“Personal development must make itself redundant to have a future” – a provocative thesis from within its own ranks! In the article, we summarize the problems in today’s PD. And we show ways to deal with the necessary changes: with completely new roles for personal developers!
A fact is undeniable: With increasing digitization, not only production and communication processes are changing. The handling of "human resources" is also affected by the transformation – not least due to new requirements, skills, and learning methods.
Under the keyword “Personal Development 4.0”, this transformation is being discussed in many voices. Rarely have I encountered such a clear voice as that of Christian Böhler – himself a personal developer – in his contribution “Disrupt HR!” (Print or Podcast at managerSeminare).
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“Personal development has outlived itself!”
Böhler describes personal development as a pacifier that HR departments need to wean themselves off: “Because the way in which further education is conducted and the qualifications of employees are promoted has outlived its usefulness. The “pacifier” is not just a particular format, procedure, or tool, but personal development itself. Because it does more harm than good.”
With his opinion that personal development in its current form is outdated, Christian Böhler is not alone. A recent survey by managerSeminare supports his statement: after all, 65% of respondents believe that personal development will only exist in a changed form in five years.
It becomes clear that personal development in its current form seems to have no future. But where does this sudden shift towards redundancy come from, when PD has played an increasingly larger role in most organizations over the last few decades?
Possible causes of death for personal development
In his article, Christian Böhler directly cites several “diseases” of today’s personal development. Essentially, PD has two fundamental tasks – which it no longer fulfills adequately today:
The building of competencies, which consists of knowledge, values, and experience, among other things.
The provision of relevant assistance for employees – precisely in the form and at the time when it is needed.
The crux: Personal development in its current form is “part of the problem, not the solution. PD is to blame for the fact that many employees still don’t know what to do with IT, do not understand digital processes, and cannot cope with networking” – says Böhler.
The biggest unresolved problems in today’s PD were also discussed in a survey – which yielded very clear results: The main problem of PD is the fixation on its own processes (50%). Added to that is a lack of courage (46%), as well as a lack of knowledge about its own employees (44%).
The three biggest unresolved problems of personal development today: process fixation, lack of courage, and insufficient knowledge. // Source: managerSeminare Opinion Monitor
“Personal development is part of the problem, not the solution!”
Several reasons lead to the fact that HR departments today cannot (or no longer) fulfill the required tasks:
The entire structure of “personal development” is too rigid for the agile world: PD is simply too slow in its existing processes to recognize and meet the changing needs of employees in a timely manner. Ideally, needs should be recognized before they arise and lead to problems.
Most personal developers lack the digital and professional skills they are supposed to impart. Skills consist not only of knowledge and abilities, but also of values, motivation, experience, and mindset. (More on the competency approach at managerseminars)
Personal development takes place in most companies greatly separated from actual work – without this connection, employees miss the opportunity to gain real experience. What is needed today are no longer seminar rooms, but “opportunities to experiment and gain personal experience.”
“Instead of learning success, it’s about gaining personal experience!”
This harsh reality can indeed be frightening: Will you soon become redundant as a personal developer? Will the entire area of “PD” simply be abolished? In a sense, Christian Böhler’s answer is: Yes! “If you take all of this seriously and think it through to the end, it is quite possible that companies will manage without PD, as it is understood today.”
The emphasis here is on “as it is understood today” – for personal developers, entirely new opportunities to become relevant again open up:
Personal developers can gain relevance through a new orientation, more skills, and knowledge. // Source: managerSeminare Opinion Monitor
It is up to the personal developers themselves to refresh their own competencies and get to know their target group, the employees, better. This then results in a complete realignment:
When new spaces for self-directed learning and experiences are created, employees must not be left to their own devices. “On one hand, you reduce your own role, while on the other hand, you fill the resulting gap” – says Böhler.
Long live personal development! – New roles for PD professionals
What exactly filling this gap should look like is subject to diverse opinions. Below are three concepts briefly outlined:
Personal developers as “People Partners”
Christian Böhler sees the possible role of People Partner: The focus is on the needs of employees, counseling, and support. Your goal as a People Partner would no longer be to initiate the learning process, but to enable your employees to learn in a self-organized manner – for example, through resources or an appropriate learning environment.
Individual small roles for PD
Apart from People Partners, various other roles for personal developers come into consideration. A total of 6 roles are identified by the “Bildung plus” network in Switzerland. These include
the “provider”, who develops and implements offerings for competency development.
the “broker”, who finds external providers, plans collaborations, and mediates between external and internal parties.
the “enabler”, who develops competencies for self-directed learning and creates the framework for successful learning (very similar to the People Partner).
The complete overview of all roles and possible areas of responsibility can be found in the presentation in the article
