I was so
glad to find out that the public schools here taught the Seven Habits of
Success People. I read the book in my early twenties and up until then I
thought success depended on how much money your family had, how ruthless and
exploitive you were, who you knew and your competence. Steven Covey in his book
help change my perspective and taught me that by developing his habits. I’ll
improve my character and make me more successful. I can be ethically selfish
and that instead of “nice guys finishing last” more often “nice guys finish
first”.
So here
is a copy a paste of a summary of the Seven Habits of Effective People for a refresher
from time to time.
Our
character, basically, is a composite of our habits. Because they are
consistent, often
unconscious
patterns, habits constantly express our character and produce our effectiveness
-
or our in
effectiveness. In the words of Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence,
then, is
not an act, but a habit.”
I
identify here seven habits shared by all truly effective people. Fortunately,
for those of us not
born
effective (no one is), these habits can be learned. Furthermore, the collective
experience
of the
ages shows us that acquiring them will give you the character to succeed.
Some
years ago, I decided to read all the success literature published in the United
States since
its
beginning in 1776 - hundreds of books, articles, and essays on self-improvement
and
popular
psychology.
I noticed
a startling thing: Almost all the writings that helped build our country in its
first 150
years or
so identified character as the foundation of success. The literature of what we
might
call “The
Character Ethic” helped Americans cultivate integrity, humility, fidelity,
temperance,
courage,
justice, patience, industry, and the Golden Rule. Benjamin Franklin’s
autobiography is
a prime
example.
Compared
with the early success literature, the writings of the last 50 years seem
superficial to
me -
filled with social image consciousness, techniques, and quick fixes. There, the
solutions
derive
not from the Character Ethic, but the Personality Ethic:
Success
is a function of public image, of attitudes and behaviors, of skills that
lubricate the process
of
human interaction. I don’t say these skills are unimportant. But they are
secondary.
If there
isn’t deep integrity and fundamental goodness behind what you do, the
challenges of
life will
cause true motives to surface, and human relationship failure will replace
short-term
success.
As Emerson once put it, “What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear
what
you say.”
Changing
our habits to improve what we are can be a painful process. It must be
motivated by
a higher
purpose, and by the willingness to subordinate what you think you want now for
what you
know you want later.
As you
open the gates of change to give yourself new habits, be patient with yourself
This is
not a
quick fix. But I assure you that you will see immediate benefits. And if you
see the whole
picture
clearly, you’ll have the perseverance to see the process to its conclusion.
Have faith -
it’s
worth the effort. Remember what Thomas Paine said: “What we obtain too cheap,
we
esteem
too lightly; ‘tis dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows
how to
put a
proper price upon its goods.”
Acquiring
the seven habits of effectiveness takes us through the stages of character
development.
Habits 1 through 3 make up the “private victory” - where we go from
dependence
to independence by taking responsibility for our own lives. Acquiring habits 4
through 6
is our “public victory”: Once independent, we learn to be interdependent, to
succeed
with other people. The seventh habit makes all the others possible -
periodically
renewing
ourselves in mind body, and spirit.
1HABIT ONE – BE PROACTIVE
You won’t
find it in an ordinary dictionary, but the word is common now in management
literature:
Proactivity
means that as human beings, we are responsible
for our own lives.
If we
think our lives are a function of our conditions, it is because we have, by
conscious
decision
or by default, chosen to empower those things to have control over us - we have
let
ourselves
become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by the weather, proactive
people
carry their own weather with them.
Being
proactive means recognizing our responsibility to make things happen. The
people who
end up
with the good jobs are those who seize the initiative to do whatever is
necessary,
consistent
with correct principles, to get the job done.
I worked
with a group of people in the home- improvement industry. A heavy recession was
taking a
toll on their business, and they were discouraged as we began the semin2r. The
first
day, we
talked about “What’s happening to us?” The basic answer was that they were
laying
off their
friends just to survive. The group finished their first day even more
discouraged.
The
second day, we talked about “What’s going to happen in the future?” They
concluded
things
were going to get worse before they improved. They were more depressed than
ever.
