Personal development

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personal development for individuals refers to actions or aspirations oriented towards one or more of the following aims:

• improving self-awareness
• improving self-knowledge
• building or renewing identity
• developing strengths or talents
• identifying or improving potential
• building employability or human capital
• enhancing lifestyle or the quality of life
• realizing dreams
• fulfilling aspirations

The concept covers a wider field than self-development or self-help. Personal development also includes developing other people (inter-personal development, compare personnel development) and, by extension, covers:

• personal-development methods
• personal-development programs
• personal-development tools
• personal-development techniques
• personal-development assessment systems

Any sort of Development — whether economic, political, biological, organizational or personal — requires^{[citation needed]} a framework if one wishes to know whether change has actually occurred. For personal development the individual often functions as the primary judge of improvement^{[citation needed]}, but validation of objective improvement requires assessment using standard^{[citation needed]} criteria. Personal development frameworks^[1] may include^{[citation needed]} goals or benchmarks that define the end-points, strategies or plans for reaching goals, measurement and assessment of progress, levels or stages that define milestones along the development path, and a feedback-system to provide information on changes.

Contents 1 Scope 1.1 Developing oneself, developing others 1.2 The business-to-individual market 1.3 The business-to-institution market 2 Origins 2.1 Aristotle and the Western tradition 2.2 Confucius and the East Asian tradition 2.3 South Asian traditions 3 Contexts 3.1 Personal development in psychology 3.2 Personal development in higher education 3.3 Personal development in the workplace 4 Personal-development authors 5 See also 6 References

[edit] Scope

[edit] Developing oneself, developing others

At the level of self-improvement, personal development includes:

1. becoming the person one aspires to
2. integrating social identity with self-identification
3. increasing awareness or defining of one’s priorities, values, chosen lifestyle or ethics
4. strategizing and realizing dreams, aspirations, career and lifestyle priorities
5. developing professional potential
6. developing talents
7. developing individual competencies
8. learning on the job
9. improving the quality of lifestyle in such areas as health, wealth, culture, family, friends and communities
10. learning techniques or methods to expand awareness
11. learning techniques or methods to gain control of one's life or to achieve wisdom

The personal development of others may occur as:

• a function within the role of teacher or mentor
• a personal competency (such as a manager's ability to develop the potential of employees)
• a professional service (such as providing training, assessment or coaching)

The "personal development industry" has two distinct markets:

1. business-to-individual
2. business-to-institution

[edit] The business-to-individual market

The business-to-individual market may deal with:

• books
• motivational speaking
• e-Learning programs
• workshops
• individual counseling
• life coaching

Personal development techniques marketed to individuals may stem from modern ideas such as fitness, beauty enhancement or weight loss; or they may involve traditional practices such as yoga, martial arts or meditation.

[edit] The business-to-institution market

The business-to-institution personal-development industry includes:

• courses and assessment systems for students in higher education
• management services to employees in organizations through:
  • training
  • training and development programs
  • personal-development tools
  • self-assessment
  • feedback
  • coaching
  • mentorship

Some consulting firms specialize in personal development^[2] but as of 2009^[update] generalist firms operating in the fields of human resources, recruitment and organizational strategy have entered what they perceive as a growing market,^[3] not to mention smaller firms and self-employed professionals who provide consulting, training and coaching.

[edit] Origins

Major religions, such as the Abrahamic and Indian religions, as well as New Age philosophies, have used practices such as prayer, music, dance, singing, chanting, poetry, writing, sports and martial arts. Apart from their other functions, each of these practices may form a part of personal development^{[citation needed]} and further the broad goals of personal development: discovering the meaning of life, determining what constitutes a good life and how best to develop oneself.

Michel Foucault describes, in Care of the Self,^[4] the techniques of epimelia used in ancient Greece and Rome, which included dieting, exercise, sexual abstinence, contemplation, prayer and confession — some of which also became important practices within different branches of Christianity. In yoga, a discipline originating in India, possibly over 3000 years ago, personal-development techniques include meditation, rhythmic breathing, stretching and postures. Wu Shu and Tai Qi Quan utilise traditional Chinese techniques, including breathing and energy exercises, meditation, martial arts, as well as practices linked to traditional Chinese medicine, such as dieting, massage and acupuncture. In Islam, which arose almost 1500 years ago in the Middle East, personal development techniques include ritual prayer, recitation of the Qur'an, pilgrimage, fasting and tazkiyah (purification of the soul)^{[citation needed]}.

