Managing Human Resources, 3rd Edition

6 From personal to professional development Creating space for growth

            Peter Critten

6.1 Personal development: a historical perspective

For the purposes of this chapter ‘personal’ development is taken to be synonymous with self-development¹ and means that learners take the primary responsibility for choosing what, when and how to learn.² What and how they choose to develop may or may not be related to their organisation’s needs. But organisations themselves need to understand the power and implications that accrue from personal development so that they can reap its benefits.

Self- or personal development emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as an antidote to the ‘systematic’ training approach that was adopted by the Industrial Training ...