New Directions of Hope: Recent Innovations Interconnecting Organizational, Industrial, Community and Personal Development
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Regional Studies ISSN: 0034-3404 (Print) 1360-0591 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cres20 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. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 66 View related articles Citing articles: 14 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cres20 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 Fred Emery 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 Edinburgh here in Scotland (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 Tavistock Institute, 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.