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{{DevPsy}}
  
{{DevPsy}}
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{{wikify-date|April 2006}}
  
   
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'''Personal development''' (also known as '''self-development''' or '''personal growth''') comprises the [[development]] of the [[Personal self|self]].
  
   
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'''Personal development''' includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The concept is not limited to [[self-help]] but includes formal and informal activities for developing others, in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor. Finally, as personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level in organizations.<ref>Bob Aubrey, ''Managing Your Aspirations: Developing Personal Enterprise in the Global Workplace'' McGraw-Hill 2010 ISBN 978-007-131178-6, page 9 </ref>
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The term may also refer to
 
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*traditional concepts of [[education]] or [[training]],
  
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*[[counselling]] and [[coaching]] for personal transformation
  
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*[[New Age]] movement and spiritual beliefs and concepts - including "inner pathways" to solve [[sociology|social]] and [[psychology|psychological]] issues.
  
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*[[professional development]] [[business]] trainers (some treat the whole person instead of business only)
  
   
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At the level of the [[individual]], personal development includes the following activities:
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To understand this further: a person can have different personalities in different contexts (at home / at office / at parties etc) but these share common threads of who he/she is and this can be called the "personal self". When someone is referring to personal development then he/she is meaning a full and total transformation from deep within and not just a temporary personality change for a specific occasion or context.
  
   
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* improving [[self-awareness]]
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There are certain areas of life (different personalities as mentioned above) which are considered in personal development. Personal development concerns with development in all of these areas. These areas are (the list is in no way a comprehensive list, please feel free to add more areas/subareas to it). The list is taken mainly from Steve Pavlina's second podcast (see below) but it is changed a little bit.
  
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* improving [[Self-knowledge (psychology)|self-knowledge]]
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* building or renewing [[identity (social science)|identity]]
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* developing strengths or [[skill|talent]]s
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* improving wealth
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* spiritual development
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* identifying or improving [[human potential movement|potential]]
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* building employability or [[human capital]]
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* enhancing [[lifestyle (sociology)|lifestyle]] or the [[quality of life]]
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* improving health
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* fulfilling [[ambition|aspiration]]s
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* initiating a life enterprise or personal autonomy
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* defining and executing [[Personal development planning|personal development plan]]s
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* improving [[social cognition|social abilities]]
   
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The concept covers a wider field than self-development or self-help: personal development also includes developing others. This may take place through roles such as those of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal competency (such as the skill of certain managers in developing the potential of employees) or a professional service (such as providing training, assessment or coaching).
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# '''Research and contribution''': Development in this area means that you are contributing something original to the society and to the world and to your community. You are using your potential to make a difference to the world.
  
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# '''Mental knowledge and learning''': Are you learning something new each day of the week and each week of the year? Development in this area excites you and keeps your mind lubricated. You remain open to new skills and keep pushing the envelope and stretching your mind.
 
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Beyond improving oneself and developing others, personal development is a field of practice and research. As a field of practice it includes personal development methods, learning programs, assessment systems, tools and techniques. As a field of research, personal development topics increasingly appear in scientific journals, higher education reviews, management journals and business books.
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# '''Work, career and job''':
  
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# '''Financial matters''':
  
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Any sort of development — whether economic, political, biological, organizational or personal — requires a framework if one wishes to know whether change has actually occurred. In the case of personal development, an individual often functions as the primary judge of improvement, but validation of objective improvement requires assessment using standard criteria. Personal development frameworks may include 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 a development path, and a feedback system to provide information on changes.
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# '''Self help, character, spirituality and emotions''':
  
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# '''Physical health''':
  
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# '''Fun and adventure''':
  
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# '''Intimate relationship''':
  
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==The "Personal Development Industry"==
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# '''Home, family and relatives''':
  
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# '''Social circle, friends and clubs''':
  
