Robert Tannenbaum

Background

Robert Tannenbaum was born on June 29, 1915, in Cripple Creek, Colorado, United States. He was the son of Henry Tannenbaum and Nettie Porges.

Education

Robert Tannenbaum began his studies at Santa Ana College where he received an Associate of Arts degree in 1935. He continued his studies at the University of Chicago and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration in 1937 and a Master of Business Administration degree in accounting in 1938. Years later, in 1948, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in industrial relations at this university.

Also, Robert attained an honorary doctorate from the Saybrook Institute.

Career

In 1937, Robert Tannenbaum, after receiving his degree in business administration, began working as an accounting instructor at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State University). In 1939 he returned to Chicago to continue his studies. When World War II started, in 1942 he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving in the South Pacific and attaining the rank of lieutenant. After the war, he returned to the University of Chicago. In 1948, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles as an assistant professor.

Tannenbaum became an influential figure in business research in the 1950s with his ideas about managing employees that were published in his Harvard Business Review article "How to Choose a Leadership Pattern." His work is credited with leading to such concepts as "sensitivity training" and "T-groups." He was the co-author of Leadership and Organization: A Behavioral Science Approach (1961) which was significant in making the academic and practical argument for the use of group dynamics in developing leaders and teaching them how to operate effectively.

He became a professor of development of human systems in 1971 and retired in 1977. After retirement, he continued to teach seminars and work as a consultant for several years. He also continued writing. In 1985 he was the co-editor of Human Systems Development.

Tannenbaum's intellectual work described organizational systems not as machines with interchangeable human parts, but as living communities that can be designed to enable people to grow and learn while achieving business goals. His writings, as well as his teaching and consulting, reflected the value he placed on people and his belief that, to a great extent, leadership effectiveness derives from awareness of one's own basic assumptions about human nature and the testing out and revision of those assumptions.

Achievements

• Robert Tannenbaum was an American organizational psychologist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, known for his work in the field of leadership and organization and establishing the Graduate School of Management as a key center of thought and practice in the fields of organization development and leadership training. Tannenbaum's work was a forerunner contributor to considerations of human capital as a corporate asset.
  
  During his life, he received many honors that he valued greatly. They include an honorary doctorate from the Saybrook Institute, Fellow of the NTL Institute, Diplomate from the American Board of Professional Psychology, Distinguished Member of the OD Network, and the first recipient of the American Society for Training and Development's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Leadership and Organization: A Behavioral Science Approach

    (Leadership and Organization: A Behavioral Science Approac...)

    1961
  • Human Systems Development

    (Human Systems Development offers a comprehensive account ...)

    1985
  • How to Choose a Leadership Pattern

    (Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading so...)

    1958

Personality

Physical Characteristics: The cause of Tannenbaum's death was congestive heart failure.

Connections

Robert Tannenbaum was married to Edith (Lazaroff) Tannenbaum. The marriage produced two daughters, Judith Tannenbaum and Deborah Ingebretsen. He also had a son-in-law, Jim Ingebretsen.

Father:

Henry Tannenbaum

Mother:

Nettie Porges

Wife:

Edith (Lazaroff) Tannenbaum