Eric Trist

Eric Trist (September 11, 1909 – June 4, 1993) was a British psychologist, organizational theorist, and leading figure in the field of {[w|Organizational Development}} (OD). He was one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute for Social Research in London.

Quotes

• A main problem in the study of organizational change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exist are themselves changing, at an increasing rate and towards increasing complexity. This point, in itself, scarcely needs laboring. Nevertheless, characteristics of organizational environments demand consideration for their own sake if there is to be an advancement of understanding in the behavioral sciences of a great deal that is taking place under the impact of technological change, especially at the present time.
  • Fred Emery and Eric Trist (1963) "The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments". In: Human Relations, 18: p. 21-32, 1965p. 21

• We are moving towards another type of society than that to which we have become accustomed. This is sometimes referred to as a new service society, the society of the second industrial revolution or the post-industrial society. There is no guarantee of our safe arrival. Not only are the interdependencies greater – they are differently structured... The changes in the policy field [housing, health care, urban rehabilitation, education, etc.] demand a new mobilization of the sciences.
  • Eric Trist (1969) cited in: Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld ed. (2011) INNOVATION SUMMIT April 13 & 14, 2011.

• We know from experience that technology can be changed. We have learned in the quality-of-working-life enterprise not to accept the technological imperative.
  • Eric Trist cited in: Alternatives. Vol 8 (1980). Trent University, University of Waterloo. Faculty of Environmental Studies. p.146

About Eric Trist

• Trist both pioneered and embodied action research – an interplay between his deep interaction with real problems in organisations, and the forefront of academic thought in social science. through coal mines in Yorkshire to an entire manufacturing town in New York State – he was an active contributor to both theory and practice. He said that “I used to look with longing at what I called the ‘white-coated peace’, the tranquillity of the white-coated scientists working in the lab. But that was not for me. I didn’t have a white lab coat. I was in the messy, ambiguous, problematic stuff that you have to endure if you are going to be a psychologist”.
  • Magnus Ramage and Karen Shipp (2009) Systems Thinkers. p.268

External links

• Eric Trist Biographical page.