Regional Studies

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New directions of hope: Recent innovations interconnecting organizational, industrial, community and personal development

Eric Trist

To cite this article: Eric Trist (1979) New directions of hope: Recent innovations interconnecting organizational, industrial, community and personal development, Regional Studies, 13:5, 439-451, DOI: 10.1080/09595237900185381 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09595237900185381

Published online: 04 Feb 2007.

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Download by: [75.157.129.107] Date: 24 February 2017, At: 12:11 Regional Studies, Vol. 13, pp. 439-451. Pergamon Press, Ltd. 1979. Printed in Great Britain. New Directions of Hope: Recent Innovations Interconnecting Organizational, Industrial, Community and Personal Development*

ERIC TRIST t

Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada

I FEEt honoured to be invited to make this and uncertainties of the contemporary en- presentation, and to pay tribute to John vironment which are making it increasingly Madge, whom I knew for many years and "turbulent"--to use a term introduced by whose work influenced me considerably my former Tavistock colleague when I became concerned with larger social and myself (1973)--have become too great systems than those I had focussed on. for it to be exclusively and effectively man- Let me outline what I propose to cover. aged by "centres"--whether political, in- First, I will advance a general thesis; then dustrial or urban--distant and aloof as these briefly introduce four very innovative real have become, and heavy as they have grown world projects which lend some support to it. with their bureaucratic hierarchies. I will next identify the common character- But if the centre does not hold? Are we istics of these projects all of which involve with William Butler Yeats to see no alter- communities and proceed to tell the stories of native but anarchy? their development. Social scientists have If we continue to be preoccupied with recently begun to see that they can sometimes what is happening in the centres, where learn more from telling stories than from power, resources and people are concen- others collecting statistics (SCHON, 1977). trated and where the big policy decisions are Others,0f course, have known this all along made, an increasing number of us, including but most of us in the social sciences have myself, find small grounds for hope. remained rather deaf to their advice. After my But if one should turn one's gaze away story-telling I will endeavour to review the from the centres what does one find? What is more general implications which I believe going on in the provinces? innovative community projects have for the In all fields there is beginning to appear, future of out type of society and the here and there, sometimes in the most Un- individuals who live in it. expected places, an increasing number of self-initiating, self-regulating innovative or- THE BASIC PREMISE ganizations. My thesis is that in these there is In his book, Beyond the Stable State (the an alternative both to over-centralization and material of which was originally presented chaos. As regards policies to combat multiple over here as the Reith Lectures), my M.I.T. deprivation, for example, not so much is it in colleague Don Schon (1971) advances the the great departments of state in Washington thesis that what he calls the or London that new approaches are being "centre-periphery model" is no longer developed but in places like Craigmitlar, a working at the level it used formerly to district of here in (which achieve. The interdependencies, complexities I shall be talking about later), where novel approaches are evolving from the intimate experience of those who live with the *This paper was delivered as the John Madge Memorial Lecture at a meeting of the Regional Studies problem year in and year out. Or take Association, Glasgow University, November 3rd unemployment. One of the most effective 1978. and uncommon ideas I know of has emerged "[Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Social from a small town in Western New York Ecology at York University and ProfessorEmeritus of State, Jamestown (about which I shall also be the University of Pennsylvania; Chairman of Management and Behavioral Science Center of the talking later). During the recent recession Wherton School; also former Chairman of the several firms maintained their workforces , London. above the immediate market need and 439 440 Eric Trist showed that such supposed economic Table 1. The directions of innovation irrationality paid off--because the workers were allowed and agreed to make improve- Outside -- Periphery, not centre ments scarcely possible during full pro- Below -- Bottom up, not top down duction. It is in such endeavours that I find Middle -- Community, not national level hope. Across -- Network leverage, not formal channels. Away from the centres new settings for innovation are being created. The innovative other disrespectful names) there is less pre- individuals, groups and organizations ssure, less distraction, less complexity, less involved, however, are not aiming to overload than at the centre; more space to try supplant official bodies or invade the centres. out something new, to make a few mistakes Their aim is to exist as well as, not instead of, and to find one's way--as in Jamestown and the centres. They are complementary. The Craigmillar. need is to establish a partnership, so that they By below, I mean not top down, but and the centres can work together co- bottom up, beginning, for example, with the operatively to accomplish what neither can shop floor. In the last few years a movement, do alone rather than be in rivalry and con- which goes under the title of improving the flict. There must, however, be some surren- quality of working life, has begun to make at der of power, some transfer of resources on least a first appearance in all Western the part of the authorities. Else the inde- countries. It began in Britain in the mining pendent bodies will remain ineffective. This industry (TRIST and BAMFORTH, 1951; TRIST et is a point which is central to my thesis and to al., 1963), though this has been forgotten. As which I will return later. with so many things we start in this country, Official bodies at the national level show we don't follow through as regards appli- some signs of taking up for wider purposes cations and diffusion. "QWL", as it is now new ideas coming up from grass roots set- called, is concerned with ensuring that the tings. But channels must be created for them workforce has a piece of the action--under its to come. Let me give an example of how one own control. It is surprising how much such channel was formed. The former creativity is then released so that while work Mayor of Jamestown, Stan Lundine, who satsifaction increases productivity usually initiated the whole development which has does also--provided all concerned play it fair. taken place in that city, is now in Congress, By the middle, I mean the levels of society has been voted the outstanding Congressman between the nation state and the single organ- of the year, and has just got a bill (U.S. ization. A community is the smallest middle CONGRESS, HOUSE OF P,.EPRESENTATIVES, level unit, a region a larger one. A cluster of 1978) through both Houses with the help of firms composing a "Little Neddy"* would the Senior Senator from New York State, be another middle-level entity. Western so- Senator Javits, a member of the other politi- cieties tend to be weak in the middle. This cal party. The bill incorporates for wider puts too much pressure on aggregate application many of the ideas that have been management on the one hand and the single piloted up in Jamestown. I believe that organization on the other. The middle level through such processes an important contri- is composed of what I have called "domains" bution can be made to policy making. I give (SuDBURY 2001, 1978). These may, but need this example as it is fresh in my experience. not, be geographic entities, such as those I Examples with which I am acquainted in shall be talking about. Essentially they are British settings are of an older vintage. settings which enable appreciations of com- plex societal problems, or probldmatiques (to THE NEW DIRECTIONS use a currently fashionable term), to take place. When they are geographically em- Let me now state my four directions of bodied the local settings represent wider hope, which are those shown on Table 1. thematic domains symbolically, such as mul- Hope, in the hypothesis I am making, comes tiple deprivation or industrial decline as in from the outside, below, the middle and Craigmillar and Jamestown. A domain is across. The degree of hope is greatest when it large enough to contain a version of the comes from all four directions, for these many-sided problems which afflict modern form an interdependent set. By the outside, I mean the periphery, not the centre. In the periphery (otherwise *Sector Economic Committee set up by the known as the boondocks, the outback and by National Economic Development Council. New Directions of Hope 441

