1. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
By Stephen R. Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has sold more than 15 million
copies in 38 languages, since it was first published in 1990.
In 1996, Stephen R. Covey was recognized as one of Time magazine's 25
most influential Americans.
In 2002, Forbes named The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one of the
top 10 most influential management books ever
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
Most self-help books today assume that you can change your life by instantly changing
your outward behaviors and attitudes.
Covey believes that success is a longer process - in order to get from Level 2 to Level 10,
you first need to go through Levels 3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9. An average tennis player cannot
challenge the best player in the world and win, no matter how positive their attitude and
motivation levels are! The chance of this happening is very small.
This is because Private victory always precedes Public victory. If you want to have a
happy marriage then BE a loving person. If you want to have more freedom then BE
more responsible, if you want to be trusted, BE trust-worthy, if you want to be successful
then HAVE a good character. It takes time to BE-come each of these things.
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2. Paradigms:
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is about Paradigms. A paradigm is a
powerful thing because it controls your external attitude/ behavior as wall as your internal
thoughts and beliefs.
Covey experienced a Paradigm shift whilst traveling on the Subway when he saw some
children behaving very badly whilst their father was just sitting there, oblivious to it all.
People on the train were getting annoyed and Covey asked the father why he didn’t react
and control his children. The man told him that the children had just lost their mother - if
he didn’t know how to react, how could he expect them to? This changed Covey’s
internal thoughts about the situation and also his external reactions to it. His whole
paradigm shifted because he started acting more patiently with the children and instead of
feeling frustrated and annoyed, he felt sympathetic and understanding.
Some paradigm shifts are quick and easy, like Covey’s Subway incident. Others take
years and are slow, such as finding your priorities as you fight through a life-threatening
disease.
Although most paradigms are subjective and can be chosen individually, there are some
that are natural principles that we must all follow – the paradigms of fairness, integrity, a
respect of human dignity, contribution, excellence and growth.
Habits:
Our life is the sum of our habits. ‘Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a
habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.’
If we want to form a new habit we must have KNOWLEDGE (know what to do), SKILL
(know how to do it) and MOTIVATION (want to do it). If we want to break a habit, we
must remove one (in most cases it is MOTIVATION – we must no longer want to do it).
Interdependence:
The first level of life is being dependent on people. The second level is to be Independent
and be able to survive on your own (I can do it, I am okay). The highest level is to be
Interdependent and to be able help others (we can do it, we are fine, we are strong).
Today, society places a high value on being Independent. However, most problems occur
when people move from one level to a lower level – a marriage breaks down when people
move from being Interdependent to being Independent (from ‘we’ are okay to ‘I’ matter).
In order to succeed you must be Interdependent.
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3. INTERESTING POINT: Most people believe that problems are ‘out-there’ with other
people and can be solved if they ‘shake-up’ or become more reasonable. The truth is that
we must take responsibility in all situations – that’s when we become Interdependent.
The Golden Goose:
Many people live their life like the farmer in Aesop’s fable of the golden goose. In the
story, the goose laid golden eggs daily, which the farmer loved! In his greed, he thought
that if he cut open the goose, he could take all the eggs out at once and be very rich.
Unfortunately, when he cut open the goose, he found no other golden eggs and, more
importantly lost the goose and all the eggs that it could lay.
In life, many people look just for the Golden Eggs, the results. The secret is that it is
more important to look after the Goose (because without that, you will have no eggs!)
The Golden Eggs are your results whilst you are the Goose. By maintaining and
improving yourself, the Golden Eggs and great results will maintain themselves.
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People are designed to make you into an
Interdependent person – the first 3 habits deal with Private Victories (building a good
character), the next 3 habits deal with becoming Interdependent and the last Habit
deals with Renewal and maintaining the other 6 habits.
HABIT 1 – BE PROACTIVE
Animals act on a stimulus – response level. Pavlov’s dogs were trained so often that
whenever they heard a bell (a stimulus), they responded by feeling hungry (a response)
because Pavlov had consistently rang a bell just as he gave them food.
Humans, however, have the unique ability to live ‘in between’ stimulus and response and
choose how they are going to respond to any stimulus. We have ‘response-ability’.