On the
third day, we focused on the proactive question, “What is our response?” In the
morning,
we brainstormed practical ways of managing better and cutting costs; in the
afternoon,
we talked about increasing market share. By concentrating on a few do-able
things,
everyone
was able to wrap up the meeting with a new spirit of excitement and hope, eager
to
get back
to work. We all had faced reality, and discovered we had the power to choose a
positive
response.
You can
find a clue to whether you now have the proactive habit by looking at how you
speak.
Do you
find yourself using these expressions?
“That’s
the way I am.” There’s nothing I can do about it.
“He
makes me so mad!” My emotional life is
outside my control.
“I
have to do it.” I’m not free to choose my own actions.
For all
of us, there are many things that concern us that we can’t do anything about,
for now.
But there
are also things we can do. Proactive people work on their circle of influence -
the
people
and things they can reach - and spend less energy on their much wider circle of
concern.
By keeping their focus on their circle of influence, they actually extend its
area.
As you
become more proactive, you will make mistakes. While we choose our actions
freely,
we cannot
choose their consequences - which are governed by natural law, out in our
circle of
concern.
The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct it,
and
learn
from it. To delay, to deny the mistake, is to miss its lesson. “Success,” said
IBM founder T.J.
Watson
Sr., “is on the far side of failure.”
Try this
exercise for 30 days:
1) Work
only in your smaller circle of influence;
2) Make
small commitments to yourself and others, and keep them;
3) Be a
light, not a judge; be a model, not a critic; be the solution, not the problem.
If you
stall to think some important problem in your life is “out there” somewhere,
stop
yourself.
That thought is the problem.
2
HABIT TWO – BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
In your
mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. As you walk into
the
chapel,
notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and
family; you
feel the
shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known.
As you
reach the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come
face4o-face
with yourself.
This is your funeral, three years from now. Take a seat and look down at the
program
in your hand. The first speaker is from your extended family; the second is a
close
friend;
the third is an acquaintance from your business life; the fourth is from your
church or
some
community-service organization where you’ve worked.
What
character would you like each of these speakers to have seen in you - what
difference
would you
like to have made in their lives?
The
second habit of effectiveness is to begin with the end in mind. It means to
know where
you’re
going so as to understand where you are now, and take your next step in the
right
direction.
It’s ma7’ingly easy to get caught up in an activity trap in the busyness of
life, to work
harder
and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning
against the
wrong
wall. We may be very efficient by working frenetically and heedlessly, but we
will be
effective
only when we begin with the end result in mind.
The best
way to start is to develop a personal mission statement. It describes what we
want to
be
(character) and to do (achievements). The following is from my friend Rolfe
Kerr’s personal
mission
statement:
Succeed
at home first;
Seek and
merit divine help;
Remember
the people involved;
Develop
one new proficiency a year,
Hustle
while you wait;
Keep a
sense of humor.
You could
call a personal mission statement a sort of written constitution - its power
lies in the
fact that
it’s fundamentally changeless. The key to living with change is retaining a
sense of
who you
are and what you value.
Start
developing your mission statement, like Kerr’s, from a core of principles. I
mention this
because
all of us are drawn away from real effective ness when we make our center
something
other
than our principles.
Thriving on change requires a core of changeless values.
Being
spouse centered might seem natural and proper. But experience tells a different
story.
Over the
years, I have been called on to help many troubled marriages; the complete
emotional
dependence that goes with being spouse centered often makes both partners so
vulnerable
to each other’s moods that they become resentful.
The
self-esteem of someone money centered can’t weather the ups and downs of
economic
life;
money-centered people often put aside family or other priorities, assuming
everyone will
understand
that economic demands come first. They don’t always, and we can damage our
most
important relationships by thinking that they do.
Being
pleasure centered cheats one of lasting satisfactions. Too much time spent at
leisure, on
the paths
of least resistance, insure that our mind and spirit become lethargic, and our
heart
unfulfilled.
3
We want
to center our lives on correct principles. Unlike other centers based on people
and
things
subject to frequent change, correct principles don’t change. We can depend on
them.
Your
mission statement may take you some weeks to write, from first draft to final
form; it’s a
concise
expression of your innermost values and directions. Even then, you will want to
review
it
regularly and make minor changes as the years bring new insights. Be guided by
Vicktor
Frankl,
who says we detect rather than invent our mission in life:
“Everyone
has his own specific vocation in life
Therein
he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.”