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Personal development as an [[industry]]<ref>
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Some sources recognize personal development as an "industry": see for example
  +
{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Cullen
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| first = John G.
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| authorlink =
  +
| year = 2009
  +
| title = How to sell your soul and still get into Heaven: Steven Covey's epiphany-inducing technology of effective selfhood
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| journal = [[Human Relations (journal)|Human Relations]]
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| volume = 62
  +
| issue = 8
  +
| pages = 1231–1254
  +
| publisher = SAGE Publications
  +
| issn = 0018-7267
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| doi = 10.1177/0018726709334493
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| url = http://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/62/8/1231
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| accessdate = 2010-04-28
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| quote = The growth of the personal development industry and its gurus continues to be resisted across a number of genres.
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}}
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and
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{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Grant
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| first = Anthony M.
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| coauthors = Blythe O'Hara
  +
| year = 2006
  +
| month = November
  +
| title = The self-presentation of commercial Australian life coaching schools: Cause for concern?
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| journal = International Coaching Psychology Review
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| volume = 1
  +
| issue = 2
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| pages = 21–33
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| page = 29
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| publisher = [[British Psychological Society|The British Psychological Society]]
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| location = Leicester
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| issn = 1750-2764
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| url = http://www.bps.org.uk/downloadfile.cfm?file_uuid=4DD51349-1143-DFD0-7EE9-5CC2B0B1DAAE
  +
| format = PDF
  +
| accessdate = 2010-04-28
  +
| quote = [...] much of the commercial life coaching and personal development industry is grounded more on hyperbole and rhetoric than solid behavioural science (Grant, 2001) [...]
  +
}}
  +
and
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{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Grant
  +
| first = Anthony M.
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| coauthors = Michael J. Cavanagh
  +
| year = 2007
  +
| month = December
  +
| title = Evidence-based coaching: Flourishing or languishing?
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| journal = Australian Psychologist
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| volume = 42
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| issue = 4
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| pages = 239–254
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| publisher = [[Australian Psychological Society]]
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| location =
  +
| issn = 1742-9544
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| doi = 10.1080/00050060701648175
  +
| url = http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a783521858&db=all
  +
| accessdate = 2010-04-28
  +
| quote = To flourish, coaching psychology needs to remain clearly differentiated from the frequently sensationalistic and pseudoscientific facets of the personal development industry while at the same time engaging in the development of the wider coaching industry.
  +
}}
  +
</ref>
  +
has several formats of operating. The main ways are [[business-to-consumer]] and [[business-to-business]], however there are two newer ways increasing in their prevalence. They are [[consumer-to-business]] and [[consumer-to-consumer]].
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===The Business-to-Consumer Market===
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The '''business-to-consumer''' market involves selling books, courses and techniques to individuals, such as:
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* newly-invented offerings such as:
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** [[physical fitness|fitness]]{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}
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** [[Cosmetology|beauty enhancement]]{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}
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** [[weight loss]]{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}
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* traditional{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} practices such as:
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** [[yoga]]
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** [[martial arts]]
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** [[meditation]]
  +
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Some [[program]]s are delivered{{By whom|date=April 2010}} online and many include [[tool]]s sold with a program, such as motivational books for self-help, recipes for weight-loss or technical manuals for yoga and martial-arts programs.
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A partial list of personal development offerings on the business-to-individual market might include:
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* books
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* [[motivational speaker|motivational speaking]]
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* [[e-Learning]] programs
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* [[Workshop (disambiguation)|workshop]]s
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* individual [[List of counseling topics|counseling]]
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* [[life coaching]]
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===The Business-to-Business Market===
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The business-to-business market also involves programs - in this case ones sold to companies and to governments to assess potential, to improve [[effectiveness]], to [[management|manage]] [[work-life balance]] or to prepare some entity for a new role in an organization. The goals of these programs are defined{{By whom|date=April 2010}} with the institution or by the institution and the results are assessed{{By whom|date=April 2010}}{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}. With the acceptance of personal development as a legitimate field in higher education{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}}, universities and [[business school]]s also contract programs to external specialist firms or to individuals.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}
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A partial list of business-to-business programs might include:
  +
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* courses and assessment systems for higher education organizations for their students
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* [[management service]]s to employees in organizations through:
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** training
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** [[training and development]] programs
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** [[personal-development tool]]s
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** [[self-assessment]]
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** [[feedback]]
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** coaching
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** [[mentoring]]
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Some [[management consulting|consulting firm]]s specialize in personal development<ref>
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Firms such as PDI, DDI, Metizo, and [[FranklinCovey]] exemplify international personal-development firms working with companies for consulting, assessment and training.
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</ref>
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but {{As of| 2009 | lc = on}} generalist firms operating in the fields of human resources, recruitment and organizational strategy have entered what they perceive as a growing market,<ref>
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Human-resources firms such as [[Hewitt Associates|Hewitt]], Mercer, [[Watson Wyatt Worldwide]], the [[Hay Group]]; [[McKinsey & Company|McKinsey]] and the [[Boston Consulting Group]] offer consulting in talent-development, and [[Korn/Ferry]] offers [[executive coaching]].
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</ref>
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not to mention smaller firms and self-employed professionals who provide consulting, training and coaching.
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==Origins==
