Page 73 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

52 debis career development center

SUMMARY
The nature of today’s work and workplace is dynamic, complex, and increasingly global
and diverse in nature. As a result, business enterprises have become acutely aware
of the importance for developing and securing a new generation of qualified high-
potential managers. The potential of an organization’s own employees and high-level
personnel has been of greater focus in management development, if only because
of tight labor market pressures that require businesses to develop and retain talent
in order to remain competitive. A central task of the human resources department of
DaimlerChrysler Services, the service division of the DaimlerChrysler group, is to operate
a successful system of professional development and support—and to evaluate, give
feedback on, and revise the system on a continuous basis. This chapter introduces the
career development process for senior managers. On this basis, the role of personality
scales within a process-oriented development instrument for senior management is
discussed.

INTRODUCTION

The nature of today’s work and workplace is dynamic, complex, and increasingly global
and diverse in nature (Kehoe, 2000; Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999). As a result, business enter-
prises have become acutely aware of the importance for developing and securing a new
generation of qualified high-potential managers. The potential of an organization’s own
employees and high-level personnel has been of greater focus in management develop-
ment, if only because of tight labor market pressures that require businesses to develop
and retain talent within the organization in order to remain competitive. Potential is of
critical importance for both individual and organizational performance. From the indi-
vidual perspective, potential is one of the key enablers of performance. Potential can be
seen as a career prerequisite. For its realization, potential needs the individual’s willing-
ness to perform. Performance based on potential lays an important foundation for the
future individual development in an organization, since the diagnosis and the realization
of an individual’s potential is a necessary basis for subsequent development activities.
From the organizational perspective, individual potential is a necessary basis for the
realization of the organization’s strategic development goals. Thus developing individual
potential on different hierarchical levels plays a key role in the future company develop-
ment. The organizational decision for individual development activities is made based
on potential and usually performance diagnoses. Organizations can assess potential us-
ing different procedures. Critical aspects in potential assessment include the assessment
orientation on fairness and equality in order to assure a sound basis for development de-
cisions. Organizations should evaluate the utility of such procedures and communicate
the results in the language understood in business: dollars, not correlation coefficients.
In the context of contemporary business phrases such as ‘global competition’, ‘faster
innovation cycles’, ‘flat hierarchies’, and ‘higher flexibility’, the deliberate strategy of
internally developing and promoting those with potential management success has many
advantages. Particularly in the service sector, organizations are interested in retaining
outstanding employees who, ideally, will be able to advance their career by managing
complex tasks and the resources required to complete them. Professional human resource
managers are essential in addressing this challenging goal, because they are uniquely