ideas added together.  For this group idea will not be produced by
any process of addition, but by the interpenetration of us all. 
This subtle psychic process by which the resulting idea shapes
itself is the process we want to study.

  Let us imagine that you, I, A, B and C are in conference.  Now
what from our observation of groups will take place?  Will you say
something, and then I add a little something, and then A, and B,
and C, until we have together build up, brick-wise, an idea,
constructed some plan of action?  Never.  A has one idea, B
another, C's idea is something different from either, and so on,
but we cannot add all these ideas to find the group idea.  They
will not add any more than apples and chairs will add.  But we
gradually find that our problems can be solved, not indeed by
mechanical aggregations, but by the subtle process of the
intermingling of all the different ideas of the group.  A says
something.  Thereupon a thought arises in B's mind.  Is it B's idea
or A's?  Neither.  It is a mingling of the two.  We find that A's
idea, after having been presented to B and returned to A, has
become slightly, or largely, different from what it was originally.

  In like manner it is affected by C and so on.  But in the same way
B's idea has been affected by all the others, and not only does A's
idea feel the modifying influence of each of the others, but A's
ideas are affected by B's relation to all the others, and A's plus
B's are affected by all the others individually and collectively,
and so on and on until the common idea springs into being.

  We find in the end that it is not a question of my idea being
supplemented by yours, but that there has been evolved a composite
idea.  But by the time we have reached this point we have become
tremendously civilized people, for we have learned one of the most
important lessons of life: we have learned to do that most
wonderful thing, to say "I" representing a whole instead of "I"
representing one of our separate selves.  The course of action
decided upon is what we all together want, and I see that it is
better than what I had wanted alone.  It is what _I_ now want.  We
have experienced this at committee meetings or conferences.

  We see therefore that we cannot view the content of the
collective mind as a holiday procession, one part after another
passing before our mental eyes; every part is bound up with every
other part, every tendency is conditioned by every other tendency. 
It is like a game of tennis.  A serves the ball to B.  B returns
the serve but his play is influenced as largely by the way the ball
has been served to him as it is by his own method of return.  A
sends the ball back to B, but his return is made up of his own play
plus the way in which the ball has been played to him by B plus his
own original serve.  Thus in the end does action and reaction
become inextricably bound up together.

  I have described briefly the group process.  Let us consider what
is required of the individual in order that the group idea shall be
produced.  First and foremost each is to do his part.  But just
here we have to get rid of some rather antiquated notions.  The
individual is not to facilitate agreement by courteously (!)
waiving his own point of view.  That is just a way of shirking. 
Nor may I say, "Others are able to plan this better than I."  Such
an attitude is the result either of laziness or of a misconception.

  There are probably many present at the conference who could make
wiser plans than I alone, but that is not the point, we have come
together each to give something.  I must not subordinate myself, I
must affirm myself and give my full positive value to that meeting.

  And as the psychic coherence of the group can be obtained only by
the full contribution of every member, so we see that a readiness
to compromise must be no part of the individual's attitude.  Just
so far as people think that the basis of working together is
compromise or concession, just so far they do not understand the
first principles of working together.  Such people think that when
they have reached an appreciation of the necessity of compromise
they have reached a high plane of social development; they conceive
themselves as nobly willing to sacrifice part of their desire, part
of their idea, part of their will, in order to secure the undoubted
benefit of concerted action.  But compromise is still on the same
plane as fighting.  War will continue--between capital and labor,
between nation and nation--until we relinquish the ideas of
compromise and concession [1]

     1.  This is the heart of the latest ethical teaching based on
     the most progressive psychology: between two apparently
     conflicting courses of action, a and b, a is not to be
     followed and b suppressed, nor b followed and a suppressed,
     nor must compromise between the two be sought, but the process
     must always be one of integration.  Our progress is measured
     by our ability to proceed from integration to integration.