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Major religions, such as the [[Abrahamic religions|Abrahamic]] and [[Indian religions]], as well as [[New Age]] philosophies, have used practices such as [[prayer]], [[music]], [[dance]], [[singing]], [[chanting]], [[poetry]], [[writing]], [[sport]]s and [[martial arts]]. These practices have various functions, such as health or aesthetic satisfaction, but they may also link{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} to "final goals" of personal development such as discovering the [[meaning of life]] or living [[the good life|good life]] (compare [[philosophy]]).
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[[Michel Foucault]] describes in ''Care of the Self''<ref>
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{{Cite book
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|editor1-last = Foucault
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|editor1-first =Michel
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|editor1-link = Michel Foucault
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|title=Care of the Self
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|volume=2
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|year=1986
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|publisher=Random House
  +
}}
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Translated from the French ''Le Souci de Soi'' editions Gallimard 1984. Part Two of Foucault’s book describes the technique of caring for the soul falling in the category of ''epimelia'' from the Greek to the classic Roman period and on into the early stages of the age of Christianity.
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</ref>
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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. [[Wushu (sport)|Wu Shu]] and [[Tai chi chuan|Tai Qi Quan]] utilise traditional Chinese techniques, including breathing and [[qi|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 [[prayer|ritual prayer]], recitation of the [[Qur'an]], [[hajj|pilgrimage]], [[sawm of ramadan|fasting]] and [[tazkiah|''tazkiyah'']] (purification of the soul){{Citation needed|date=September 2009}}.
  +
  +
Two individual ancient philosophers stand out as major sources{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} 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 - note the traditions of the Indian sub-continent in this regard.
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===South Asian traditions===
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{{Expand section|date=December 2009}}
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Some ancient Indians aspired to "beingness, wisdom and happiness".<ref> {{reference is dead link}}
  +
{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Ventegodt
  +
| first = Søren
  +
| coauthors = Joav Merrick, Niels Jørgen Andersen
  +
| year = 2003
  +
| month = Oct
  +
| title = Quality of Life Theory III. Maslow Revisited
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| journal = [[The ScientificWorldJournal]]
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| issue = 3
  +
| pages = 1050–1057
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| publisher = Corpus Alienum Oy
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| location = Finland
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| issn = 1537-744X
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| doi = 10.1100/tsw.2003.84
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| url = http://www.livskvalitet.org/cms.ashx/Videnskabelige%20Artikler/~Quality%20of%20Life/qoltheo3.pdf
  +
| accessdate = 2009-12-15
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| quote = In ancient India people talked about reaching the level of existence called 'sat-sit-ananda': beingness, wisdom and happiness as one.
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}} {{Dead link|date=September 2010|bot=H3llBot}}
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</ref>
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===Aristotle and the Western tradition===
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The Greek philosopher [[Aristotle]] (384 BC – 322 BC) influenced theories{{Which?|date=April 2010}} of personal development in the West. In his ''[[Nicomachean Ethics]]'', Aristotle defined personal development as a category of [[phronesis]] or practical wisdom, where the practice of virtues (''arête'') leads to ''[[eudaimonia]]'',<ref>
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''Nichomachean Ethics'', translated by W.D.Ross, ''Basic Works of Aristotle'', section 1142. Online in "The Internet Classics Archive of MIT": http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
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</ref>
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commonly translated as "happiness" but more accurately understood as “human flourishing” or “living well".<ref>
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Martha Nussbaum, ''The Fragility of Goodness'', Cambridge University Press, discusses why the English word happiness does not describe Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, pages 1-6
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</ref>
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Aristotle continues to influence the Western concept of personal development {{As of| 2010 | alt = to this day}}, particularly in the [[economics of human development]]<ref>
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Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen identifies economic development with Aristotle’s concepts of individual development in his co-authored book written with Aristotle scholar Nussbaum:
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{{Cite book
  +
|editor1-last = Nussbaum
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|editor1-first = Martha
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|editor1-link = Martha Nussbaum
  +
|editor2-last = Sen
  +
|editor2-first = Amartya
  +
|editor2-link = Amartya Sen
  +
|title=The Quality of Life
  +
|url=
  +
|format=
  +
|accessdate=
  +
|edition=
  +
|year= 1993
  +
|publisher= Clarendon Press
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|location= Oxford
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|isbn=0198283954
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|page=
  +
|pages=
  +
|quote=
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}};
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as well as in his general book published a year after receiving the [[Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences|Nobel Prize in Economics]] in 1998:
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{{Cite book
  +
|last= Sen
  +
|first= Amartya
  +
|authorlink= Amartya Sen
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|title= Development as Freedom
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|url=
  +
|format=
  +
|accessdate=
  +
|edition=
  +
|year= 1999
  +
|month=
  +
|publisher= Oxford University Press
  +
|location= Oxford
  +
|isbn=
  +
|page=
  +
|pages=
  +
|quote=
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}}
  +
</ref>
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and in [[positive psychology]].<ref>
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Daniel Seligman explicitly identifies the goals of positive psychology with Aristotle’s idea of the "Good Life" and ''eudaimonia'' in Seligman, Martin E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-2297-0 (Paperback edition, Free Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7432-2298-9).
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</ref>
  +
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===Confucius and the East Asian tradition===
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In Chinese tradition, [[Confucius]] (around 551 BC – 479 BC) founded an ongoing philosophy. His ideas continue to influence family values, education and [[management]] in China and East Asia. In his ''[[Great Learning]]'' Confucius wrote:
  +
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<blockquote>
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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.<ref>
  +
Confucius, ''Great Learning'', translated by James Legge. Provided [http://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/learning.html online] in The Internet Classics Archive of MIT.
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</ref>
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</blockquote>
  +
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==Contexts==
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=== Personal development in psychology ===
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[[Psychology]] became linked to personal development, not with the [[psychoanalysis]] of Freud (1856–1939) but starting{{When|date=April 2009}} with his contemporaries [[Alfred Adler]] (1870–1937) and [[Carl Jung]] (1875–1961).
  +
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Adler refused to limit psychology to analysis, making the important point that aspirations look forward and do not limit themselves to unconscious drives or to childhood experiences.<ref>
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Heinz Ansbacher and Rowena R Ansbacher (1964) Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, Basic Books 1956. See especially chapter 3 on Finalism and Fiction and chapter 7 on the Style of Life.
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</ref>
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He also originated the concepts of [[lifestyle (sociology)|lifestyle]] (1929 — he defined "lifestyle" as an individual's characteristic approach to life, in facing problems) and of [[self image]]{{Citation needed|date=July 2009}}, a concept that influenced management under the heading of [[work-life balance]]{{how?|date=October 2010}}.