Organizations
need mission statements. So do families, so that they do not simply lurch from
emotional
crisis to crisis - but instead know they have principles that will support
them. The
key is to
have each member of the group contribute ideas and words to the final product
That
contribution
alone generates real commitment.
HABIT THREE – PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST
Question:
What one thing could you do - which you aren’t doing now - that If
you did it regularly,
would
make a tremendous difference in your business or personal life?
The next
habit involves self-leadership and self-management: putting first things first.
Leader
ship
decides what the “first things” are, and management is the discipline of
carrying out your
program.
As Peter
Drucker has pointed out, the expression “time management” is something of a
misnomer:
We have a constant amount of time, no matter what we do; the challenge we face
is to
manage ourselves. To be an effective manager of yourself, you must organize and
execute
around priorities.
We don’t manage time. We can only I manage ourselves.
Instead
of trying to fit all the things of our lives into the time allotted, as many
timemanagement
plans do,
our focus here is on enhancing relationships and achieving results.
We all
face the same dilemma. We are caught between the urgent and the important.
Something
urgent requires immediate attention, it’s usually visible, it presses on us,
but may
not have
any bearing on our long-term goals. Important things, on the other hand, have
to do
with
results - they contribute to our mission, our values, our high- priority goals.
We react to
urgent
matters; we often must act to take care of important matters, even as urgent
things
scream
for our attention.
People
get “harried” away from their real goals and values by subordinating the
important to
the
urgent; some are beaten up by problems (in quadrants I and HI on the “Time-Management
Matrix”)
all day, every day. Their only relief is in escaping once in a while to the
calm waters of
quadrant
IV.
To
paraphrase Drucker again, effective people don't solve problems - they pursue
opportunities.
They feed opportunities and starve problems. They have genuine quadrant I
emergencies,
but by thinking and acting preventively, they keep their number down.
With the
time-management quadrants in mind, consider the question you answered at the
beginning
of this section. What quadrant do your answers fit in? My guess is quadrant H:
deeply
important, but not urgent And because they aren’t urgent, you don’t do them.
4
I put a
group of shopping-center managers through the same exercise. The thing they
said
would
make a tremendous difference was to build helpful personal relationships with
their
tenants -
the owners of the stores inside the center - a quadrant II activity.
We did an
analysis of how much time they spent on that activity. It was less than 5
percent of
their
time. They had good reasons: urgent problems, one after the other. Reports, meetings,
calls,
interruptions. Quadrant I consumed them. The only time they did spend with
store
managers
was filled with negative energy: when they had to collect money or correct
advertising
practices that were out-of-line.
The
owners decided to be proactive. They resolved to spend one-third of their time
improving
their
relationships with tenants. I worked with the organi7 a year and a half, and
saw their time
spent
with tenants climb to 20 percent They became listeners and consultants to their
tenants.
The
effect was profound. Tenants were thrilled with the new ideas and skills the
owners
brought
them. Sales in the stores climbed, and so did revenues from the leases.
Quadrant
II activities are very powerful, because they are closely tied to results. Your
effectiveness
will increase dramatically with a small increase in those activities; your
crises will
be fewer
and smaller.
To say “yes”
to important things requires you to learn to say no to other activities, some
of
them
urgent Keep in mind that you are always saying “no” to something. If it isn’t
to the
urgent
things in your life, it’s probably to the more fundamental, important things.
To pursue
quadrant II:
• Identify your key roles: business, family, church - whatever comes
to mind as
important.
Think of those you will act in for the coming week.
• Think of two or three important results you feel you should
accomplish in each role
during
the next seven days. At least some of these goals should be quadrant II
activities.
• Look at the week ahead with your goals in mind, and block out the
time each day to
achieve
them. Once your key goals are in place, look how much time you have left for
everything
else! How well you succeed skill depend on how resilient and determined
you are
at defending your most important priorities.
HABIT FOUR – SEEK TO UNDERSTAND, THEN BE UNDERSTOOD
The most
important word to know in mastering this habit is “listen.” Listen to your
colleagues,
family,
friends, customers - but not with intent to reply, to convince, to manipulate.