  But at the same time that we offer fully what we have to give, we
must be eager for what all others have to give.  If I ought not to
go to my group feeling that I must give up my own ideas in order to
accept the opinions of others, neither ought I to go to force my
ideas upon others.  The "harmony" that comes from the domination of
one man is not the kind we want.  At a board of directors' meeting
once Mr. E.H. Harriman said, "Gentlemen, we must have cooperation. 
I insist upon it."  They "cooperated" and all his motions were put
through.  At the end of the meeting some one asked Mr. Harriman to
define cooperation.  "Oh, that's simple," he said, "do as I say and
do it damned quick."

  There are many people who conscientiously go to their group
thinking it their duty to impose their ideas upon others, but the
time is coming soon when we are going to see that we have no more
right to get our own way by persuading people than by bullying or
bribing them.  To take our full share in the synthesis is all that
is legitimate [2].

     2.  This statement may be misunderstood unless there is borne
     in mind at the same time: (1) the necessity for the keenest
     individual thinking as the basis of group thinking, and (2)
     that every man should maintain his point of view until it has
     found its place in the group thought, that is, until he has
     been neither overruled nor absorbed but integrated.

  Thus the majority idea is not the group idea.  Suppose I belong
to a committee composed of five: of A, B, C, D and myself. 
According to the old theory of my duties as a committee member I
might say, "A agrees with me, if I can get B to agree with me that
will make a majority and I can carry my point."  That is, we five
can then present this idea to the world as our group idea.  But
this is not a group idea, although it may be the best substitute we
can get for the moment.  To a genuine group idea every man must
contribute what is in him to contribute.  Thus even the passing of
a unanimous vote by a group of five does not prove the existence of
a group idea if two or three (or even one) out of indifference or
laziness or prejudice, or shut-upness, or a misconception of their
function, have not added their individual thought to the creation
of the group thought.  No member of a group which is to create can
be passive.  All must be active and constructively active.

  It is not, however, to be constructively active merely to add a
share: it must be a share which is related to and bound up with
every other share.  And it must be given in such a way that it fits
in with what others are giving.  Some one said to me the other day,
"Don't you think Mr. X talks better than anyone else in Boston?" 
Well the fact is that Mr. X talks so well that I can never talk
with him.  Everything he says has such a ring of finality, is such
a rounding up of the whole question, that it leaves nothing more to
be said on the subject.  This is particularly the kind of thing to
be avoided in a committee meeting or conference.

  There are many people, moreover, who want to score, to be
brilliant, rather than to find agreement.  Others come prepared
with what they are going to say and either this has often been said
long before they get a chance to speak, or, in any case, it allows
no give-and-take, so they contribute nothing; when we really learn
the process our ideas will be struck out by the interplay.  To
compare notes on what we have thought separately is not to think
together.

  I asked a man once to join a committee I was organizing and he
replied that he would be very glad to come and give his advice.  I
didn't want him -- and didn't have him.  I asked another man and he
said he would like very much to come and learn but that he couldn't
contribute anything.  I didn't have him either -- I hadn't a
school.  Probably the last man thought he was being modest and,
therefore, estimable.  But what I wanted was to get a group of
people who would deliberately work out a thing together.  I should
have liked very much to have the man who felt that he had advice to
give if he has had also what we are now learning to call the social
attitude, that is, that of a man willing to take his place in the
group, no less and no more.  This definition of social attitude is
very different from our old one -- the willingness to give; my
friend who wanted to come and give advice had that, but that is a
crude position compared with the one we are now advocating.

  It is clear then that we do not go to our group -- trade-union,
city council, college faculty -- to be passive and learn, and we do
not go to push through something we have already decided we want. 
Each must discover and contribute that which distinguishes him from
others, his difference.  The only use for my difference is to join
it with other differences.  The unifying of opposites is the
eternal process [1]

     1.  We must not of course confuse the type of unifying spoken
     of here (an integration), which is a psychological process,
     with the "reconciliation of opposites," which is a logical
     process.

We must have an imagination which will leap from the particular to
the universal.  Our joy, our satisfaction, must always be in the
more inclusive aspect of our problem.