  +
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Carl Gustav Jung 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 (psychology)|Self]].<ref>
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Jung saw individuation as a process of [[psychological differentiation]], having for its goal the development of the individual personality. C.G. Jung. ''Psychological Types''. ''Collected Works'', Vol.6., par. 757)
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</ref>
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[[Daniel Levinson]] (1920–1994) developed Jung’s early concept of "[[life stages]]" and included a sociological perspective. Levinson proposed that personal development come under the influence — throughout [[personal life|life]] — of aspirations, which he called "the Dream":
  +
  +
<blockquote>
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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.<ref>
  +
Daniel Levinson, Seasons of a Man’s Life, Ballantine Press, 1978, page 91-92
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</ref>
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</blockquote>
  +
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Levinson’s model of seven life-stages has been considerably modified{{By whom|date=March 2009}} due to sociological changes{{Which?|date=April 2010}} in the [[Biological life cycle|lifecycle]].<ref>
  +
Gail Sheehy, ''New Passages'', Random House 1995. Sheehy had written an earlier best-selling book, ''Passages'' popularizing Levinson’s stages; her second book demonstrated how far society and life stages had changed.
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</ref>
  +
  +
Research on success in reaching goals, as undertaken by [[Albert Bandura]] (born 1925), suggested that [[self-efficacy]]<ref>Albert Bandura (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman
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</ref> 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:<ref>Albert Bandura, ''Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control'', W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1998, page 184.</ref>
  +
  +
# it makes you expect to succeed
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# it allows you take risks and set challenging goals
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# it helps you keep trying if at first you don’t succeed
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# it helps you control emotions and fears when the going gets rough
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In 1998 [[Martin Seligman]] won election to a one-year term as President of the [[American Psychological Association]] and proposed a new focus: on healthy individuals{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} rather than on pathology:
  +
  +
<blockquote>
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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.<ref>
  +
Martin Seligman, “Building Human Strength: Psychology’s Forgotten Mission” VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1 - January 1998
  +
</ref>
  +
</blockquote>
  +
  +
===Personal development in higher education===
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Personal development has been at the heart of education in the West{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} in the form of the Greek philosophers{{Which?|date=April 2010}}; and in the East{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} with Confucius. Some people{{Which?|date=March 2010}} 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{{By whom|date=February 2010}} 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.''<ref>
  +
Wilhelm von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt, ''The Sphere and Duties of Government''. Translated from the German of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, by Joseph Coulthard, Jun. (London: John Chapman, 1854). Chapter 6. Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/589 on 2008-12-30
  +
</ref>
  +
  +
During the 1960s a large increase in the number of students on American campuses<ref>
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See for example the figures for Cuba:
  +
{{Cite web
  +
|title = Educación Superior
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|url = http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/cuba/cepde2004/CD_EDUCACION/EDUCACION/TABLA_24hasta32.htm
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|archiveurl =
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|work = Cuban Statistics and Related Publications
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|publisher = Centro de Estudios de Población y Desarrollo de la Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas
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|location =
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|page =
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|pages =
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|language =
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|trans_title =
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|doi =
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|date =
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|month =
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|year =
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|accessdate = 2009-07-17
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|quote =
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}}
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</ref>
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led to research on the personal development needs of undergraduate students. [[Arthur Chickering]] defined [[Chickering's theory of identity development|seven vectors of personal development]]<ref>Arthur Chickering, Education and Identity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969); second edition updated with Linda Reisser, published in 1993 by Jossey-Bass.
  +
</ref> for young adults during their undergraduate years:
  +
  +
# developing [[skill|competence]]
  +
# managing [[emotion]]s
  +
# achieving [[autonomy]] and [[interdependence]]
  +
# developing mature [[interpersonal relationship]]s
  +
# establishing [[Personal identity (philosophy)|identity]]
  +
# developing purpose
  +
# developing [[integrity]]
  +
  +
In the UK, personal development took a central place in university policy{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} in 1997 when the [[Dearing Report]]<ref>
  +
The Dearing Report of 1997:see the Leeds University website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/
  +
</ref>
  +
declared that universities should go beyond academic teaching to provide students with personal development.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} In 2001 a Quality Assessment Agency for UK universities produced guidelines<ref>
  +
These definitions and guidelines appear on the UK Academy of Higher Education website: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/pdp
  +
</ref>
  +
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;''<br />
  +
''* 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 school]]s 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<ref>
  +
For the personal development requirement for Equis, see the European Foundation for Management Development website http://www.efmd.org/images/stories/efmd/EQUIS/equis_standards_criteria.pdf
  +
</ref>{{Dead link|date=March 2009}}
  +
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|date=February 2010}}
  +
  +
The first personal development certification required for business school graduation originated in 2002 as a partnership between Metizo,<ref>
  +
A description and requirements for Metizo’s personal development certifications can be found on the company’s website: www.metizo.com
  +
</ref>
  +
a personal-development consulting firm, and the Euromed Management School<ref>
  +
The components of Euromed Management School’s personal development programs appear on the school’s website http://www.euromed-management.com/default.aspx?rub=582.
  +
</ref>
  +
in Marseilles: students must not only complete assignments but also demonstrate self-awareness and achievement of personal-development competencies.
  +
  +
As an academic department personal development has become{{When|date=February 2010}} a specific discipline, usually associated with [[business school]]s.<ref>For example, in 2010 Euromed Management School created a department grouping [[leadership]], [[entrepreneurship]] and personal development</ref> As an area of research, personal development draws on links to other academic disciplines:
  +
  +
* [[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
  +
  +
===Personal development in the workplace===
  +
[[Abraham Maslow]] (1908–1970), proposed a [[Maslow's hierarchy of needs|hierarchy of needs]] with [[self actualization]] at the top, defined as:<ref group="dead link">
  +
[https://youtu.be/T41AaSuoHFo Personality Development] is very important in life
  +
</ref>
  +
  +
''… 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-actualization|self-actualize]] — he estimated one percent<ref>
  +
Maslow, A. H. (1996). Higher motivation and the new psychology. In E. Hoffman (Ed.), Future visions: The unpublished papers of Abraham Maslow. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage, page 89
  +
</ref> —
  +
his hierarchy of needs had the consequence that organizations came to regard self-actualization or personal development as occurring at the top of the organizational pyramid, while job security and good working conditions would fulfill the needs of the mass of employees.{{fact|date=November 2010}}