Table 2. Innovating organizations

Organization Location Country

The Jamestown Area Western New York Labor-Management Committee State U.S.A. The Greater Philadelphia South-Eastern Partnership Pennsylvania U.S.A. Sudbury 2001 Northern Ontario Canada The Craigmillar Festival Society Edinburgh Scotland societies. I have just called them "themes", FOUR INNOVATING but my Wharton colleague, Russell Ackoff ORGANIZATIONS (1974), calls them "messes". They are small I now want to introduce four voluntary enough so that the themes or messes can be organizations of this kind all of which have more clearly perceived and more im- won international recognition. They have mediately felt than in wider contexts, while emerged in communities very different from being more manageable as regards scale and each other. Between them they illustrate the complexity. pattern I have outlined. When one sees the By across I mean networks--the channels same phenomenon in widely different set- mediated by individuals which cross organ- tings one begins to attach more importance izational boundaries. If organizations rep- to the significance of what one sees. The four resent bounded wholes---even if the bound- organizations selected have been chosen for a aries are permeable----networks are un- very simple reason--they are ones I know at bounded systems, complementary to organ- first hand and am in fact involved with in one izations. In organizations people act in roles; way or another at the present time. They are in networks they act as themselves. People shown in Table 2. who have the same concerns, who share the The first is the Jamestown Area same values, have the knack of finding each Labor-Management Committee in other wherever they may be so that very Jamestown--a small manufacturing town in rapidly their interactions resonate through Western New York State. The committee what EMI~RY (1976) has called "the extended arose in 1972 when the largest plant in the social field", which is a complementary aspect area closed and unemployment went up to of society to organization life. As networks 10%. form in the extended social field, they are apt The next is the Greater Philadelphia to induce changes in formal organizations, as Partnership, a venerable Philadelphia in- regards policies or even structures, which stitution, which a year or so ago, rather would otherwise be impossible. unexpectedly, took a new lease of life when Networks have special importance at the certain key Philadelphians who happened to present time because individuals are chang- belong to it decided to do something about ing faster than organizations. The values the darkening future of the city and had an likely beneficially to shape the future are idea which I shall describe later. You may be emerging in individuals. In groups and tem- surprised at the inclusion of so large a city as porary systems arising from the networks Philadelphia but in the U.S.A., Philadelphia is formed by future-oriented individuals lies referred to as the place which got lost be- the greatest leverage for change.* This is tween New York and Washington. especially so when these networks, operating The third is a very new group, called in the periphery, coming up from the grass "Sudbury 2001", in Northern Ontario, com- roots and concerned with a particular do- posed of some thoughtful people drawn main, form a voluntary organization, which from many sections of the community who contains a number of imaginative people, had begun to worry about the long-range among whom there are natural leaders--to future of their isolated but important re- address the unresolved issues and take action source industry town. Then some massive on new lines. lay-offs took place in the key local firm, International Nickel, and the ball started rolling rather more rapidly. They are now an *This process is well described by HENDERSON empowered group with a wide and varied (1978) in Creating Alternative Futures, Ch. 23. support base. 442 Eric Trist Last but not least, and perhaps the most (d) The communities concerned have a original as well as the oldest of these organ- negative image. They are among those who izations, is the Craigmillar Festival Society in haven't made it or won't make it much Edinburgh. Like many impoverished public longer. This negative image is both ascribed housing communities extruded to the out- to them from the outside and accepted on the skirts of large urban areas without a sem- inside. So long as this internal acceptance of blance of amenities, Craigmillar did not an ascribed identity persists nothing can share in any of the prosperity of the '50s and happen. '60s. The gap widened, as with the Third (e) The first task of the innovating organ- World. This was the crisis which activated a ization is to refuse to accept this negative small group of residents around Mrs. Helen identity. Such organizations need to be inde- Crummy to improve the quality of life in pendent not only of statutory bodies but of Craigmillar by taking an initiative first of all the major local power groups. After all none in the field of community arts. of these have coped with the problem. A new cut, a new perspective, a new setting is COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF required in which effective innovation can INNOVATING ORGANIZATIONS develop. A start is made when a few de- Before proceeding to describe some of the termined individuals, related to each other activities of these four organizations let me through various overlapping networks, on go over their common characteristics. I be- their own initiative form a group--to do lieve these characteristics to be possessed by a something about what are, after all, their wide class of innovating organizations which own lives. constitute a social type of central importance (0 Because the organization is independent to Western Societies in their present phase. yet netted into many sections of the com- The characteristics are listed in Table 3. munity it can secure the collaboration of key interest groups who may on other issues be in Table 3. Characteristicsof innovating organizations conflict or indifferent to each other. Because the problem is a major one affecting the Critical situation community as a whole all these groups are Major societal problem implicated. A wide support base can be built. Local (g) Such a support base is a condition of Negative image Independent securing resources. Without resources the Collaborating interest groups members of an innovative organization can Transfer of resources do no more than talk. To undertake courses Complementary power of action which will start to clean up the mess they have to mobilize resources, usually from (a) A critical situation exists which is not multiple sources. The most important how- being coped with by traditional means. A ever involve the transfer to them of public funds. particular incident may act as a trigger but They also need to have some staff of their own, discloses that the crisis is chronic and requires else courses of action cannot be sustained. long-range remedies. (h) The transfer of public funds is a crucial (b) The problem to be met is not merely step since it means that an alternative power local but is rather a microcosm of a major system begins to come into existence which societal problem--"a mess". Effective courses threatens statutory bodies and local power of action which may be taken locally there- groups. The innovating organization will fore have symbolic as well as actual power. survive only if it can show them its power is They are quickly perceived as relevant to complementary rather than invasive; and if it others in similar circumstances. They soon can develop a distinctive competence that begin to resonate widely through the social demonstrates to the wide set of stakeholders fabric. involved that it can deliver in some visible (c) But the version of the "meta-problem" way and to an appreciable degree what so far or mess is local. It has a concrete reality as has not been delivered. well as a general meaning. This compels those concerned to work at all aspects of it THE JAMESTOWN AREA both short and long term with deep know- LABOR-MANAGEMENT ledge of the way various factors, which may COMMITTEE be abstracted into different departments and Now let me highlight some of the separate jurisdiction at higher levels, interact developments arising from the work of the in their own particular setting. Jamestown Area Labor-Management New Directions of Hope 443

Committee, which I understand is of special ant is the fact that quite a few have come interest to a number of people in the West of quite a long way. The largest industry is Scotland, and which has succeeded in arrest- sheet metal working, the next woodwork- ing a long process of economic decline. The ing. The plants are mostly job shops. Many negative image which had to be changed of them are small, though several are branch before positive steps could be taken con- plants belonging to large out of town firms. cerned labour relations, which were It was found that the key in-house skills were notoriously bad. The newly elected mayor being carried by an ageing work force and had bipartisan support. With the help of a that no training was being done. An inter- few key influentials he was able to call the plant skills development programme was managers and local union presidents of all the developed using some of the most senior main plants to a special meeting. They had workers as instructors, trained to teach by the never met before except in an adversarial local Community College. relationship at the bargaining table. After the Serious attention had to be paid to what storms had subsided a permanent joint com- was called performance development. But mittee was formed to establish labor- any cost savings achieved through worker management co-operation as a basis for in- participation have to be shared on terms dustrial development. Several plants were agreed by management and union. saved from bankruptcy. Later, a major cor- Most Jamestown plants are old. Layouts poration, Cummins Engines, came to are a nightmare. A major breakthrough town--the first since World War II. It oc- came when a ceramics foundry belonging to cupied the million square feet evacuated by Carborundum was totally redesigned accord- the firm which went bankrupt. It is among ing to a plan evolved by the in-plant labor- the most advanced U.S.-based multinationals management committee after interviews and as regards organizational design and the hu- group discussions with foremen and the manization of work. The new diesel plant it entire workforce as well as industrial engin- is bringing into production in Jamestown is eers and members of management. An being developed on these principles. Among alternative plan put forward by some suitable locations considered by Cummins Pittsburgh foundry consultants was judged