Two individual ancient philosophers stand out as major sources^{[citation needed]} of what has become personal development in the 21st century, representing a Western tradition and an East Asian tradition. Elsewhere anonymous founders of schools of self-development appear endemic.

[edit] Aristotle and the Western tradition

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) strongly influenced theories of personal development in the West. Aristotle defined personal development as a category of phronesis^{[citation needed]}. Aristotle’s concept of "the good life" consisted in developing one’s excellences (arête) to reach eudaimonia,^[5] commonly translated as "happiness" but more accurately understood as “human flourishing” or “living well".^[6] Aristotle continues to influence the Western concept of personal development to this day, particularly in the economics of human development^[7] and in positive psychology.^[8]

[edit] Confucius and the East Asian tradition

In Chinese tradition, Confucius (around 551 BC – 479 BC) founded an unbroken line of philosophy. His ideas continue to influence family values, education and management in China and much of Asia in the 21st century. In his Great Learning Confucius explicitly shows something which some might characterize as personal development as the source of managing the family and the state:

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.^[9]

In the late 1990s a lively debate over Asian values seemed to oppose Confucius and Aristotle on questions of family values, maintenance of order and individual freedom^[10]. Although the debate turned political and soon died down, cultural differences stemming from the philosophies of Aristotle and Confucius remain. According to leadership author Frank Gallo one cannot impose Western concepts in a Confucian management culture without some modifications:

There are cultural differences between China and the West in the way workers view their leaders, what they expect from their leaders, and what leaders can expect from their workforce. Furthermore, there are very fundamental differences in how life works in China compared to the West. The values that Westerners hold dear are sometimes looked at disdainfully in China.^[11]

[edit] South Asian traditions

This section requires expansion.

Ancient Indians aspired to "beingness, wisdom and happiness".^[12]

[edit] Contexts

[edit] Personal development in psychology

Psychology became linked to personal development, not with Freud (1856-1939) but starting^[when?] with his dissident disciples Alfred Adler (1870-1937) and Carl Jung (1875-1961).

Adler refused to limit psychology to therapy, making the important point that aspirations look forward and do not limit themselves to unconscious drives or to childhood experiences.^[13] He also originated the concepts of lifestyle (1929 —he defined "lifestyle" as an individual's characteristic approach to life, in facing problems) and of self image^{[citation needed]}, a concept that influenced management under the heading of work-life balance^[expand].

Carl Jung (1875-1961) made contributions to personal development with his concept of individuation, which he saw as the drive of the individual to achieve the wholeness and balance of the Self.^[14]

Daniel Levinson (1920-1994) developed Jung’s early concept of life stages and included a sociological perspective. Levinson propounded that personal development come under the influence — throughout life — of aspirations, which he called "the Dream":

Whatever the nature of his Dream, a young man has the developmental task of giving it greater definition and finding ways to live it out. It makes a great difference in his growth whether his initial life structure is consonant with and infused by the Dream, or opposed to it. If the Dream remains unconnected to his life it may simply die, and with it his sense of aliveness and purpose.^[15]

Levinson’s model of seven life-stages has been considerably modified^{[by whom?]} due to sociological changes in the lifecycle.^[16]

Research on success in reaching goals, as undertaken by Albert Bandura (born 1925),showed that self-efficacy^[17] best explains why people with the same level of knowledge and skills get very different results. According to Bandura self-confidence functions as a powerful predictor of success because^[18]:

1. it makes you expect to succeed
2. it allows you take risks and set challenging goals
3. it helps you keep trying if at first you don’t succeed
4. it helps you control your emotions and fears when the going gets rough

In 1998 personal development moved from the fringes of psychology to a more central position^{[citation needed]} when Martin Seligman won election as President of the American Psychological Association and proposed a new focus, on healthy individuals rather than pathology:

