While planning could certainly be more imaginative, the practice is sound and should be continued and improved. The major problems are:
- How to get better participation and cooperation from the individual?
- What to do about those for whom there are no plans and who may be as promotable as those so labeled?
- How to conceive plans that will have a decidedly favorable impact on individual development?
Any system relying heavily on prediction must be reviewed and recycled to account for progress and actual events. So this phase must be retained. This means that business planning must be updated periodically, with changes implied for the master personnel plan noted, evaluation made current, and so on. But there would be much greater flexibility and many problems would be eliminated or minimized if the emphasis on the future in manpower planning could be brought into better balance with concerns for the present.
An Authoritarian System
What an authoritarian system it is! The individual has almost no role in it at all. He is mainly expected to respond, preferably favorably. Yet a fundamental expression of himself is involved here-his output, his work, his lifelong pursuit. T. M. Alfred labels the present system "checkers."3 It serves the institutional purpose, presumably, and some employees benefit from it. But it is far from the joint venture it could be and far from McGregor's Management Theory Y. Moreover, it puts too many of the institution's eggs in one basket of dubious strength-the appraisal of performance and potential. The main point, however, is that it simply hasn't worked very well. Even when firms shore up various parts of the process with new or refined tools, most managers and personnel people admit its frequent failures.
Career Management
I propose a shift from this system to a practice more in keeping with the basic principles of self-determination and joint man-management effort, one that aligns corporate and personal goals. The proposed system is career management, which preserves the freedom of the individual to direct his own life, to maintain essential responsibility for his career. It also preserves top management's right to plan its business, provide for continuity of management, and organize needed professional talent to meet corporate objectives.
How does career management work? To put it simply, the individual programs his own career, drawing on selected expertise and information. When he chooses to affiliate with a particular institution as the best way to meet his personal objectives, he cooperates fully with organization systems; yet he still is free to change his affiliation should his personal targets make this desirable. In turn, the institution completely opens its career systems to employee initiatives while retaining the right to select people for its open positions. Development programs designed for career advancement purposes are treated as joint man-management ventures. In order to make them work, certain prerequisites must be met. First of all, management and employees must share a basic career philosophy as well as a clear understanding of the role of each in staffing and in advancing individual careers. Next, procedures and devices must exist to make the philosophy a reality and not merely an ideal. Third, there must be sufficient communication so that participation by all concerned will be intelligent. Finally, both managers and professional employees must be given skills training to make their interaction effective. Let's look at a few ground rules for each of these.
Philosophy of Career Management
Under career management, an individual is responsible for directing his own career. When he elects to associate himself with an organization, he retains the right of choice with respect to any action that has his career as its primary focus. This means he must know about an action and must agree to it if it is taken by the institution. If he disagrees with it, he must then take steps to protect his own interests. This may mean anything from a change in position to a possible career setback or slowdown if he fails to make a change he believes wise.
Management is responsible for meeting its corporate objectives over both the short and the long range. This means it has the right and the responsibility to choose the individuals who staff the organization. It also has the right and the responsibility to offer training and other benefits or practices to prepare individuals for positions or help them to perform more effectively.
Out of respect for each other's rights and responsibilities, the man and the organization must meet certain obligations. The employee must be sure that his accomplishment level demonstrates his abilities. He must also communicate his career interests to management in specific terms as well as the reasons for his agreement or disagreement with proposed actions that affect his plans.
Management must put facilitating systems in motion for filling open jobs and for learning of the employee's accomplishments and his general and specific career interests. To the extent compatible with corporate objectives, such systems should also help advance the employee's career. In addition, full communication must be provided so that all employees can use all career-facilitating systems intelligently.
Practically speaking, a career for an employed person is one outcome of the relationship of the person with the institution. When the goals of the organization and those of the individual match reasonably, the individual's occupational growth follows the organization's closely. At the same time, his career evolves at a rate and in a direction that are the joint results of efforts by the managerial hierarchy above him and his own self-determining actions. The closer in the hierarchy a manager is to an individual, the more responsibility he has for assignment of work and, therefore, the greater is his developmental impact on the direction and rate of the man's career.
His is not the sole contribution, however. For the individual, in accepting the position reporting to this manager, deliberately remaining in his job, recommending and agreeing to work assignments, and experimenting (or not) with work methods, exercises his self-determination as he contributes substantially to the direction and rate of growth of his own career.
