Lunchtime Talk: Camilla Child, 22nd February

Eric Trist said of Socio Technical Systems (STS) that he “found them down a coal mine by people who were already doing them.” This seminal work took place in the post war period but the influence of STS theory continues to lie at the heart of our thinking at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. The surfacing of our archives from the salt mine to the Wellcome Trust and into the daylight has stimulated my interest into thinking more about the contemporary relevance of STS to our project work and in particular how we also incorporate our systems psychodynamic practice into the theory and practice of it.

This is the start of my exploration and I plan to take us very briefly through my take on the history and current practice and look at recent work with fresh eyes to see if we can uncover new understandings for future practice.

Camilla Child is a Principal Consultant and Researcher at the Tavistock Institute. She worked first in the evaluation and research team at the Institute and for several years the main focus of her work is in organisational consultancy. She is most happy when bringing these two strands together to help individuals and organisations develop and change.

All events take place @ The Tavistock Institute.

Bring your lunch and your expertise with you – hot/cold drinks will be provided. Contact talks@tavinstitute.org if you would like further details of each talk and/or you plan to attend.

You can listen to many of our previous talks here.

_{^{Image by Sam Nightingale, read his creative response to salt and the archive on our Archive Project blog: Preservation and Mutability: salt and the archive – two dynamic systems}}