  +
  +
As organizations and labor markets became more global, [[Moral responsibility|responsibility]] for development shifted from the company to the individual.{{Clarify|date=March 2010}} In 1999 management thinker [[Peter Drucker]] wrote in the ''[[Harvard Business Review]]'':
  +
  +
<blockquote>
  +
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 worker]]s 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.''<ref>
  +
Peter F. Drucker, “Managing Oneself”, Best of HBR 1999.{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}
  +
</ref>
  +
</blockquote>
  +
  +
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.<ref>
  +
Ghoshal, Sumantra; Bartlett Christopher A. (1997) The Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management, HarperCollins, page 286
  +
</ref>
  +
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".
  +
  +
The 1997 publication of Ghoshal's and Bartlett's ''Individualized Corporation'' corresponded to a change in [[career development]] from a system of predefined paths defined by companies, to a strategy defined by the individual and matched to the needs of organizations in an open landscape of possibilities.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}} Another contribution to the study of career development came with the recognition that women’s careers show specific personal needs and different development paths from men. The 2007 study of women's careers by Sylvia Ann Hewlett ''Off-Ramps and On-Ramps''<ref>
  +
Hewlett, Sylvia Ann (2007), Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, Harvard Business School Press. This book shows how women have started to change the traditional career path and how companies adapt to career/lifestyle issues for men as well as for women.</ref>
  +
had a major impact on the way companies view careers.{{Citation needed|date=March 2010}}
  +
Further work on the career as a personal development process came from study by Herminia Ibarra in her ''Working Identity'' on the relationship with career change and identity change,<ref>
  +
{{Cite book
  +
|last= Ibarra
  +
|first= Herminia
  +
|authorlink=
  +
|title= Working identity : unconventional strategies for reinventing your career
  +
|url=
  +
|format=
  +
|accessdate=
  +
|edition=
  +
|series=
  +
|volume=
  +
|date=
  +
|origyear=
  +
|year= 2003
  +
|month=
  +
|publisher= Harvard Business School Press
  +
|location= Boston, Mass.
  +
|isbn= 1578517788
  +
|oclc=
  +
|doi=
  +
|bibcode=
  +
|page=
  +
|pages= 199
  +
|chapter= 2
  +
|trans_chapter=
  +
|chapterurl=
  +
|quote=
  +
|ref=
  +
|laysummary=
  +
|laydate=
  +
|separator=
  +
|postscript=
  +
}}
  +
Ibarra discusses career-change based on a process moving from possible selves to "anchoring" a new professional identity.
  +
</ref>
  +
indicating that priorities of [[Employment|work]] and lifestyle continually develop through life.
  +
  +
Personal development programs in companies fall into two categories: the provision of [[employee benefit]]s and the fostering of development strategies.
  +
  +
[[Employee benefit]]s have the purpose of improving satisfaction, motivation and loyalty.{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}} Employee surveys may help organizations find out personal-development needs, preferences and problems, and they use the results to design benefits programs.{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}} Typical programs in this category include:
  +
  +
* [[work-life balance]]
  +
* [[time management]]
  +
* [[stress management]]
  +
* [[health]] programs
  +
* [[counseling]]
  +
  +
Many such programs resemble programs that some employees might conceivably pay for themselves outside work: yoga, sports, martial arts, money-management, positive psychology, [[neuro-linguistic programming|NLP]], etc.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}}
  +
  +
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 [[leadership|leaders]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}} Organizations may also offer other (non-investment-oriented) programs to many or even all employees. Typical programs{{Which?|date=July 2009}} focus on career-development, [[personal effectiveness]], teamwork, and competency-development. Personal development also forms an element in [[management]] tools such as [[personal development planning]], assessing one's level of ability using a [[Competence (human resources)|competency]] grid, or getting feedback from a [[360-degree feedback|360 questionnaire]] filled in by colleagues at different levels in the organization.
  +
  +
==Personal development authors==
  +
People who have produced texts in the personal development field include:
  +
  +
* [[David Allen (author)|David Allen]] (1945- )
  +
* [[Aristotle]]<ref>
  +
{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Artz
  +
| first = John M.
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| year = 1995
  +
| month = September
  +
| title = Computers and the quality of life
  +
| journal = ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society
  +
| volume = 25
  +
| issue = 3
  +
| pages = 17–19
  +
| publisher = [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]]
  +
| location = New York
  +
| issn = 0095-273
  +
| url = http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=211985
  +
| accessdate = 2010-03-19
  +
| quote = [Wittgenstein's] criteria support Aristotle's view of happiness through personal development[...]
  +
}}
  +
</ref> (384–322 BC)
  +
* [[Jack Canfield]] (born 1944)
  +
* [[Dale Carnegie]]<ref>
  +
{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Zajas
  +
| first = Jay J.
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| year = 1994
  +
| title = Planning Your Total Career and Life Portfolio: Part II: A Group Process Experience for Developing Personal and Career Focus - A Case Study
  +
| journal = Executive Development
  +
| volume = 7
  +
| issue = 4
  +
| pages = 24–28
  +
| publisher = MCB UP Ltd
  +
| issn = 0953-3230
  +
| doi = 10.1108/09533239410061833
  +
| url = http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/09533239410061833
  +
| accessdate = 2010-03-19
  +
| quote = In the personal development area, books such as Building Your Self Image, by Josh McDowell, Living Books & Tyndale House Publishing, Wheaton, IL ... 1948, and How to Make Friends and Influence People, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1964, by Dale Carnegie contain time-tested principles for forming genuine friendships and viable interpersonal relationships.
  +
}}
  +
</ref> (1888–1955)
  +
* [[Confucius]]<ref>
  +
{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Hu
  +
| first = Guangwei
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| year = 2002
  +
| title = Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China
  +
| journal = Language, culture and curriculum
  +
| volume = 15
  +
| issue = 2
  +
| pages = 93–105
  +
| url = http://moodle.vsoint.org/file.php/1/moddata/data/6/10/113/Hu_G._2002_CLT_in_China_Pedagogical_Imports.pdf
  +
| format = PDF
  +
| accessdate = 2010-03-19
  +
| quote = Besides the reward of the soul that comes in the form of inner satisfaction with full personal development (Guo, 2001), Confucius also saw a utilitarian function of education[...]
  +
}}
  +
</ref> (551–479 BC)
  +
* [[Stephen Covey]] (1932- )
  +
* [[G. I. Gurdjieff]]<ref>
  +
{{Cite web
  +
| url = http://www.kingston.ac.uk/~ku00136/publications/intstrat.pdf
  +
| title = Intelligent strategy
  +
| first = Robin
  +
| last = Matthews
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| date =
  +
| month =
  +
| year =
  +
| work =
  +
| publisher = [[Kingston Business School]]
  +
| location = [[Kingston upon Thames]]
  +
| page = 2
  +
| pages = 1–6
  +
| format = PDF
  +
| accessdate = 2010-03-19
  +
| quote = The Enneagram, an ancient symbol of Chaldean origin, is found in the traditions of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Sufism. In the early twentieth century, it was expounded by the Russians G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D.Ouspensky (see Bennett, 1966), and currently it is used in some personal development programmes.
  +
|archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20060924045313/http://www.kingston.ac.uk/~ku00136/publications/intstrat.pdf |archivedate = September 24, 2006}}
  +
</ref> (1866?-1949)
  +
* [[Friedrich Ludwig Jahn]]<ref>
  +
{{Cite journal
  +
| last = Durántez Corral
  +
| first = Conrado
  +
| authorlink =
  +
| coauthors = José A. Pérez-Turpin , Aurora Martínez Vidal, Covadonga Mateos Padorno, José Martínez Patiño, Antonio González Molina.
  +
| year = 2010
  +
| month = January
  +
| title = Principles of the Olympic movement
  +
| journal = Journal of Human Sport and Exercise
  +
| volume = 5
  +
| issue = 1
  +
| pages = 3–14
  +
| issn = 1988-5202
  +
| doi = 10.4100/jhse
  +
| url = http://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/13101/1/JHSE_5_1_2.pdf
  +
| format = PDF
  +
| accessdate = 2010-03-19
  +
| quote = Teachers and educators would be those who used gymnastics as a forming element of the individual with the important contributions of Francisco Amoros in Spain, Henrik Ling in Sweden and Frederick Louis Jahn in Germany[...]
  +
}}
  +
</ref> (1778–1852)
  +
* [[Mark Victor Hansen]] (born 1948)
  +
* [[Elena Chopin]]
  +
* [[Keith Matthew]] (born 1970)
  +
* [[Steve Pavlina]] (born 1971)
  +
* [[Tony Robbins]] (born 1960)
  +
* [[Jim Rohn]] (1930–2009)
  +
* [[Brian Tracy]] (born 1944)
  +
* [[Zig Ziglar]] (born 1926)
  +
* [[Azmi Jahan]] (born 1984)
  +
* [[Steven Aitchison]]
  +
* [[Michel de Kemmeter]] (born 1964)
  +
* [[Khalid Hamid]] (born 1976)
  +
* [[Jaber Hussain Al Yafai]] (born 1979)
   
