Eric Lansdown Trist was an English scientist and leading figure in the field of organizational development.
16 Facts About Eric Trist
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Eric Trist was one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute for Social Research in London.
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Eric Trist grew up in Dover experiencing dramatic air raids in the first world war.
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Eric Trist went to Cambridge University - Pembroke College in 1928, where he read English Literature, graduating with first-class honours.
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At that time Trist has said he was very interested in articles by Kurt Lewin.
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When Kurt Lewin left Germany as Adolf Hitler came to power, he travelled to Palestine via the USA, stopping off in England, where Eric Trist briefly met him and showed him around Cambridge.
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Eric Trist graduated in Psychology in 1933, with a distinction, and went to Yale University in the USA and again met Lewin, who was at Cornell University and then Iowa.
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Eric Trist met Oscar Adolph Oeser, who headed the psychology department at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and went on to study unemployment in Dundee.
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At the outbreak of the second world war Eric Trist became a clinical psychologist at the Maudsley Hospital, London, treating war casualties from Dunkirk.
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Eric Trist went to Edinburgh and worked on the War Office Selection Boards, with Jock Sutherland and Wilfred Bion.
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Eric Trist described this as "probably the most exciting single experience of my professional life".
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Eric Trist taught there until 1978 when he became an emeritus professor.
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Eric Trist died on 4 June 1993 in Carmel, California.
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Eric Trist was heavily influenced by Kurt Lewin, whom he met first 1933 in Cambridge, England.
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Eric Trist was much influenced by Melanie Klein, who visited the Tavistock, as well as by his colleagues John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott, Wilfred Bion and Jock Sutherland.
16.
Eric Trist collaborated with Fred Emery on developing the socio-technical systems approach to work design.