Listen
simply to
understand, to see how the other party sees things.
The skill
to develop here is empathy. Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is a form of
agreement,
a judgment. The essence of empathic listening is not that you agree with
someone;
it’s that you fully understand him, emotionally and intellectually.
Empathic listening is with the ears, eyes, and heart - for
feeling, for meaning.
It’s
powerful because it gives you accurate data to work with, instead of projecting
and
assuming
your own thoughts and motives. You can only work with someone productively and
make an
appropriate deposit in your Emotional Bank Account with him if you understand
what
really matters most to him.
5
If the
air were suddenly sucked out of the room you’re in, your interest in this
article would
wane
quickly, wouldn’t it? With survival at stake, you wouldn’t care about anything
except
getting
air.
Empathic
listening can be a powerful emotional deposit in itself, because it provides
the
speaker with
psychological air. When that need is met, you can work on your agreement in an
atmosphere
of trust.
On the
second day of a seminar in Chicago, a commercial real estate broker burst in to
tell me
what had
happened the night before, after class. After six months of hard work, he’d
nearly
closed a
big deal; then at the last minute, the clients seemed to lose interest. Another
agent
with
another deal was brought in, and they were ready to take the second deal
instead.
The
broker didn’t know what to do; he’d put all his effort into this one deal, and
now it was
fizzling.
He’d tried his last sales technique; then he just asked them to their decision.
But they
wanted to
get it over with.
So he
went for broke and said to his counter part, “Let me see if I really understand
what your
position
is and what your concerns about my offer are.” As he started to put himself in
the
man’s
shoes and describe what he saw, the man opened up to him. In the middle of
their
conversation,
the man stood up, walked over to the phone, and dialed his wife. As he was
waiting
for her to pick up, he explained, “You’ve got the deal.”
The
broker had given him psychological air just when he needed it. It shows that
when other
things
are relatively equal, the human dynamic is more important than the technical
dimensions
of the deal.
HABIT FIVE – THINK “WIN/WIN”
Once we’ve
mastered the first three habits, we’re ready to move from the “private victory”
to
the “public
victory.” Self and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships s
others.
We all
know what a financial bank account is. If we make de is in it, money will be
there for us
to
withdraw when we need it. The Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that
describes the
amount of
trust that’s been built up in a personal relationship. If into an account with
you
through
courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a
reserve.
Your trust for me becomes higher, and I can call on it III need to; I can even
make
mistakes,
and that trust level will compensate for it. Communication is easy, instant,
and
effective.
But if I
have a habit of showing discourtesy, disrespect, cutting you off, overreacting,
betraying
your
trust, or threatening you, my account gets overdrawn. The trust level is low;
what
flexibility
do I have?
None. I
am walking on mine fields. I’m politicking; I have to measure every word. Many
organizations
and many marriages are like this.
The
fourth habit, “Think win/win,” entails making an important deposit in another
person’s
Emotional
Bank Account: finding a way both of you can benefit by your interaction. All
the
other
possibilities - win/lose (I win, you lose), lose/win (I lose, you win), and
lose/lose - are
ineffective,
either in the short term or the long term.
The best
way to approach Win/Win dealing is to remember that it (like all agreements)
embodies
a caveat: The complete description is “Win/win - or no deal.” Your attitude
should
be, “I
want to win, and I want you to win, If we can’t hammer something out under
those
conditions,
let’s agree that we won’t make a deal this time. Maybe we’ll make one in the
future.”
The
president of a computer software company told me of the time he’d signed a
five-year
contract
to supply software to a bank. The bank president was enthusiastic about the
deal, but
his
people weren’t A month later, the bank changed presidents.
The new
president came to the software company president and said, “I am uncomfortable
with
these software conversions. My people are unhappy, and I have a mess on my hands.”
The
computer company was already in financial trouble at the time. It had every
legal right to
enforce
its contract. But the software company president responded: “We have a
contract. But
we
understand you’re not happy about it. We’ll return your contract and your
deposit, and if
you’re
ever looking for a software solution in the future, come back and see us.” He
walked
away from
an $84,000 contract. It might look like financial suicide, but he figured he
didn’t
want to
create an unhappy customer, and his attention to principle would pay off
somehow.