Engines, the final choice fell on Jamestown inferior and too expensive by the Corporate on account of the co-operative values and Board who accepted the locally evolved plan innovative spirit which had now established and invested $5,000,000 in reconditioning themselves there (TRIST, 1977b). the plant instead of closing it as they had It became evident that action solely at the thought of doing. community level was not enough. The new In a number of firms only one in 10 of the climate had to be established in each plant contracts bid for were won. The prices were and concrete improvements made that too high or delivery was too slow. One plant would make them more competitive and set the example of involving the workers in save jobs. This is the aspect which is shown in constructing a prototype which was put on Table 4, which begins by noting the estab- the market before the due date at a price the lishment of in-plant labor-management competition could not match. A further step, initiated by another plant, Table 4. Themes in Jamestown plants was to involve the work force in the design of a new product line. The firm had to either In-plant labour-management committees alter its product mix or cut back severely. Skills development The composite worker-technician teams in- Performance development Gains sharing volved came up with something that now Plant re-design accounts for a quarter of the firm's business. Work-restructuring A generally agreed principle had been that Job-bidding contract issues should be kept strictly separate Product development from the work of the joint in-plant com- Contract-linked issues Employment maintenance mittees. While a co-operative mode was being developed the adversarial mode had also to be maintained. There was to be no committees which steer the developments getting in bed with the management. But which have taken place in each plant. Not all recently a number of issues arising from the plants have formed such committees and not work of the committees have been brought all the committees formed have got very far. to the bargaining table and successfully This was only to be expected. More import- negotiated. 444 Eric Trist