 
==See also==
  
==See also==
  +
* Coaching
−
* [[Self-actualization]]
  
  +
*[[Holland Codes]]
−
* [[Developmental psychology]]
  
−
* [[Human enhancement]]
 +
* [[Know thyself]]
−
* [[Human Potential Movement]]
 +
* [[Life planning]]
−
* [[Humanistic psychology]]
  
−
* [[Neuro-linguistic Programming]]
  
−
* [[Positive psychology]]
  
−
* [[Personality]]
  
 
* [[Self-help]]
  
* [[Self-help]]
−
* [[Time management]]
 +
* [[Training and development]]
  +
* [[Human Potential Movement]]
−
* [[Transpersonal psychology]]
  
  +
* [[Micropsychoanalysis]]
   
  +
==References==
  +
{{Reflist}}
   
  +
==External links==
−
[[Category:Education]]
  
  +
{{Commons}}
  +
  +
  +
  +
  +
{{DEFAULTSORT:Personal Development}}
 
[[Category:Personal development| ]]
  
[[Category:Personal development| ]]
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[[Category:Self]]
  
−
[[Category:Social psychology]]
  
   
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{{enWP|Personal development}}
  
{{enWP|Personal development}}

Latest revision as of 17:48, 15 April 2021

Assessment | Biopsychology | Comparative | Cognitive | Developmental | Language | Individual differences | Personality | Philosophy | Social |
Methods | Statistics | Clinical | Educational | Industrial | Professional items | World psychology |

Developmental Psychology: Cognitive development · Development of the self · Emotional development · Language development · Moral development · Perceptual development · Personality development · Psychosocial development · Social development · Developmental measures


Personal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The concept is not limited to self-help but includes formal and informal activities for developing others, in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor. Finally, as personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level in organizations.[1]

At the level of the individual, personal development includes the following activities:

The concept covers a wider field than self-development or self-help: personal development also includes developing others. This may take place through roles such as those of a teacher or mentor, either through a personal competency (such as the skill of certain managers in developing the potential of employees) or a professional service (such as providing training, assessment or coaching).

Beyond improving oneself and developing others, personal development is a field of practice and research. As a field of practice it includes personal development methods, learning programs, assessment systems, tools and techniques. As a field of research, personal development topics increasingly appear in scientific journals, higher education reviews, management journals and business books.

Any sort of development — whether economic, political, biological, organizational or personal — requires a framework if one wishes to know whether change has actually occurred. In the case of personal development, an individual often functions as the primary judge of improvement, but validation of objective improvement requires assessment using standard criteria. Personal development frameworks may include 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 a development path, and a feedback system to provide information on changes.


The "Personal Development Industry"

Personal development as an industry[2] has several formats of operating. The main ways are business-to-consumer and business-to-business, however there are two newer ways increasing in their prevalence. They are consumer-to-business and consumer-to-consumer.

The Business-to-Consumer Market

The business-to-consumer market involves selling books, courses and techniques to individuals, such as:

Some programs are delivered[by whom?] online and many include tools sold with a program, such as motivational books for self-help, recipes for weight-loss or technical manuals for yoga and martial-arts programs.

A partial list of personal development offerings on the business-to-individual market might include:

The Business-to-Business Market

The business-to-business market also involves programs - in this case ones sold to companies and to governments to assess potential, to improve effectiveness, to manage work-life balance or to prepare some entity for a new role in an organization. The goals of these programs are defined[by whom?] with the institution or by the institution and the results are assessed[by whom?][citation needed]. With the acceptance of personal development as a legitimate field in higher education[citation needed], universities and business schools also contract programs to external specialist firms or to individuals.[citation needed]

A partial list of business-to-business programs might include:

Some consulting firms specialize in personal development[3] but as of 2009Template:Dated maintenance category generalist firms operating in the fields of human resources, recruitment and organizational strategy have entered what they perceive as a growing market,[4] not to mention smaller firms and self-employed professionals who provide consulting, training and coaching.

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. These practices have various functions, such as health or aesthetic satisfaction, but they may also link[citation needed] to "final goals" of personal development such as discovering the meaning of life or living good life (compare philosophy).

Michel Foucault describes in Care of the Self[5] 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 - note the traditions of the Indian sub-continent in this regard.

