Page 200 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

innovations within work and organisational context 183
more important, for example innovation, creativity and the overview of complex and
broad developments. Due to the globalisation of markets, an increasing degree of fierce
competition takes place. The need to be able to cope with this competition is sometimes
at odds with the labour supply of managers and employees able to do so. Furthermore, it
is even more difficult to find managers and employees who are able to deal with complex
issues and still find sufficient time for family life. Thus, development and learning will
need to be emphasised in human development. Methods and instruments are needed that
‘trigger’ development and learning in a rather automatically way. After all, concepts
such as ‘life-time employment’ are becoming more and more outdated.
Furthermore, changes in product/market combinations require a closer cooperation
between the diverse disciplines within an organisation. The target groups of management
development are therefore broadened, as in addition to general managers, managers with,
for example, a technical, marketing or HR background are needed in order to guarantee
interdisciplinary cooperation. And this also applies to other organisational members.
Thus, the estimation of potential will need to be applicable to all these target groups.
Delayering trends and more self-conscious and mature employees require different
managerial processes to continuously develop organisational members. Management
principles that should anticipate these trends are being introduced at a rapid pace (such
as the development of self-steering teams, empowerment, etc.). Thus, it is important for
the future manager and employee to be aware of these trends at all times and to evalu-
ate them on their merits for the situation at hand. An important question in the field of
human development is how to stimulate this awareness. Thus, besides the measurement
of potential, attention should be paid to the possibilities of feeding and developing this
potential, and also to the way people benefit from the development possibilities that are
offered.
It is difficult to give a general overview of competencies that will prevail in the next
decades. As we argued, this depends on the technological and societal developments,
the developments within specific labour areas and markets, and within job families.
However, nowadays competencies that are popular in (at least) west European countries
are empowering, coaching, innovation, motivating people, being flexible and open to
new developments, but two decades ago the focus was placed on steering, planning
and organisation, being able to attain discipline and order together with content-related
knowledge. In other countries or in particular organisations the emphasis may be put
on just the latter competencies. What one may conclude is that job and organisational
analysis is very important in applying a suitable policy on the development of potentials
and the human workforce. It is more or less inherent to the definition of a potential that
he or she is able to develop the competencies that are necessary to fulfil the job, the
organisation and—in a broader sense—the societal goals that are at a particular moment
(and in the coming future) prevailing. 2
In other words, the present developments that are taking place within and outside
organisations ask for a human development policy in which the following issues are of
crucial importance: the development of (new) competencies, the offer of challenges, the
broadening of target groups and continuous learning on both group and individual level
(also see Vogelaar, 1997). This has far-reaching consequences for the definition of what
should be known as “potential”. A person who was regarded to have high potential ten
years ago need not necessarily fall into this category today.