Eric Trist: Working

Eric Trist was British scientist. Explore interesting quotes on working.

Eric Trist: 58 quotes0 likes

“The work organization of the new seam was, to us, a novel phenomenon consisting of relatively autonomous groups interchanging roles and shifts and regulating their affairs with a minimum of supervision. Cooperation between task groups was everywhere in evidence, personal commitment obvious, absenteeism low, accidents infrequent, productivity high. The contrast was large between the atmosphere and arrangements on these faces and those in the conventional areas of the pit, where the negative features characteristic of the industry were glaringly apparent. The men told us that in order to adapt with best advantage to the technical conditions in the new seam, they had evolved a form of work organization based on practices common in the unmechanized days when small groups, who took responsibility for the entire cycle, had worked autonomously.”

Source: The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981), p. 8

“Primary work systems. These are the systems which carry out the set of' activities involved in an identifiable and bounded subsystem of a whole organization - such as a line department or a service unit…”

The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

“Correspondingly, the work group became central rather than the individual jobholder.”

The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

“Fellows were encouraged to revisit their former industries and make a report on any new perceptions they might have. One of these Fellows, Ken Bamforth, returned with news of an innovation in work practice and organization which had occurred in a new seam in the colliery where he used to work in the South Yorkshire coalfield. The seam, the Haighmoor, had become possible to mine "shortwall" because of improved roof control.”

Source: The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981), p. 8

“The work system, which comprised a set of activities that made up a functioning whole, now became the basic unit rather than the single jobs into which it was decomposable.”

The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

“Socio-technical analysis is made at three levels - the primary work system; the whole organization; and macrosocial phenomena.”

Source: The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981), p. 6

“This principle valued the discretionary rather than the prescribed part of work roles”

Jaques, 1956
The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981)

“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

“The outstanding feature of the social pattern with which the pre-mechanized equilibrium was associated is its emphasis on small group organisation at the coal face. [Indeed], under these conditions there is no possibility of continuous supervision, in the factory sense, from any individual external to the primary work group.”

Source: "Some Social and Psychological Consequences of the Long Wall Method of Coal-Getting", 1951, p. 7

“The socio-technical concept arose in conjunction with the first of several field projects undertaken by the Tavistock Institute in the coal-mining industry in Britain. The time (1949) was that of the postwar reconstruction of industry in relation to which the Institute had two action research projects.(2) One project was concerned with group relations in depth at all levels (including the management/labor interface) in a single organization - an engineering company in the private sector. The other project focused on the diffusion of innovative work practices and organizational arrangements that did not require major capital expenditure but which gave promise of raising productivity. The former project represented the first comprehensive application in an industrial setting of the socio-clinical ideas concerning groups being developed at the Tavistock.”

Source: The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981), p. 7