What is the "essence" of personal development programs in business?

IMO (as always) “training” is for me teaching a person a specific skill—how to weld, the process for loading an airplane, how to clean teeth, etc. “Training” is the specific education for preparing a person to do a specific usually hands-on job.

Developing one’s staff/employees/associates has a broader meaning. We may not be focused on a specific skill set as we are on growing the person, but note NOT necessarily to be promoted. That line of thinking assumes that everyone wants to be promoted—and they don’t. We know of at least four major different Career Concepts (thanks to Driver and Brousseau at USC) Linears define “success” as gaining power and status. Experts define success as becoming artisans and craftsmen. Spirals get bored with the ladder climb and want to be learning all the time. Transitories only work so they can do something else. ALL four patterns have major value to add to a company. But assuming everyone wants to be promoted is folly. Every participant I’ve met in 40 years of consulting has seen Experts ruined by promotion into management. And that’s usually done because the Linear promoters assume everyone is like them.

So here is what the essence of effective employee development has been for 40 years and consulting with companies all over the world.

1. Career Concepts. There’s more than one definition of success. Be aware and make better informed career decisions for self and others.
2. Leadership effectiveness can be measured by Buy-In. Leadership is about managing energy—and when you ask someone to do something, you can get postive or negative energy. See below.
3. Human Behavior can be viewed at three levels: Visible (what you can capture on film), Conscious Thought, and VABEs. What are VABEs? Each level has influence techniques associated with it. Level One techniques are basically Skinnerian—rewards and punishments. This is what most managers use. Level Two Techniques include logic, data, science, evidence. It turns out though for the vast majority of people in the world VABEs (Level Three) “trump” evidence. There is more energy pro and con at Level Three than at Level One. Learn to see, understand and act at Level Three. See for example, Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards.
4. Every person who wants to live “inside-out” instead of “outside-in” should IMO have a charter—for themselves, their departments, their divisions, their companies and even their countries. Any executive who cannot articulate a clear, robust, and inspiring charter is IMO negligent. What’s your purpose in life? (It’s your life…) What do you want to look like at age 70? (vision) etc. See below and my website Level Three Leadership for more.
5. Managers need to understand the nature of problems—most don’t. See below.
6. Executives are organizational architects like or not, and yet they make design decisions based on pre-conscious VABEs without understanding the likely consequences of their choices. I’ve seen major companies take five years to get to organization B and then five years later go back to organization A — for example. Imagine the lost energy in that place.
7. Executives can only influence results through organizational culture. They design things, and the put people in their designs and the resulting collision is a “culture” that either functions well or not. Culture is a collection of shared VABEs. See for example Ed Schein’s work, especially Organizational Culture and Leadership.
8. Effective executives must be masters of the change process. Most IME shoot from the hip. Again, it all comes down to VABEs.
9. Does how you feel affect your performance? (100% of people in my experience say yes.) Do you know how you want to feel? Happy isn’t good enough. If one can manage feel, performance comes out the other end. Managing “feel” is about managing energy, which I say is what leadership is. See again the Buy-In Scale.
10. Balance. How does one manage all the —AL aspects of life (physical, intellectual, financial, social, professional, etc.) effectively? I have a colleague who once noted “excellence is a neurotic lifestyle.”

My week-long seminars at Darden School UVA and for clients worldwide introduced all of these elements with examples, stretching role plays, and Level Three analysis throughout. I’ve retired, but all of my material is on-line at my website. Here are a few of the concepts rendered visually.

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Melody Jacob