This can be done by using 4 key human skills:
1. Self-Awareness – to actually think about the nature of the stimulus and how we
should respond
2. Imagination – the ability to see how several responses will develop before we
choose a specific response
3. Conscience – an ability to choose the ethically correct response
4. Independent Will – to react, or choose not to react, however we want to
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4. We do not always proactively choose our response. Many times we let external forces
determine our decisions – peer groups, family etc. and in doing so we become reactive
instead of proactive.
Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions and by their
environment. Proactive people are driven by values and chosen paradigms.
There are 3 types of problem:
1. Direct control – our behavior can directly influence it
2. Indirect control – problems involving other people’s behavior
3. No control –problems we can do nothing about, eg. Past situations
The first 2 fall in our Circle of Influence – something that we can control. The last one
falls in our circle of Concern – something that we must just smile and accept.
30-Day Proactive challenge – begin to become ‘response-able’ (consciously choose how
you respond to things, in stead of just responding to them automatically) and develop this
habit.
HABIT 2 – BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
Whereas Habit 1 says that ‘You are the creator because you are Response-able’, Habit 2
is the first creation.
This first creation is a creation in the mind. Everything is created twice. First it is created
mentally, then it is created physically. A pen, a chair, a watch etc. is first designed in the
mind, then it is created physically. If something is created well in the mind, then the real
creation will have few problems. If it is created poorly in the mind, then it is likely to fail.
The most effective way to create the life you want to live is to create it in your mind first.
The best way to do this is to create a mission statement, which outlines your core beliefs,
values and characteristics that you want to live by. A mission statement is something that
should serve you your whole life and should be fundamentally changeless.
A Mission Statement is more ‘Detected’ than ‘Created’. Creating a Mission Statement is
a process of finding the true values at the core of your being – your conscience, your
unique identity – and living according to this. Only by doing this can we be true to
ourselves.
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5. Creating a Mission Statement is a Process that can take weeks, if not months. One
formed, it becomes your constitution, the criterion by which you measure everything. It is
crucial to take time to get it right.
Before you can create your mission statement life, you must first understand where you
currently are - what are at the centre of your decisions and your life, your key priorities.
Assume the following situation occurred: Your boss asked you to work late, even though
you had plans to go with your spouse to the opera.
If your family and marriage is at the centre of your life, you would go to the opera.
If your career was at the centre of your life, you would stay and work.
If you were money-centered, you would take the opportunity to earn overtime.
If you are possession or materially centered, you will think about what you can buy with
your overtime bonus.
If you are pleasure-centered, you will go to the opera as it would be more fun.
If you are friend-centered, your decision will be influenced by how many of your friends
are going to the opera or will talk about the opera later on.
If you are enemy-centered, you will stay at work just so that you can get brownie points
against your colleagues.
If you are religion-centered, you will think about what a good Christian, Muslim etc
would do. What would be the right thing to do ethically or morally?
If you are self-centered, you will focus on what will do you the most good.
Which one of these sounds most like you?
Our aim is to become Principle Centered, where we make our decision based on MOST,
if not ALL, of these factors – and not just one or two of them.
Interesting Point: By beginning with the end in mind, you become a leader instead of a
manager. Peter Drucker once said that “Management is doing things right; leadership is
doing the right things.” By becoming a leader, you ensure that what you are doing is
actually good for you.
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6. HABIT 3 – PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST
Whereas Habit 2 is about Leadership, Habit 3 is about Management. It is crucial to
understand Habit 2 (which asks you if you are doing the right things for the right reason)
before you understand Habit 3 (which asks you how well you are doing it). This is
because there is no point in doing something well if it is not good for you or does not
benefit you.