The question of employment maintenance 3 yr has defended a dissertation in the I have already discussed. Until relatively University of Pennsylvania on the themes recently the whole endeavour in Jamestown which have emerged in Jamestown plants was confined to the private sector. The (KEIDEL, 1978). (I have used his material in boundary with the public sector was jeal- Table 4.) Another, John Eldred, has become ously guarded. But this boundary has now Staff Co-ordinator of the whole Committee. been permeated. There are extensive projects He is at present building a local staff of 10 in the hospitals and in the school system. consisting of both management and union Indeed this latter has become part of another people seconded part-time to learn this type project, in which my research centre at the of work and then return to lead teams in University of Pennsylvania is engaged, in- their own plants. , as well volving labor-management committees in as the University of Pennsylvania has now the public sector of 10 different cities. This become involved. project is remarkable for the fact that the federal agency concerned did not seek to Table 5. The renewal of Philadelphia establish a centrally demonstrated model which the periphery would then apply but Greater Philadelphia Partnership provides setting has endeavoured to find out both what is for nuclear group bothering people and what is new that might The way to create.jobs and tax base at home ,is to be comma up out there. Through con- develop the city internationally Nine development domains identified ferences it is encouraging the various sites to Relations with key individuals in critical learn from each other. We call it Project interest groups are built Network (MANAGEMENT and BEHAVIORAL Proposals made public--sustained support of SCIENCE CENTER, 1977). Something like this press in the private sector is going on in Scotland, Political leaders go along through the work of WEIR (1978), supported Some projects to go ahead immediately by a grant from the Work Research Unit of the Department of Employment. What has been taking place in Jamestown has interested a number of other com- munities in the U.S.A. for whom it has THE GREATER PHILADELPHIA become a symbol. Of some 100 reported PARTNERSHIP attempts to form area-based More briefly I will describe what has labor-management committees, it would recently been happening in Philadelphia, but seem that 22 are to be judged serious and something first about the city itself. There are likely to establish firm roots and develop on 2.5 million people within the city limits and sound lines. These now include one or two between 5 and 6 million in the whole urban quite large as well as small cities. area of the Delaware Valley. This constitutes Furthermore, interest in Jamestown has the fourth largest conurbation in the U.S.A. spread outside the . I was asked The black population is exceedingly large to write a brief overview of what has and the Puerto R.ican population is growing. transpired for a new journal called Human The political machine is largely controlled by Futures which is now published in India long established white ethnic groups (Italian, (TRIST, 1978). There is now available-- Irish and Polish). A great deal of industry has written in a way all can understand--the gone either south or to the suburbs, and the Jamestown 5-yr report entitled Committment welfare roles are swollen. Near the water- at Work (JAMESTOWN AREA LABOR-- front is the old colonial city which has been MANAGEMENT COMMrrrEE, 1977). restored. Up what is called the Main Line, There have of course been many setbacks wealthy suburbs straggle for miles. An as- and failures in the Jamestown process and a sortment of 17 institutions, some of which continuous struggle over mobilizing re- are distinguished, offers tertiary education. sources. After the first moves toward labour The core group meeting in the Greater peace nothing further would have developed Philadelphia Partnership saw that the best without a full-time paid staff, competent in chance of creating employment and a tax action research and well grounded in base was to develop the economy of the city QWL. The presence of some full-time staff internationally, something which had never is a feature of all four organizations. One of been systematically attempted. But what my former graduate students, Bob Keidel, were the competencies of Philadelphia that who was in residence in Jamestown for some could stand up at the international level? New Directions of Hope 445 To help them identify them they sought tens of millions of dollars into the city within the counsel of my colleague Howard a year of commencing operations and, di- Perlmutter who heads the Wharton School's rectly and indirectly, to create 6000 jobs. A World-wide Institutions Research Group needed "missing institution" will have been (PERLMUTrER, 1977). I have been involved created. The identification of such needed indirectly through him, not directly as in missing institutions is in Perlmutter's view a Jamestown. In discussions with him it was critical task for innovating groups. realised that the international business aspect If this goes according to plan a lot of could not be isolated but that efforts would people in Philadelphia will begin to have have to be made to improve several critical some hope. ACKOFF (1978) has said that aspects of the city's life. Accordingly nine planning should no longer be concerned development domains were identified. with the art of the possible but with the art of The original nuclear group consisted of the impossible. It will certainly need the art one or two of the presidents of the leading of the impossible to put Philadelphia on its banks and of the main Philadelphia based feet. multinationals. The city's elite has not had Table 6. An alternative future for a threatened resource much credibility with either organised industry town (Sudbury) labour or minority groups. The Partnership contained one or two active members with Key individuals concerned about long-range links into these groups and through them future form "Sudbury 2001" further links were developed with several key Massive layoffs by International Nickel cause influentials in these sectors who began to community crisis 1100 people "flock" to April conference of participate in the task forces set up to develop Sudbury 2001 proposals. Provincial Premier allocates $600,000 over 3 yr to When the proposals were made public last Sudbury 2001 as seed money for development spring they attracted, the sustained support of alternatives Sudbury 2001 undertakes to raise $3,000,000 from the main local paper, one of the more community prestigious on the Atlantic Seaboard. It pub- Federal agencies become interested in Sudbury as lished detailed and well informed featured microcosm of Canada articles (SPAN, 1978). Meetings have been held in many sections of the community. A signal that something may indeed have hap- SUDBURY 2001 pened is that the politicians have begun to go What is the importance of Sudbury 2001 along--the aspirants to office with apparent in the present context? The facts are sum- enthusiasm (in some cases genuine), while the marized in Table 6. First is in the scale of the incumbents have not so far thought it wise to transfer of resources--S600,000 in seed cast aspersions. The Philadelphia case illus- money from the Government of Ontario to trates how a wide support base can be rapidly "Sudbury 2001"--mediated through the city established by a determined innovative whose Mayor is one of the leading members group--under conditions where few would of 2001 as is the President of the Sudbury have thought it possible. But what, if any- District Trades Council, one