South Asian traditions

Template:Expand section

Some ancient Indians aspired to "beingness, wisdom and happiness".[6]

Aristotle and the Western tradition

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) influenced theoriesTemplate:Which? of personal development in the West. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defined personal development as a category of phronesis or practical wisdom, where the practice of virtues (arête) leads to eudaimonia,[7] commonly translated as "happiness" but more accurately understood as “human flourishing” or “living well".[8] Aristotle continues to influence the Western concept of personal development to this dayTemplate:Dated maintenance category, particularly in the economics of human development[9] and in positive psychology.[10]

Confucius and the East Asian tradition

In Chinese tradition, Confucius (around 551 BC – 479 BC) founded an ongoing philosophy. His ideas continue to influence family values, education and management in China and East Asia. In his Great Learning Confucius wrote:

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.[11]

Contexts

Personal development in psychology

Psychology became linked to personal development, not with the psychoanalysis of Freud (1856–1939) but startingTemplate:When with his contemporaries Alfred Adler (1870–1937) and Carl Jung (1875–1961).

Adler refused to limit psychology to analysis, making the important point that aspirations look forward and do not limit themselves to unconscious drives or to childhood experiences.[12] 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 balanceTemplate:How?.

Carl Gustav Jung 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.[13]

Daniel Levinson (1920–1994) developed Jung’s early concept of "life stages" and included a sociological perspective. Levinson proposed 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.[14]

Levinson’s model of seven life-stages has been considerably modified[by whom?] due to sociological changesTemplate:Which? in the lifecycle.[15]

Research on success in reaching goals, as undertaken by Albert Bandura (born 1925), suggested that self-efficacy[16] 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:[17]

  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 emotions and fears when the going gets rough

In 1998 Martin Seligman won election to a one-year term as President of the American Psychological Association and proposed a new focus: on healthy individuals[citation needed] rather than on 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.[18]

Personal development in higher education

Personal development has been at the heart of education in the West[citation needed] in the form of the Greek philosophersTemplate:Which?; and in the East[citation needed] with Confucius. Some peopleTemplate:Which? 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[by whom?] 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.[19]

During the 1960s a large increase in the number of students on American campuses[20] led to research on the personal development needs of undergraduate students. Arthur Chickering defined seven vectors of personal development[21] for young adults during their undergraduate years:

  1. developing competence
  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[citation needed] in 1997 when the Dearing Report[22] 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[23] 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[24][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,[25] a personal-development consulting firm, and the Euromed Management School[26] in Marseilles: students must not only complete assignments but also demonstrate self-awareness and achievement of personal-development competencies.

As an academic department personal development has becomeTemplate:When a specific discipline, usually associated with business schools.[27] As an area of research, personal development draws on links to other academic disciplines:

Personal development in the workplace

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970), proposed a hierarchy of needs with self actualization at the top, defined as:[dead link 1]

… 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 self-actualization or personal development as occurring at the top of the organizational pyramid, while job security and good working conditions would fulfill the needs of the mass of employees.[How to reference and link to summary or text]

As organizations and labor markets became more global, responsibility for development shifted from the company to the individual.

This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers, and should be edited to rectify this.
Please improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page.

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 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.[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".

The 1997 publication of Ghoshal's and Bartlett's Individualized Corporation corresponded to a change in career development from a system of predefined paths defined by companies, to a strategy defined by the individual and matched to the needs of organizations in an open landscape of possibilities.[citation needed] Another contribution to the study of career development came with the recognition that women’s careers show specific personal needs and different development paths from men. The 2007 study of women's careers by Sylvia Ann Hewlett Off-Ramps and On-Ramps[31] had a major impact on the way companies view careers.[citation needed] Further work on the career as a personal development process came from study by Herminia Ibarra in her Working Identity on the relationship with career change and identity change,[32] indicating that priorities of work and lifestyle continually develop through life.

Personal development programs in companies fall into two categories: the provision of employee benefits and the fostering of development strategies.

Employee benefits have the purpose of improving satisfaction, motivation and loyalty.[citation needed] Employee surveys may help organizations 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:

Many such programs resemble programs that some 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 programsTemplate:Which? focus on career-development, personal effectiveness, teamwork, and competency-development. Personal development also forms an element in management tools such as personal development planning, 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.

Personal development authors

People who have produced texts in the personal development field include:

  • David Allen (1945- )
  • Aristotle[33] (384–322 BC)
  • Jack Canfield (born 1944)
  • Dale Carnegie[34] (1888–1955)
  • Confucius[35] (551–479 BC)
  • Stephen Covey (1932- )
  • G. I. Gurdjieff[36] (1866?-1949)
  • Friedrich Ludwig Jahn[37] (1778–1852)
  • Mark Victor Hansen (born 1948)
  • Elena Chopin
  • Keith Matthew (born 1970)
  • Steve Pavlina (born 1971)
  • Tony Robbins (born 1960)
  • Jim Rohn (1930–2009)
  • Brian Tracy (born 1944)
  • Zig Ziglar (born 1926)
  • Azmi Jahan (born 1984)
  • Steven Aitchison
  • Michel de Kemmeter (born 1964)
  • Khalid Hamid (born 1976)
  • Jaber Hussain Al Yafai (born 1979)