We have discovered that there is a set of human strengths that are the most likely buffers against mental illness: courage, optimism, interpersonal skill, work ethic, hope, honesty and perseverance. Much of the task of prevention will be to create a science of human strength whose mission will be to foster these virtues in young people.^[19]

[edit] Personal development in higher education

Some people emphasize personal development as a part of higher education. Wilhelm von Humboldt, who founded the University of Berlin (since 1949: Humboldt University of Berlin) in 1810, made a statement interpretable as referring to personal development: … if there is one thing more than another which absolutely requires free activity on the part of the individual, it is precisely education, whose object it is to develop the individual.^[20]

During the 1960s a large increase in the number of students on American campuses^[21] led to research on the personal development needs of undergraduate students. Arthur Chickering defined seven vectors of personal development^[22] for young adults during their undergraduate years:

1. developing competence ^{[disambiguation needed]}
2. managing emotions
3. achieving autonomy and interdependence
4. developing mature interpersonal relationships
5. establishing identity
6. developing purpose
7. developing integrity

In the UK, personal development took a central place in university policy in 1997 when the Dearing Report^[23] declared that universities should go beyond academic teaching to provide students with personal development.^{[citation needed]} In 2001 a Quality Assessment Agency for UK universities produced guidelines^[24] for universities to enhance personal development as:

* a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and / or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development;
* objectives related explicitly to student development; to improve the capacity of students to understand what and how they are learning, and to review, plan and take responsibility for their own learning

In the 1990s, business schools began to set up specific personal-development programs for leadership and career orientation and in 1998 the European Foundation for Management Development set up the Equis accreditation system^{[25][dead link]} which specified that personal development must form part of the learning process through internships, working on team projects and going abroad for work or exchange programs.^{[citation needed]}

The first personal development certification required for business school graduation originated in 2002 as a partnership between Metizo,^[26] a personal-development consulting firm, and the Euromed Management School^[27] in Marseilles: students must not only complete assignments but also demonstrate self-awareness and achievement of personal-development competencies.

As a field of education and research, personal development has become a specific discipline^[when?], usually attached to business schools, with links to other disciplines:^{[citation needed]}

• education for questions of learning and assessment
• psychology for motivation and personality
• sociology for identity and social networks
• economics for human capital and economic value
• philosophy for ethics and self-reflection

[edit] Personal development in the workplace

The first well-known proponent of personal development in the workplace, Abraham Maslow^{[citation needed]} (1908-1970), proposed a hierarchy of needs with self actualization at the top, defined as:^[28]

… the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

Since Maslow himself believed that only a small minority of people self-actualize — he estimated one percent^[29] — his hierarchy of needs had the consequence that organizations came to regard personal development self-actualization/personal-development as limited to the top of the organizational pyramid, while job security and good working conditions would fulfill the needs of the mass of employees.

As organizations and labor markets became more global, responsibility for development shifted from the company to the individual.^{[clarification needed]} In 1999 management thinker Peter Drucker wrote in the Harvard Business Review:

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: if you’ve got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you started out. But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren’t managing their employees’ careers; knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers. It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years.^[30]

Management professors Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School and Christopher Bartlett of the Harvard Business School wrote in 1997 that companies must manage people individually and establish a new work contract.^[31] On the one hand the company must allegedly recognize that personal development creates economic value: "market performance flows not from the omnipotent wisdom of top managers but from the initiative, creativity and skills of all employees".

On the other hand, employees should recognize that their work includes personal development and "... embrace the invigorating force of continuous learning and personal development".

Corporate management of careers has changed^[when?] from a process of climbing the corporate ladder^{[clarification needed]} to a personal-development process with recognition that women’s careers show specific personal development needs,^[32] that career-changes develop an individual's potential identities,^[33] and that priorities of work and lifestyle continually change.

Personal development programs in companies fall into two categories: employee benefits and development strategy.

