NOTES TOWARDS A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PORTFOLIO
Robin Matthews
Section 1 Introduction
I decided to exemplify the personal development portfolio through short paper reflecting on my own
experience. The paper is divided into 3 sections; the first concerned with my learning experiences up
to the most recent past, the second, with my learning experiences of the interval 1990 to date and the
third with future intentions. With respect to the future we have bear in mind the fragility of everyone’s
life. I personally like one of Woody Allen’s anecdotes; How to make God laugh? Tell him your
plans.
The break down into 3 parts can be illustrated diagrammatically with a timespace diagram. In figure
1, the first part of the paper corresponds to the past, the second part to my present or current system
state and the third section corresponds to the future.
Figure 1
The entire exercise is about self-reflection. A very important issue about self-reflection, which I can
only remark on briefly, in passing, concerns Who is reflecting on whom?
This is a question about consciousness. What is consciousness and What does it mean to say that a
person is conscious when for a large part of the time we act automatically and without really being
self-aware. The question of consciousness involves deep psychological, philosophical, and spiritual
questions. In the past hundred years or so it has become an issue for cognitive science and artificial
intelligence. I particularly like to illustrate self-reflection with the picture in figure 2 by Rene
Magritte.
Figure 2
Section 2 Recollecting the past
I divide this section which is concerned essentially with my past learning experiences into 2
subsections. In the first subsection I relate some personal stories that illustrate important personal
influences and experiences.
In the second, I try to introduce some objectivity by using results from various personality tests,
leadership aptitude tests and in particular I attempt to apply Kolb’s experiential learning theory (ELT)
to my own situation.
Section 2 Reflections on the present
This section addresses the present or current system state as illustrated in figure 1. I extend the ideas
illustrated in the ELT model especially to my research/scholarship and to the interaction between
(a) research/scholarship,
(b) experiences in business and as a consultant and
(c) as teacher on executive programs.
Section 4 The future
Referring to the right-hand side of figure 1, I note two directions the first concerning globalisation and
opportunities for personal development through working with people from many different cultures
and ethnicities and the second with the complementarity of science and religion.
A precept common to many traditions is “Seek knowledge….” Globalisation has offered huge
opportunities to do so.
For many years I have been interested and involved in spirituality/mysticism and the intention of
synthesising it with the methodology of science. A core aspect of mysticism is the unity of all things
and events. Spirituality should be reinstated in social, political and economic science. Attention to
unity, incrementally, may lead to a more empathetic conduct of international policy by our leaders and
eventually to greater compassion.
Separateness is an illusion. In reality, all things and events are connected and there is only the one;
unity. Separation of spirituality or mysticism from science, physical, social and economic science,
though it happened for good reasons in the natural sciences in the 15th century, has been too
prolonged.
Section 4 Further reflection and conclusions
The past present and future are deeply interwoven as this note attempts to illustrate. The future is
conditioned by the past and the past is influenced by the future in that we tend always to project
ourselves into the future through our visions dreams and intentions. Figure 1 has both a reverse as
well as a forward direction. In another sense the past and the future are both present in the present, in
memories, intentions, fears and hopes.