Career cycles should be considered apart from life cycles, even though the two are interrelated. This essay examines five theories about life and career cycles, and offers insights into their limitations and potential uses. (JB)

Decrying the lack of professional standards, the author attempts to define an organizational development professional in terms of the personal traits, skills, and competencies needed. He outlines a learning sequence for skills development and presents a skills assessment scale for self-evaluation. (SK)

The change masters are identified as corporate managers who have the resources and the vision to effect an economic renaissance in the United States. Strategies for change should emphasize horizontal as well as vertical communication, and should reward enterprise and innovation at all levels. (JB)

Four directors of corporate training answer the question "Should human resource development directors have a training background?" and then each presents a list of recommendations for trainers, involving such areas as internal consulting skills, business experience, sense of timing, the difference between training and teaching, and taking a…

Definitions of the terms accreditation, certification, and licensure are provided. Also discusses the purposes of professional certification, ways that competencies help the practitioner and the profession, and questions that need to be addressed by human resource development professionals. (CT)

Discusses the wilderness lab medium for executive and team development. Provides insights on key design elements and facilitation challenges useful to potential wilderness lab "consumers." (JOW)

The author provides a historical perspective of the mentoring phenomenon. With career planners and specialists in mind, he tackles the following questions: What is the relationship between mentoring and career planning? How much do mentors affect their proteges? Do mentors encourage mobility? (CT)

Reports on a conference sponsored by the American Society for Training and Development to analyze and compare existing academic programs for human resource development (HRD) professionals and identify ways to shape and define further the training and development/HRD field. (SK)

The author claims that excellence will return to the workplace when every organization, corporate and bureaucratic, and when academia and associations offer professional, technical, and skills training for their own members. Discusses the quest for professionalism, and why accountability should be considered an element of professionalism. (CT)

Describes a three-dimensional model for human resource development (HRD) professionals. The dimensions are HRD roles (learning specialist, administrator, consultant), practitioner categories (professionally identified, organizationally identified, collateral), and competency levels (basic, middle, advanced). Discusses the model's usefulness for…

Training and development experts Robert Blake and Jane Mouton formulate 11 significant issues facing the human resource development profession. (SK)

Provides a basis for resolving the controversy as to what constitutes sound leadership. Reports a study in which situationalism has been evaluated in the context of one-best-style. Points to the soundness of the one-best-style approach. (CT)

Discusses self-management of professional development activities. Defines professional development, discusses information resources available to the professional, and gives suggestions for planning professional development activities. (CH)

The author presents a developmental model designed to help productivity improvement and professional development become an integral part of the natural everyday work experience. Examples and a summarized model are included. (CT)

Discusses the problems that those who train and develop individuals in the workplace have because of a lack of a unified understanding of who they are and what they do and a lack of a common terminology and, consequently, a unified identity. (JOW)