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THE ASSESSMENT CENTRE IS NOT A PLACE: IT IS A METHOD. It is a formal procedure, incorporating group and individual exercises, for the identification of dimensions of managerial or supervisory success, identified as important for a particular position or level of management.

Investigates “empowerment” and its relevance to management and organizations. Discusses in detail the advantages and disadvantages of empowerment and disempowerment. Business organizations are set up so that no one is totally empowered nor totally disempowered. Shows various stages of empowered and disempowered people and cultures to enable further progress and concludes that clarifying, coaching and counselling individuals is the progressive way to go.

These are the sort of comments which a programme leader in a Self Insight Assessment Centre comes to accept, but they are always exciting because it means that the main objective of the programme is being met. That is the identification of strengths and development needs against job related criteria in job related situations.

In preparing my thoughts on this subject I have purposely fought shy of presenting a highly technical review of assessment centre validity studies. Such a paper has already been presented by my colleagues in the USA. Their report is substantial and covers the major research in this area. Much of what is included in this article has roots in their paper. My intention here is to highlight some of the problems related to validating in‐company assessment centre programmes, the most significant studies, weaknesses found in the method and care to be taken in judging the results achieved.

In my first article for this journal I outlined what an assessment centre is, its history and how the method works. I shall not attempt to argue here the validity of the method nor to provide case studies of actual applications. Future articles will consider the relationship of assessment centres to psychological testing, validity and accuracy, and some case studies of unusual or unique applications.

Investigates “empowerment” and its relevance to management and organizations. Discusses in detail the advantages and disadvantages of empowerment and disempowerment. Business organizations are set up so that no one is totally empowered nor totally disempowered. Shows various stages of empowered and disempowered people and cultures to enable further progress and concludes that clarifying, coaching and counselling individuals is the progressive way to go.

If a large company is not to become a dinosaur it must foresee the need for change, not least in personnel practices, and must have staff to do this and help bring in new ways.

The use of self‐development activities as alternatives to traditional course‐based training and management development is discussed. The author describes one company's experiment in support of self‐development, drawing on prior experiences with taskforces, project groups, MBO, assessment centres and mind mapping, to set up a self‐development workshop for a group of trainers and managers.

Assessment centres have been around for just over forty years now; however, their acceptance in industry, whilst increasing, is still rather sporadic. One reason for this is that the words “Assessment Centre” conjure up an image of mysticism. What is it? How does it work? etc. So, apart from the fact that many organisations are unwilling to commit the finance and resources to assessment centres, the other major obstacle is the scepticism and mistrust which surround the process, simply because it is misunderstood.

SAYS the handout from the Department of Industry: “The key role played by managers in improving British industry's economic performance was emphasised by Mr. Eric Varley, Secretary of State for Industry. He said that the publication of a discussion paper on industry, education and management underlined that industry in Britain today had many first class managers who made vital contributions to the economy.