I attended an online book discussion within my organization recently, and there was a very interesting question the class facilitator ended the session with. He asked:
If we were to write our own ideal job title, what would it be?
I thought that was the grandest thought-provoking question I have encountered in some time, and came up with “Director of Strategic Reflection.”
As a proponent of reflective practice within an ongoing learning organization, I think those of us within human resource development, adult education, communication, and organizational development would greatly benefit from more active (both structured and unstructured) reflection. How else can we identify the assumptions and patterns of behavior that stifle us from moving forward to create a more just and aware organizational structure and society itself? We who engage in organizational, management, and leadership studies know that when people within an organization are more aligned within one another and with the mission and vision, then the organization itself is stronger and healthier.
What would your ideal job title be, and what impact would it have?
Tags: Human Resource Development, organizational development, reflective practice
The first article I have published as the lead author just came out in the Winter 2007 issue of Human Resource Development Quarterly, Volume 18, Issue 4. HRDQ is the research journal of the Academy of Human Resource Development. The editorial is entitled Is HRD Research Making a Difference in Practice?, and I wrote it with my writing colleague, Robin Yap.
As scholar-practitioners, we are very interested in the bridge between research and practice, and how that affects organizations and how people function within them. We discussed the value of scholar-practitioners, those people who seek to bring the findings of research into practical use, so that decisions and processes within organizations have more than simply best practices to follow–they are supported by sound research that is in turn built upon applicable theory.
Our conclusion is that it is critical for the field of HRD that research positively impacts practice. After all, if it does not, then it belongs in the fascinating and grand but practically useless world of Plato’s Forms.
Technorati Tags: AHRD, HRD, scholar-practitioner
Tags: HRD, Human Resource Development, Research, scholar-practitioner
