ABSTRACT
The ramifications of modern industry are too widespread, its organization too complex, its problems too intricate for it to be possible for industry to be managed by commands from the top alone.
(Mary Parker Follett)
One of the themes running through almost all of European management thought, as we saw in Chapter 6, was the recognition of the human element in management and organizations. The notion that business organizations have a responsibility to ensure the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of their employees was commented on repeatedly. But there was also a strong awareness that organizations themselves are composed of human beings, that they are social and political systems as well as technical systems, and that people are the most important part of any organization. ‘It is not our job to make chains, it is to make men and women – they will make the chains for us’, Hans Renold had said, and a few years later Thomas Watson of IBM echoed him: ‘it is human ability above all else that will make this company succeed’.1