of the two senior thing, will now happen? Expectations having managers in residence, and the Presidents of been raised, everything will depend on ensur- Laurentian University and Cambrian ing that one or two projects materialise Community College. The offer of the without delay. One such project will com- $600,000 was personally made by the mence operations on 1 January 1979. Provincial Premier who felt obliged to attend Philadelphia has six medical schools and 15 the April 1978 Conference on Economic teaching hospitals, is the headquarters of two Development (SuDBURY 2001, 1978) which multinational pharmaceutical firms and has a met to begin the process of bringing into large medical equipment industry. Health being a diversified economy which would was selected as an international development end the exclusive dependence on mining. domain. The President of Smith, Kline and Workshops undertook initial searches in French regretted that nowhere in the world several directions: appropriate technology, was there an independent institution to test high technology, new products and services, ethical drugs. Could one be created in as well as conventional sectors. Another Philadelphia? It is now being brought into workshop considered image improvement. existence as a non-profit institution sup- The image has been negative both internally ported by the various medical schools and and externally. pharmaceutical firms. It is expected to bring Next, Sudbury 2001 is important for the 446 Eric Trist boldness of its strategy in asking the com- Craigmillar? munity to invest in its own future. The Attempts to transform deprived com- $3,000,000 is to be raised in contributions of munities into going concerns solely from the $50 and $100. The more the local com- outside by increasing publicly provided ser- munity puts in, the more difficult will it be vices have by and large failed. So have at- for outside stakeholders to withhold their tempts from the inside relying solely on contributions. The campaign to raise money voluntary personnel, untrained and working has been halted for the moment as a major intermittently in their free time. So also have strike, expected to be prolonged, is going on restricted attempts addressed only to one or at International Nickel. But when I was last two rather than to the many interrelated there, at a 2-day seminar held by Sudbury aspects of community life. By contrast the 2001 to check out its planning philosophy CFS, initiated 16 yr ago, has now a proven and strategies with a number of outside record of considerable success. people (including George McRobie of the The Society is a community development Intermediate Technology Group in organization which has arisen spontaneously London), the President of Local 598, one of in this low-income area of Edinburgh of the locals involved in the strike, said he some 25,000 residents. It began in com- thought they should go to the community munity arts by holding a festival--a defiant notwithstanding that. "It is our members counter to the Edinburgh International Arts who live here", he said, "it is we more than Festival. This festival of the poor has become others who want to build a future here for famous in its own right, with its pageant, ourselves and our children. For most of us street theatre, full-length "musical" featuring there is nowhere else to go. Anyway, we locally relevant social issues and many other want to stay here. It is our home." This is the events involving large number of citi- nub of the matter. zenry. It has demonstrated what the poor can The third importance of Sudbury is what I do for themselves in a field from which, would like to call its magnet effect. Several supposedly, they are debarred. Departments of the Federal as well as the Through these activities the Society has Provincial Government were present at the been gradually creating a new positive ident- checking-out seminar I attended to learn ity to replace the negative identity which what was going on and to consider whether the community had accepted through its far- and how they might support it. When the reaching deprivation. Confidence is more in Mayor said that Sudbury was a microcosm evidence now than feelings that "it's all no of Canada there was general accord among use and we can't do it". Many now actively those present that the probl~matique of involved say how formerly they felt both Sudbury was central to the probl6matique of passive and estranged. The change in this the country as a whole. The Science Council regard is the attitudinal breakthrough on of Canada is already partnering Sudbury which all else has depended. One has to go 2001 in establishing a national network on and talk to a large number of people in appropriate technology. If the plans of one or Craigmillar before one can appreciate how two of my colleagues mature, a conference much this means. will be held this summer at which rep- Remember that Craigmillar is a multiply resentative delegations from a number of deprived community, rife with unemploy- smaller Canadian cities facing economic ment. The rate for adult males is between 22 decline will compare notes at some depth. I and 30O/o; for women it is higher. How many shall be surprised if there are not con- teenagers know any work experience? The sequences, by no means trivial, for federal as last pit closed years ago. Even the last well as provincial policies. How rapidly can brewery has gone, except for one operation action-oriented processes of social learning on the outskirts. Moreover the community has relevant to the development of alternative more than its share of elderly and handi- futures be diffused in a society? What capped people. The pattern of dreary ten- transpires in the wake of Sudbury 2001 may ement blocks that started to be put up in the yield further insights into this. They are badly inter-war period has been repeated in the '50s needed. Time is not on our side. and again in the '60s, not only in Craigmillar but in other parts of Edinburgh, and not only THE CRAIGMILLAR FESTIVAL in Edinburgh but in the West of Scotland. It SOCIETY (CFS) would appear that the lesson has not yet been learned that a housing estate does not What finally is the importance of constitute a community and that it is com- New Directions of Hope 447 munities we need to build. The whole school and a community centre. The ex- enterprise of the Festival Society may be perience of gaining these enabled consider- regarded as a sustained effort by the able political capability to develop. The local Craigmillar folks to turn the housing estate councillors play an important role in the which has been visited on them into a society's leadership. community which they will have made themselves. Table 7. Aspects of the evolving work of the CFS It may seem paradoxical that in a multiply deprived community the tide was Community arts turned by activities in the field of the arts. Sense of achievement But paradoxes are apt to contain important Extensive participation meanings. The creation of art in any of its Positive identity forms is perhaps the most profound and powerful affirmation of life against death Social action Political capability that we as humans can make, of harnessing Planning capability the constructive .and positive forces against Mobilizing resources the constraining and destructive forces. The Securing amenities cultivation of the imagination develops a Seizing opportunities resourcefulness which enables reality, how- Cost-effective services Meaningful .jobs ever grim, to be contended with more Meaningful non-market activities innovatively. The Craigmillar folk had not Developing people much else than their imagination to fall back Self-reliant values on. Their