CONCEPT
The Illusion of Final Authority
Follett's diagnosis of the assumption that somewhere in every organization exists a point at which decisional authority terminates — a hierarchical fiction that distorts actual organizational functioning and degrades decision quality.
Mary Parker Follett's argument against an assumption embedded so deeply in organizational thinking that most theorists do not recognize it as an assumption: that somewhere in every organization there exists a final authority — a person or body whose judgment is ultimate. Follett argued that this assumption operates through a confusion between the authority to decide and the capacity to decide well. The CEO has the authority; the capacity resides in the collective intelligence of the organization, in the process through which diverse forms of knowledge are pooled and integrated. The AI moment has made this illusion simultaneously more tempting — because AI gives the individual decision-maker the appearance of comprehensive knowledge — and more dangerous — because AI-assisted decisions propagate at machine speed, faster than corrective mechanisms can engage.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The illusion is more tempting in the AI age because AI tools give the individual decision-maker the appearance of comprehensive