Putting First Things First is about organizing and executing around your priorities. There
are four types of Activities:
1. Important and Urgent – Crises, Deadline driven projects etc
2. Important and Not Urgent – Relationship building, planning, recognizing new
opportunities etc
3. Not Important and Urgent – Some phone calls, mails, reports, meetings etc
4. Not Important and Not Urgent – Time wasting, idle activities etc
If you spend most of your time doing (1), you will be stressed and burnt-out. If you spend
most of your time doing (3) and (4), you are acting irresponsibly and are likely to be
dependent on others. It is best to act from (2) because all actions are important and will
prevent Crisis and Stress. If something is not worked on whilst it is in (2), it will soon
move into (1) and become a crises that will be harder to handle. Successful people handle
things whilst they are in (2) as it is easier and more effective to do so.
Our aim is to spend as much time doing (2) activities. To start with, we can only do (2)
activities by cutting down on (3) and (4) activities.
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7. In order to stay in (2), we must follow the following process:
1) We must first identify our roles – as an individual, a parent, a manager, an employee
etc. You must list all of your roles.
2) We must then set our goals – take your spouse to dinner, help kids with homework,
have a team meeting at work etc. We must make sure that our goals reflect most, if not
all, of our roles.
3) Scheduling – we must then make some sort if schedule as to when we will do each
goal. It is best to schedule over the period of a week, as it is much easier to fit every task
in.
Unfortunately, we are not all omniscient. Therefore, there will be days when (1) activities
come up and prevent us from living from our schedule. We must leave time in our
weekly schedule so that we can counter these ‘postponed’ priorities.
Similarly, there will be times when we cannot do all of the (2) activities alone in one
week. We will need to delegate – an absolutely crucial skill that can help us to be
effective and manage everything whilst it is still in (2).
There are two ways to delegate. By using ‘gofer’ delegation – where you give people step
by step instructions on how to do something and, literally, stand over them whilst they do
it. Wouldn’t it take less time to actually do it yourself?
The second way to delegate is by ‘stewardship’ delegation, where you tell someone
exactly what you want and let them do it themselves (you might say to your son that you
want his room to be as tidy as his sister’s room or you might tell an employee to make 8
sales). By doing this, you save much more time and empower the other person to act on
the powerful motivating forces of initiative and trust.
Questions:
1) What (2) activities have you overlooked recently? Why?
2) Can you delegate them to someone who can help you with them?
PARADIGMS OF INTERDEPENDENCE:
Habits 1-3 form the basis of becoming Independent. They form the foundations. Unless
they are in place, one cannot work on Habits 4-6, which are the habits of
Interdependence.
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8. Before we begin exploring the Interdependent Habits, it is important to explain the
concept of the Emotional Bank Account. We all know what a Financial Bank Account is
– something that measures our wealth and gets bigger when we make deposits and
smaller when we make withdrawals. An Emotional Bank Account measures trust and
increases when we are kind, courteous, considerate etc and decreases when we break a
promise, lie etc.
There are Six key deposits that we must make in order to ensure that our Emotional Bank
Accounts stay high:
1) Understand the Individual – that way everything you do or say concerns
something that is important to them.
2) Attend the Little Things – most people do not bother with them, therefore if you
make an effort with them, they will be highly recognized and appreciated.
3) Keeping a commitment – the minute someone can no longer trust your promises,
the relationship is in serious jeopardy.
4) Show Personal Integrity – It makes people trust you because they believe that you
are a loyal person who will not let them down.
5) Apologize sincerely when you make a withdrawal – We are not perfect and we
will make mistakes. Other people understand this. By apologizing sincerely, you
literally turn a withdrawal into a deposit.
6) Ensure that your relationship is an unconditional one.
HABIT 4: THINK WIN/WIN
In every situation, there are 6 positive outlooks and perspectives:
1) Win/ Win – there will be no result unless both parties win.
2) Win/ Lose - ‘If I win, you lose’ – the idea that only one person can win.
3) Lose/ Win – one party expects to lose, ‘I’m a loser, of course you will get your
way with me.’
4) Lose/ Lose – when 2 stubborn and vindictive parties enter into a situation, neither
wanting the other to do well.
5) Win – When you do not care about the other party, as long as you get a good
result.
6) Win/Win or No Deal – There is little pressure because unless you both don’t find
a good situation, you can just walk away – you don’t need to push for a result.
For different situations, you will need to use a different perspective.
