New Approach to Personal Development Planning

by Michael J Costello • September 21, 2011 • Personal Development, Personal Development Planning • 0 Comments

Personal Development Planning originated as a management development tool for business organisations in the 1950s. In the 1960s it was introduced into Higher Education in the US to facilitate academic achievement and into UK third level education in the 1990s.

Around the same time it also entered the mainstream as part of the self-improvement boom created by the publication of best-selling books like Covney’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Its popularity reflected a growing acceptance of ordinary people’s capacity to live a happier more productive and less humdrum life than was thought possible up to then.

New Approach

Nowadays a well thought out plan is seen as an essential first step towards doing something intelligent about your personal development. The focus has also broadened to take in the whole spectrum of life as the practice of dealing with work, career and academic achievement in isolation no longer makes sense as key events in any one area of our lives is more than likely to affect those in other areas (Coopey et al, 1990).

First Generation

The very first Personal Development Plans were based on participants writing down what they wanted from life and then drawing up a plan for getting it. A surprising number of these are still to be found on some very professionally presented web sites. Dressing them up with impressive sounding tools like Personal Mission Statements, Skill Inventories, Goal Setting techniques, and Mentoring Systems does not address their fundamental weakness.

Fatal Flaw

The fatal flaw of this early model is that it does not address the key issue of identifying strengths and weaknesses. Without this essential piece of self-knowledge a Personal Development Plan is not only worthless but increases the likelihood of participants making incorrect career or life choices and striving for goals that they do not have the appropriate mix of strengths to achieve.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Recognising this shortcoming later models addressed the personal strengths and weaknesses problem with a series of questions for the participant to answer. Questions like: What area or activity am I generally successful at? ; What do I frequently fail at?; What do people generally compliment me for?; What do people criticise me for?; What complains are made about me?; What positive things are said about me?; What are my good habits and my bad habits?; What am I comfortable doing and what do I feel uncomfortable about doing?

Self-knowledge

These questions rely too much on the accuracy of participant’s self-knowledge which Viscott (1996) suggests can be exaggerated, distorted, displaced, confused and overstated. While Seligman (2003) reports that eighty percent of American men think they are in the top half of social skills; the majority of workers rate their job performance as above average; and the majority of motorists (even those who have been involved in accidents) rate their driving as safer than average.

Doesn’t Work

So making crucial Personal Development Planning decisions based on the answers participants give to these questions just doesn’t work. For it does not take into account their blind spots and the other limitations of their sense of self-awareness as famously demonstrated by the Johari Window in the middle of the last century. Sure the issue of personal strengths and weaknesses needs to be addressed but for my money this is not a credible way to go about it.

Professionally Researched Alternative

Which is unforgivable when there is a highly reliable professionally researched alternative available. I refer to Positive Psychologist Martin Seligman’s VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues Questionnaire that is designed specifically to identify people’s signature strengths. Considering this as a potentially elegant solution to the crucial flaw in existing Personal Development Planning processes I have made it the center piece of the innovative Personal Development Plan described in detail in my posts beginning on June 1 of this year.

Readings

Coopey et al (1990) Develop You Management Potential – a self-help guide. London: Kogan Page

Covey, S., (1992) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. London; Simon & Schuster Ltd.

Luft, J.; Ingham, H. (1955). “The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness”. Proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development (Los Angeles: UCLA).

Seligman, M. (2002) Authentic Happiness – using the New positive Psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Viscott, D. (1996) Emotional Resilience – Simple truths for dealing with the unfinished business of your past. New York: Three Rivers Press.