  We can test our group in this way: do we come together to
register the results of individual thought, to compare the results
of individual thought in order to make selections therefrom, or do
we come together to create a common idea?  Whenever we have a real
group something new _is_ actually created.  We can now see
therefore that the object of group life is not to find the best
individual thought, but the collective thought.  A committee
meeting isn't like a prize show aimed at calling out the best each
can possibly produce and then the prize (the vote) awarded to the
best of all these individual opinions.  The object of a conference
is not to get a lot of different ideas, as is often thought, but
just the opposite -- to get at one idea.  There is nothing rigid or
fixed about thoughts, they are entirely plastic, and ready to yield
themselves completely to their master -- the group spirit [1]

     1.  I am sometimes told that mine is a counsel of perfection
     only to be realized in the millenium (sic), but we cannot take
     even the first step until we have chosen our path.

  I have given some of the conditions necessary for collective
thinking.  In every governing board -- city counsels, hospital and
library trustees, the boards of colleges and churches, in business
and industry, in directors' meetings -- no device should be
neglected which will help to produce joint rather than individual
thinking.  But no one has yet given us a scientific analysis of the
conditions necessary or how to fulfill them.  We do not yet know,
for instance, the best number to bring out as many differences as
possible, the best number to bring out the group idea, the number,
that is, which will bring out as many differences as possible and
yet form a whole or group.  We cannot guess at it but only get it
through scientific experiments.  Much laboratory work has to be
done.  The numbers on Boards of Education, on Governors'
Commissions, should be determined by psychological as well as by
political reasons.

  Again it is said that private sessions are undemocratic.  If they
contribute to true collective thinking (instead of efforts to
dazzle the gallery), then in so far, they are democratic, for there
is nothing in then world so democratic as the production of a
genuine group will.

  Mr. Gladstone must have appreciated the necessity of making
conditions favorable to joint thinking, for I have been told that
at important meetings of the Cabinet he planned beforehand where
each member should sit.

  The members of a group are reciprocally conditioning forces none
of which acts as it would act if any one member were different or
absent.  You can often see this in a board of directors: if one
director leaves the room, every many becomes slightly different.

  When the conditions for collective thinking are more or less
fulfilled, then the expansion of life will begin.  Through my group
I learn the secret of wholeness [1]

     1.  The break in the English Cabinet in 1915, which led to the
     coalition Cabinet, came when both Kitchener and Churchill
     tried to substitute individual for group action.

The inspiration of the group is proportionate to the degree in
which we do actually identify ourselves with the whole and think
that _we_ are doing this, not Mr. A and Mr. B and I, but we, the
united we, the singular not the plural pronoun we.  (We shall have
to write a new grammar to meet the needs of the times, as non-
Euclidean geometries are now being published.)  Then we shall no
longer have a feeling of individual triumph, but feel only elation
that the group has accomplished something.  Much of the evil of our
political and social life comes from the fact that we crave
personal recognition and personal satisfaction; as soon as our
greatest satisfaction is group satisfaction, many of our present
problems will disappear.  When one thinks of one's self as part of
a group, it means keener moral perceptions, greater strength of
will, more enthusiasm and zest in life.  We shall enjoy living the
social life when we understand it; the things which we do and
achieve together will give us much greater happiness than the
things we do and achieve by ourselves.  It has been asked what, in
peace, is going to take the place of those songs men sing as they
march to battle which at the same time thrill and unite them.  The
songs which the hearts of men will sing as they go forward in life
with one desire -- the song of the common will, the social will of
man.

  Men descend to meet?  This is not my experience.  The _laissez-
aller_ which people allow themselves when alone disappears when
they meet.  Then they pull themselves together and give one another
of their best.  We see this again and again.  Sometimes the idea of
the group stands quite visibly before us as one which none of us is
quite living up to by himself.  We feel it there, an impalpable,
substantial thing in our midst.  It raises us to the nth power of
action, it fires our minds and glows in our hearts and fulfils and
actuates itself no less, but rather on this very account, because
it has been generated only by our being together.