imagination was their open road to greater self-reliance. They have used it to the full. The prowess of the CFS in securing re- The presence of the arts may be felt in sources culminating in a grant from the EEC Sudbury. Philadelphia is strengthening its has caused a lot of jealousy and envy on the arts activities, and one can find the arts part of others who see Craigmillar getting growing in Jamestown through recent de- more than its share. This reaction is to be velopments taking place in a formerly rather expected but it is one which fails to see the obsolete but historically prestigious en- broader significance of CFS efforts--that deavour known as the Chautauqua they are reversing passive dependence on the Institution. I wonder if any process of welfare state and building self-reliance and authentic community development can take enterprise which is not merely individualistic place without some artistic expression of it but is related to social ends. I can think of no occuring. more important value reversal than this at The arts side of the Festival Society has the present time, both in this and other now become exceedingly various and is Western countries. If such a reversal can be sustained in one form or another all the year accomplished in Craigmillar it can be ac- round. The life and confidence it has created complished in other places too. have been the foundation on which the rich Another aspect of the society's work array of service activities which now exist has which seems to me to have general import- been developed. In this process the Society ance is the cost-effectiveness of the many itself has grown from being simply a Festival social services it renders based on the neigh- Society to being an all-round community bourhood workers, who are trained local development organization. Its most recent residents. A year or so ago with my colleague effort has been to bring forward the Steve Burgess (BuRGess and TRIST, 1977) I Craigmillar Comprehensive Plan for Action examined some rather detailed statistics (CFS, 1978) which covers all aspects of available in the health field. Compared with community life and must now be negotiated another very similar community there was with the various authorities concerned. How less expensive hospitalisation of the elderly different it is from any document any plan- and more community care which is better ning department might have produced! It and much less expensive. There were fewer is an action plan to break the cycle of youths in trouble and less vandalism. In deprivation by those who have endured it. education there was improved school attend- In Table 7 I have listed various aspects of ance and less of the semi-illiteracy which leads the Society's capabilities and achievements. to unemployability. Social action had to be taken to secure An effective independent community or- amenities which were absent, such as a high ganization can both deliver and prevent a 448 Eric Trist great deal that statutory bodies cannot do All these many activities have been alone--and at far less cost. Their partnership developing people. As my former Tavistock requires encouragement everywhere that lo- colleague, Phil Herbst, has said "the product cal competence emerges to make it possible. of work is people" (H~RBST, 1975). For a crisis in the rising costs of health and Productive work can be carried out inside social services is mounting in all Western the market or outside it, but to enable people countries, as inflation persists and economic to grow it has to be meaningful and per- growth slows down. The work of the sonally satisfying to those who do it. The Festival Society shows that an alternative kind of "work" which comes out of the model is possible, one which has additional manifold activities of the Festival Society is merits in the values of caring and sharing it meaningful and has enabled a considerable encourages. number of people to grow. Society is no Of similar wide importance is the pattern better than the quality of the people it which has developed through the produces. Perhaps our ultimate criterion in Employment Working Party. There are two judging the independent organizations we aspects to this. One is concerned with im- have been discussing should be just this--how proving chances in the market economy-- far do their activities produce quality people through the creation of Craigmillar Festival and, therefore, a better society as well as one Enterprises Ltd. and job training schemes which merely manages to survive leading to regular employment. Over the economically. course of time I would expect these activities to create more industry in Craigmillar and FEATURES OF AN EMERGING fill the Industrial Park the Society has ac- SOCIETAL PATTERN quired. To some extent this will reduce the From the stories of these four organ- level of unemployment in the area. izations and the patterns and directions of Nevertheless the unemployment rate is innovation they represent, I should like to likely to remain relatively high. This is the suggest some more general implications other aspect. Unemployment is going up at which I feel they have regarding one way in present in all Western countries. Many which our Western type of society might people expect it to go up still higher in the '80s beneficially develop as this century begins to when the microprocessor revolution gets draw to a close. thoroughly under way. We may very well On the left of Table 8 I have set out some have to rethink the concept of work and what of the most salient features of our present is meant by employment and unemploy- societal system in four critical areas: policies, ment. My colleague, the development econ- organizations, domains and individuals-- omist, Ignacy Sachs (1978), who has recently four different but interdependent worlds of founded the Centre for Development equivalent importance. I don't think our Alternatives in Switzerland* with Maurice present system can continue much longer Strong, has become interested in without substantial modification in all these Craigmillar--because he has come to believe four areas, if serious dysfunctionality and that in the future, on the one hand, work will unacceptable suffering are to be avoided. On have to be shared, and on the other, most the right I have listed a set of emergent people will need to have an occupation patterns which are inherent in everything I outside the market economy, which contrib- have been talking about tonight. While they utes to what he calls the "civil society", i.e. are not strongly established at least they have the community. This is precisely what is appeared over the horizon. If more in- beginning to happen in Craigmillar. Job novative community-based projects involv- creation funds have been used to create a ing widespread participation such as those we number of amenities in which skills, de- have been looking at develop and take hold veloped through the community Arts in the next few years, these emergent pat- Centre, have been used. These, related re- terns will become more strongly established habilitative activities and voluntary forms of and become one force which will help push community service, are the beginnings of a Western society towards a new paradigm. social economy outside the market place. Each new project will add its own originality This creates wealth as much as work done in to the whole, enrich the possibilities of a factory. mutual social learning and advance the level of general understanding concerning what *International Foundation for Development Alternatives, Secretariat, 2 Place du Marche, ch-1260, seems best for us to do with ourselves and out Nyon, Switzerland. society. New Directions of Hope 449 Table 8. Basicfeatures