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bob Aubrey, Managing Your Aspirations: Developing Personal Enterprise in the Global Workplace McGraw-Hill 2010 ISBN 978-007-131178-6, page 9
  2. ↑ Some sources recognize personal development as an "industry": see for example Cullen, John G. (2009). How to sell your soul and still get into Heaven: Steven Covey's epiphany-inducing technology of effective selfhood. Human Relations 62 (8): 1231–1254. and Grant, Anthony M., Blythe O'Hara (November 2006). The self-presentation of commercial Australian life coaching schools: Cause for concern?. International Coaching Psychology Review 1 (2): 21–33. and Grant, Anthony M., Michael J. Cavanagh (December 2007). Evidence-based coaching: Flourishing or languishing?. Australian Psychologist 42 (4): 239–254.
  3. ↑ Firms such as PDI, DDI, Metizo, and FranklinCovey exemplify international personal-development firms working with companies for consulting, assessment and training.
  4. ↑ Human-resources firms such as Hewitt, Mercer, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, the Hay Group; McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group offer consulting in talent-development, and Korn/Ferry offers executive coaching.
  5. ↑ (1986) Care of the Self, Random House. Translated from the French Le Souci de Soi editions Gallimard 1984. Part Two of Foucault’s book describes the technique of caring for the soul falling in the category of epimelia from the Greek to the classic Roman period and on into the early stages of the age of Christianity.
  6. ↑ Template:Reference is dead link Ventegodt, Søren, Joav Merrick, Niels Jørgen Andersen (Oct 2003). Quality of Life Theory III. Maslow Revisited. The ScientificWorldJournal (3): 1050–1057. [dead link]
  7. ↑ Nichomachean Ethics, translated by W.D.Ross, Basic Works of Aristotle, section 1142. Online in "The Internet Classics Archive of MIT": http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
  8. ↑ Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness, Cambridge University Press, discusses why the English word happiness does not describe Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, pages 1-6
  9. ↑ Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen identifies economic development with Aristotle’s concepts of individual development in his co-authored book written with Aristotle scholar Nussbaum: (1993) The Quality of Life, Oxford: Clarendon Press.; as well as in his general book published a year after receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998: Sen, Amartya (1999). Development as Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  10. ↑ Daniel Seligman explicitly identifies the goals of positive psychology with Aristotle’s idea of the "Good Life" and eudaimonia in Seligman, Martin E. P. (2002). Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment.New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-2297-0 (Paperback edition, Free Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7432-2298-9).
  11. ↑ Confucius, Great Learning, translated by James Legge. Provided online in The Internet Classics Archive of MIT.
  12. ↑ Heinz Ansbacher and Rowena R Ansbacher (1964) Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, Basic Books 1956. See especially chapter 3 on Finalism and Fiction and chapter 7 on the Style of Life.
  13. ↑ Jung saw individuation as a process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality. C.G. Jung. Psychological Types. Collected Works, Vol.6., par. 757)
  14. ↑ Daniel Levinson, Seasons of a Man’s Life, Ballantine Press, 1978, page 91-92
  15. ↑ Gail Sheehy, New Passages, Random House 1995. Sheehy had written an earlier best-selling book, Passages popularizing Levinson’s stages; her second book demonstrated how far society and life stages had changed.
  16. ↑ Albert Bandura (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman
  17. ↑ Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, W.H. Freeman and Company, New York, 1998, page 184.
  18. ↑ Martin Seligman, “Building Human Strength: Psychology’s Forgotten Mission” VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1 - January 1998
  19. ↑ Wilhelm von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Sphere and Duties of Government. Translated from the German of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, by Joseph Coulthard, Jun. (London: John Chapman, 1854). Chapter 6. Accessed from http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/589 on 2008-12-30
  20. ↑ See for example the figures for Cuba: Educación Superior. Cuban Statistics and Related Publications. Centro de Estudios de Población y Desarrollo de la Oficina Nacional de Estadísticas. URL accessed on 2009-07-17.
  21. ↑ Arthur Chickering, Education and Identity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1969); second edition updated with Linda Reisser, published in 1993 by Jossey-Bass.
  22. ↑ The Dearing Report of 1997:see the Leeds University website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/
  23. ↑ These definitions and guidelines appear on the UK Academy of Higher Education website: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/pdp
  24. ↑ For the personal development requirement for Equis, see the European Foundation for Management Development website http://www.efmd.org/images/stories/efmd/EQUIS/equis_standards_criteria.pdf
  25. ↑ A description and requirements for Metizo’s personal development certifications can be found on the company’s website: www.metizo.com
  26. ↑ The components of Euromed Management School’s personal development programs appear on the school’s website http://www.euromed-management.com/default.aspx?rub=582.
  27. ↑ For example, in 2010 Euromed Management School created a department grouping leadership, entrepreneurship and personal development
  28. ↑ Maslow, A. H. (1996). Higher motivation and the new psychology. In E. Hoffman (Ed.), Future visions: The unpublished papers of Abraham Maslow. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage, page 89
  29. ↑ Peter F. Drucker, “Managing Oneself”, Best of HBR 1999.Template:Page needed
  30. ↑ Ghoshal, Sumantra; Bartlett Christopher A. (1997) The Individualized Corporation: A Fundamentally New Approach to Management, HarperCollins, page 286
  31. ↑ Hewlett, Sylvia Ann (2007), Off-Ramps and On-Ramps, Harvard Business School Press. This book shows how women have started to change the traditional career path and how companies adapt to career/lifestyle issues for men as well as for women.
  32. ↑ Ibarra, Herminia (2003). "2" Working identity : unconventional strategies for reinventing your career, 199, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. Ibarra discusses career-change based on a process moving from possible selves to "anchoring" a new professional identity.
  33. ↑ Artz, John M. (September 1995). Computers and the quality of life. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society 25 (3): 17–19.
  34. ↑ Zajas, Jay J. (1994). Planning Your Total Career and Life Portfolio: Part II: A Group Process Experience for Developing Personal and Career Focus - A Case Study. Executive Development 7 (4): 24–28.
  35. ↑ Hu, Guangwei (2002). Potential Cultural Resistance to Pedagogical Imports: The Case of Communicative Language Teaching in China. Language, culture and curriculum 15 (2): 93–105.
  36. ↑ Matthews, Robin Intelligent strategy. (PDF) Kingston Business School. URL accessed on 2010-03-19.
  37. ↑ Durántez Corral, Conrado, José A. Pérez-Turpin , Aurora Martínez Vidal, Covadonga Mateos Padorno, José Martínez Patiño, Antonio González Molina. (January 2010). Principles of the Olympic movement. Journal of Human Sport and Exercise 5 (1): 3–14.

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