Psychology
Psychology became linked to personal development in the early 20th century starting with 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.[15] 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.[clarification needed]
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.[16]
Daniel Levinson (1920–1994) developed Jung's early concept of "life stages" and included a sociological perspective. Levinson proposed that personal development comes 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.[17]
Research on success in reaching goals, as undertaken by Albert Bandura (born 1925), suggested that self-efficacy[18] 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:[19]
It makes you expect to succeed
It allows you take risks and set challenging goals
It helps you keep trying if at first you don't succeed
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[20][citation needed] rather than on pathology (he created the "positive psychology" current)
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.[21]
Higher education
During the 1960s a large increase in the number of students on American campuses[22] led to research on the personal development needs of undergraduate students. Arthur Chickering defined seven vectors of personal development[23] for young adults during their undergraduate years:
Developing competence
Managing emotions
Achieving autonomy and interdependence
Developing mature interpersonal relationships
Establishing personal identity
Developing purpose
Developing integrity
In the UK, personal development took a central place in university policy[citation needed] in 1997 when the Dearing Report[24] declared that universities should go beyond academic teaching to provide students with personal development.[25] In 2001 a Quality Assessment Agency for UK universities produced guidelines[26] 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 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.[27][citation needed]
The first personal development certification required for business school graduation originated in 2002 as a partnership between Metizo,[28] a personal-development consulting firm, and the Euromed Management School[29] 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 as a specific discipline is usually associated with business schools.[citation needed] 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
The workplace
Abraham Maslow (1908–1970), proposed a hierarchy of needs with self actualization at the top, defined as:[30]
… 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[31]—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.[32][citation needed]
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.[33]
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.[34] 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[35] had a major impact on the way companies view careers.[36][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,[37] 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 surveys may help organizations find out personal-development needs, preferences and problems, and they use the results to design benefits programs.[38][citation needed] Typical programs in this category include:
Work-life balance
Time management
Stress management
Health programs
Counseling
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. 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.
A common criticism[39] surrounding personal development programs is that they are often treated as an arbitrary performance management tool to pay lip service to, but ultimately ignored. As such, many companies have decided to replace personal development programs with SMART Personal Development Objectives, which are regularly reviewed and updated. Personal Development Objectives help employees achieve career goals and improve overall performance.