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9. In sports, Win/ Lose is generally the only option. In close relationships, you may chose
Lose/ Win, where you make a small sacrifice for someone you care about. In business,
Win/Win or No Deal is often best as both parties are set-up to win and, if this solution
cannot be found, then there is no pressure to ‘force’ a result.
However, it is best to enter every situation where both parties are looking for a Win/Win
result. This requires Integrity, Maturity and an Abundance Mentality in both parties. It
also requires a good Emotional Bank Account Level (as you both need to trust each other
on the fact that the other party also wants you to win), a good agreement between both
parties (so that you are clear on what each party is willing to give and expects in return)
and a good process that ensures the right result is produced for both parties.
Exercise:
Think about an upcoming situation. Which mind-frame does it require (can only one
party win or can both)? If it isn’t a Win/Win situation, can it be developed so that it
becomes one?
HABIT 5 – SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND… THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
We spend most of our waking lives communicating – by reading, writing, speaking or
listening. Although we have spent years learning to read, write and speak – we have
hardly spent any time learning the most important skill – listening.
That is one of the reasons why we jump into conversations and assume what other people
are thinking and feeling – simply because we are very poor at listening.
The most important part of Interpersonal Communication is listening. Few people listen
with the aim of understanding. Most people listen with the aim of replying.
It is because of this that most replies are autobiographical (‘I understand’, ‘I know what
you mean’, ‘something like that happened to me’). Instead of appreciating the person’s
thoughts and problems, all you are doing is finding your own reference to reply from.
Although it is important to understand (by listening with the aim of understanding), it is
equally important to learn the second skill – Then to be Understood.
In order for your message to be well-received, it is important to use the Greek Philosophy
of Ethos, Pathos and Logos.
Ethos – your personal credibility, people must trust you and what you are saying.
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10. Pathos – there must be a good feeling between you and the listener – they must be
emotionally receptive to your message.
Logos- your message must make logical sense.
The order of this is crucial, first Ethos, then Pathos and then Logos. Most people fail to
communicate well because they are so concerned with Logos – with their message being
logical and making sense – that they totally forget about Ethos and Pathos – the two most
important parts of communicating.
Habit 5 is one of the most powerful habits because it is directly within your Circle of
Influence –it can be 100% Controlled by you. Therefore, it is also one of the most
important habits to master.
HABIT 6 – SYNERGIZE
Synergy exists everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, their roots
commingle to improve the quality of the soil, so that both plants grow better together
compared to if they were separate. If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold
more weight than they would separately. 1 + 1 = 3 or more.
The reason why we become interdependent is so that we can become Synergistic. If two
people approach a problem with two different solutions, the chances are that when both
meet and discuss their options, they will form a third ‘more effective’ solution – one
which neither would have thought of on their own.
Most people cannot think and act synergistically because they are so concerned with
getting their point across and proving that they are right. When faced with a difference in
opinion, they put more energy into explaining how their ideas or solutions are right. We
need to do the opposite, when faced with a difference of opinion, both parties need to put
their energy into understanding, so that they can then work to find a synergistic
alternative.
RENEWAL
The most important Habit of all is Habit 7 because it is the one that keeps us fresh,
healthy, positive and motivated. If we were tired and unclear, how could we possibly live
and practice any of the other Habits – and benefit from them?
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11. HABIT 7 – SHARPEN THE SAW:
We need to constantly renew ourselves on 4 different levels:
1. Physical – Exercise, Nutrition and Stress Management
2. Mental – Reading, Visualizing, Planning and Writing
3. Social / Emotional – Service, Empathy, Synergy, Intrinsic Security
4. Spiritual - Value Clarification and Commitment, Study and Meditation
It is important that we consistently renew ourselves in each of these dimensions – but we
must also realize that renewal is a Synergistic Exercise as all 4 of these dimensions are
inter-related – your physical health affects your mental health; your spiritual strength
affects your social/ emotional strength.
IN CONCLUSION:
Mastering these 7 Habits is not something that can be done overnight. It is a process that
must be followed and each time you practice it, it becomes easier. As Emerson once said:
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature of the task has
changed, but our ability to do it has increased.”
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