Present Emerging Policies Centrally formed An innovative periphery . Statutory bodies allocate resources Power is shared with non- statutory bodies Party politics Community politics Passive electorate Active participation Organizations Technocratic bureaucracies Democratized organizational forms External controls International controls Low QWL for the many High QWL for the many Domains Discreet problem-solving Meta-problem appreciation Independent objectives Interdependent objectives Competing interests Collaborating interests Individuals Privatized Shared values Dissociated Network connectedness Powerless though autonomous Empowered, socially re- sponsible

As regards the world of policy, in the technocratic bureaucracy, which is ruled top present system the framing of major policies down and depends on tight systems of exter- is a highly guarded central task. The centre nal controls in which bosses, procedures and decides what is good for the provinces, while work rules minimize the discretion of those statutory bodies have control of resource at and near the bottom who consequently allocation. Our national political parties and have a low quality of worklife. the Westminster model of government are This model, which has performed part of this centrist model. Their modus reasonably well even in the quite recent past, operandi supposes a rather passive electorate is becoming less and less able to cope with the except at the times when the vote must be increasingly fast-moving, complex and un- turned out. certain contemporary environment (TrusT, Arising along side this system is a comp- 1978). Here, I don't see the emerging pattcrn lementary system in which full use is made arising alongside the present system but as of the rather earthy "think-tank" capacity of gradually transforming it. The progressive an innovative periphery. Effectively to trans- democratisation of bureaucratic systems so late into action the enriched thought-base that internal units control themselves as far as now available power needs to be shared in possible--always taking into account their substantial ways between statutory and vol- interdependence with other units--has, I untary bodies. These latter must prove and feel, become a necessary condition for en- maintain their competence no less than the abling a more viable human future to be former. In order to do so they will have to realised. The provision of a high quality of develop a system of what I call "community worklife for the many requires the many to politics", for which the model of the national become active in the workplace. There is party political system does not suffice. some evidence that when they do they also Community politics is concerned with tend to become active in the community. fashioning a desirable future for all the As regards the world of domains our present various groups who share a common habitat. system is based on discrete problem-solving It will therefore be intensely pluralistic and in which specific issues are considered in involve processes of continuous conflict isolation from each other to far too great an resolution leading to what I like to call "a extent. Interest groups tend to press home negotiated order" (TRIST, 1977a). This cannot their independent objectives with a degree of be accomplished without the active partici- competition which is the more destructive pation of large numbers of people--not that the more interdependent the problems and one can expect everyone to become involved. issues become. As regards the whole world of organ- I am not going to suggest that this pattern izations, the prevailing model is that of the is ever likely to disappear completely nor is it 450 Eric Trist