Employee benefits have the purpose of improving satisfaction, motivation and loyalty.^{[citation needed]} Employee surveys help companies find out personal-development needs, preferences and problems, and they use the results to design benefits programs.^{[citation needed]} Typical programs in this category include:

• work-life balance
• time management
• stress management
• health programs
• psychological counseling

Many such programs resemble programs that employees might conceivably pay for themselves outside work: yoga, sports, martial arts, money-management, positive psychology, NLP, etc.^{[citation needed]}

As an investment, personal development programs have the goal of increasing human capital or improving productivity, innovation or quality. Proponents actually see such programs not as a cost but as an investment with results linked to an organization’s strategic development goals. Employees gain access to these investment-oriented programs by selection according to the value and future potential of the employee, usually defined in a talent management architecture including populations such as new hires, perceived high-potential employees, perceived key employees, sales staff, research staff and perceived future leaders.^{[citation needed]} Organizations may also offer other (non-investment-oriented) programs to many or even all employees. Typical programs^[which?] focus on career-development, personal effectiveness, teamwork, and competency-development. Personal development also forms an element in management tools such as creating a personal development plan with one’s manager, a personal enterprise plan for one's career, assessing one's level of ability using a competency grid, or getting feedback from a 360 questionnaire filled in by colleagues at different levels in the organization.

[edit] Personal development in the workplace The first well-known proponent of personal development in the workplace, Abraham Maslow^{[citation needed]} (1908-1970), proposed a hierarchy of needs with self actualization at the top, defined as:[27]

… the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.

Since Maslow himself believed that only a small minority of people self-actualize — he estimated one percent[28] — his hierarchy of needs had the consequence that organizations came to regard personal development self-actualization/personal-development as limited to the top of the organizational pyramid, while job security and good working conditions would fulfill the needs of the mass of employees.

As organizations and labor markets became more global, responsibility for development shifted from the company to the individual.[clarification needed] In 1999 management thinker Peter Drucker wrote in the Harvard Business Review:

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: if you’ve got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you started out. But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren’t managing their employees’ careers; knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers. It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years.[29]

Management professors Sumantra Ghoshal of London Business School and Christopher Bartlett of Harvard Business School wrote in 1997 that companies must manage people individually and establish a new work contract.[30] On the one hand the company must allegedly recognize that personal development creates economic value: "market performance flows not from the omnipotent wisdom of top managers but from the initiative, creativity and skills of all employees".

On the other hand, employees should recognize that their work includes personal development and "... embrace the invigorating force of continuous learning and personal development".

Corporate management of careers has changed^[when?] from a process of climbing the corporate ladder[clarification needed] to a personal-development process with recognition that women’s careers show specific personal development needs,[31] that career-changes develop an individual's potential identities,[32] and that priorities of work and lifestyle continually change.

Personal development programs in companies fall into two categories: employee benefits and development strategy.

Employee benefits have the purpose of improving satisfaction, motivation and loyalty.^{[citation needed]} Employee surveys help companies find out personal-development needs, preferences and problems, and they use the results to design benefits programs.^{[citation needed]} Typical programs in this category include:

work-life balance time management stress management health programs psychological counseling Many such programs resemble programs that employees might conceivably pay for themselves outside work: yoga, sports, martial arts, money-management, positive psychology, NLP, etc.^{[citation needed]}

As an investment, personal development programs have the goal of increasing human capital or improving productivity, innovation or quality. Proponents actually see such programs not as a cost but as an investment with results linked to an organization’s strategic development goals. Employees gain access to these investment-oriented programs by selection according to the value and future potential of the employee, usually defined in a talent management architecture including populations such as new hires, perceived high-potential employees, perceived key employees, sales staff, research staff and perceived future leaders.^{[citation needed]} Organizations may also offer other (non-investment-oriented) programs to many or even all employees. Typical programs^[which?] focus on career-development, personal effectiveness, teamwork, and competency-development. Personal development also forms an element in management tools such as creating a personal development plan with one’s manager, a personal enterprise plan for one's career, assessing one's level of ability using a competency grid, or getting feedback from a 360 questionnaire filled in by colleagues at different levels in the organization.

[edit] Personal-development authors

• David Allen (1945- )
• Aristotle (384–322 BC)
• Confucius (551–479 BC)
• Stephen Covey (1932- )
• Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852)
• Steve Pavlina (1971- )
• Tony Robbins (1960- )
• Brian Tracy (1944- )
• Zig Ziglar (1926- )
• Steve Siebold (1964- )

[edit] See also

• "Know thyself"
• Life planning
• Personal development planning
• Self-help

[edit] References