Promoting a Development Culture in Your Organization: Using Career Development as a Change Agent (Hardcover)

by Peggy Simonsen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Highly recommended addition to corporate and business school library collections. -- The Midwest Book Review, December 1997

Makes an important contribution of new alternatives...great eye-opener for managers, career development and HR professionals, and consultants. -- Career Planning & Adult Development Journal, Winter 1997-98

Product Description
The increasing pace of change threatens the very survival of every organization, making demands that only a flexible, innovative workforce can meet. PROMOTING A DEVELOPMENT CULTURE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION shows how to infuse a conventional organization with a culture that fosters a creative, capable workforce. Packed with practical suggestions, assessment tools, action plans, and implementation strategies for successful career development in organizations, this book:

* Explains how to generate a development culture in your organization * Offers ways to help employees change and adapt to new challenges * Shows how employees and organizations can replace rigid "job descriptions" and "titles" with adaptive "skill portfolios" and "roles" * Provides tools for developing a workforce that can implement strategic business decisions * Presents ways to shape employee careers that align with organizational goals

Written for human resource and career development practitioners, executives, managers, professional trainers, and organizational development consultants, this book shows how a development culture can help an organization achieve top performance while meeting shared organizational goals.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Davies-Black Publishing; 1 edition (November 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0891061096
• ISBN-13: 978-0891061090
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #680,326 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Only Half of the Solution, February 10, 2000

By A Customer

Development Cultures are great ideas that need more fully encompassing approaches. The Author appropriately suggests that the emphasis in our workplaces should be adding value and thus creating opportunities for continued careers. She also appropriately suggests that skills are a necessary element for adding value. Missing is the acknowledgement that performance requires both skills and attitudes-both the ability and the inclination to perform quality work.

Conspicuously absent are any emphasis or ideas for motivating and satisfying the people that are being asked to change. Developing additional skills takes time, energy and motivation. As all change leaders understand, those being changed invariably ask, "What's in it for me?" Until this question is adequately answered, the potential for Development Cultures appears bleak. While some might boldly suggest, "Having a job is what's in it for them," others might aptly rebut "With more skills, those employees will be more attractive and tempted away by other employers."

The bases for high performance work cultures are apparent in the Author's obviously thorough research. Her enumeration of Schein's "Basic Career Anchors", Gottlieb's "Transformational Leadership", and Bechhard's "Organizational Transitions" are excellent starting points. These considerations are sorely absent from integration into the Author's Development Culture model (p. 93)-a model that focuses predominately on tasks and systems while ignoring the human elements of meaning, motivation, discretionary contribution.

Development Cultures are needed in today's workplaces. To be successful, these cultures must complement and balance developing worker skills with developing meaning for the workforce. Until we practitioners commit to implementing more fully encompassing solutions, we will continue achieving inadequate results.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, systemic approach to organization change, November 23, 1998

By A Customer

I thought the book was incredibly practical and realistic in its approach to utilizing career development as a lever for organization effectiveness. Simonsen uses a wide variety of industry examples to demonstrate how the strategy she is advocating-which is your tried and true OD approach-can work in today's organizations. This is a book that managers and consultants can utilize together as they tie together business strategy and people planning. I keep buying copies of this book and giving them away to HR colleagues and line managers.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb book about development, August 22, 2002

By	David J. Richards "DJ Richards" (Winston-Salem, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found this book to be very informative and an easy read. It has a good balance of theory and practical advice. It goes hand in hand with the same author's Career Compass book. I would recommend this book for human resources or organizational development people looking for a new perspective.