desirable that it should do so. What is need- in order to bring these common ends about, ed, however, and is beginning to emerge, is finding opportunities we had never thought a change of emphasis: domains must be of before. As we do this (cf. VICKERS, 1977), cultivated by all parties concerned. Unless we will feel more empowered and become the meta-problems are commonly ap- more socially responsible, not in a begrudg- preciated the messes will never be cleared up. ing and duty-driven way, but because we This entails a more future-oriented as well as a feel more personally fulfilled through more holistic posture. When a longer-time acknowledging our interdependence. We horizon is taken, people tend more readily to will begin to find we can make some differ- see the interdependencies of their objectives ence, that our efforts are contributing in a and to envisage more of the consequences way we can see concretely to making a better which will affect them all. They are therefore society for ourselves and others. more prepared to collaborate. I have come to feel this way not because I As regards the world of the individual, our believe in the perfectability of man, refuse to present system is making him feel increas- take rather full account of the darker side of ingly powerless which tends to make him human nature, or expect conflict, even dissociate himself from relations with others serious conflict, to disappear from the human and so become "privatized" (EMERY and scene---but because I have been participating TRIST, 1973). The drug culture symbolises extensively in the kinds of projects I have this privatization, and television doesn't help described tonight. This has involved me in (EMERY and EMERY, 1976). Of what avail is not only meeting but working with quite a our right to be personally autonomous, as large number and a very great variety of compared with people, say in Eastern people in several widely different settings. A Europe, under these conditions? great many of these folks seem to soldier on in But as a more participative, more self- face of a great deal of difficulty, have what I reliant yet more collaborative society begins would call a sort of everyday commitment to to emerge--and this will be our doing, it what they are doing, and, though they have won't happen automatically--the individual their disagreements, seem to get considerable will resocialise in step with it. We will enjoyment from their involvement. This is discover we have more shared values with what has given me more hope than I used to others than we thought and that we do desire have and why I have expressed tonight as many of the same ends. As we experience this fully as I can the grounds for having just this we will be using our personal networks little bit more hope. much more extensively than we do at present

REFERENCES

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