Three
months later, the new president called back. He was ready to put in a new
software
system.
They signed a contract for $240,000.
If a deal hurts them, it will hurt you.
Using the
paradigm of Win/Win requires three traits:
• Integrity - We define integrity as the value we place on
ourselves: We need to be selfaware,
possessed
of an independent will. We make and keep meaningful promises and
commitments
to our selves and others.
• Maturity - This is the balance between courage and consideration.
Simply put, you
must have
enough empathy and goodwill to work for a win for your counterpart, and
enough
courage to make a win for yourself.
• Abundance Mentality - You must know and believe that there is
plenty out there for
everybody.
Many people don’t: They think that to succeed themselves, others must
fail.
They harbor secret hopes that other people must suffer misfortune - not
terrible
misfortune,
but acceptable misfortune that Will keep them in their place. The
Abundance
Mentality recognizes that possibilities for growth and success are
potentially
limitless, and sees in others the opportunity to complement its own
strengths.
Win/win
is a powerful management tool. Drucker recommends using the “manager’s letter”
to
define
the performance agreement between boss and employee. Alter a thorough
discussion
of
expectations, guidelines, and resources, the employee writes a letter to the
manager
summarizing
the discussion and setting the date for the following review.
With the
agreement in place, the employee can manage himself within the framework of the
agreement.
The manager becomes like the pace car at an auto race: He gets things going and
gets out
of the way. His job from then on is to remove the oil spills. When the boss
becomes
the first
assistant to each subordinate, he increases his span of control. Entire levels
of
administration
can be eliminated, and he can double or triple his managerial leverage.
I once
consulted for a company that wanted me to train their retail people in human
relations:
They said
the employees on the selling floor were rude. I went to their stores, and
indeed, the
sales
help were rude. I wondered why.
“Look, we’re
on top of the problem,” the company president said. “The department heads are
out there
setting a great example: Their job is two- thirds selling and one-third
management.
They’re
outselling everyone. Just train the sales help to sell, too.”
6
But I
went back to the store for more data. It turned out that managers (who got
sales
commissions)
were sending the sales help into the back to take care of cleaning and
inventory,
stepping
behind the cash register and “creaming” every sale, except during the store’s
most
frantic
periods. That’s why they were outselling their employees.
We
replaced that win/lose compensation system with win/win: We changed the rules
so that
managers
only made money when the sales staff made money. The sales clerks’ attitude
problem
disappeared overnight.
HABIT SIX – SYNERGIZE
When
Winston Churchill was called to lead Great Britain’s war effort, he remarked
that all his
life had
prepared him for this hour.
In a
similar sense, the exercise of all the other habits prepares us for the habit
of synergy.
Properly
understood, synergy is the highest activity of life. Through it, we create new,
untapped
alternatives - things that didn’t yet exist. We unleash people’s greatest
powers. We
make a
whole greater than the sum of its parts.
The
creative process is also terrifying, because you don’t know exactly what’s
going to happen
or where
it’s going to lead. You leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an
entirely
new and
unknown wilderness. You become a pathfinder.
The basis
of synergy is that two people can disagree, and both can be right. It’s not
logical. It’s
psychological.
I was hired to lead discussion at the annual two-day planning meeting for top
executives
of a big insurance company. The usual pattern was to discuss major issues
chosen
through a
questionnaire. Past meetings had been generally respectful exchanges, and on
occasion
they deteriorated into win/lose ego battles. They were usually predictable and
boring.
I
convinced them to commission several executives to write anonymous “white
papers,” which
were
passed out to all the executives ahead of time, so they could immerse
themselves in the
differing
points of view.
By
removing both the need to be polite (and uncreative) and the threat of other
egos (since
the
papers were anonymous), the release of creative
energy
was incredible. The executives generated new ideas and insights, and quickly
made all
the white
papers obsolete. Most interesting a new, common vision for the company and its
mission
began to form before our eyes.
Once
people have experienced real synergy, they are never quite the same again. They
know
that the
possibility of such mind-expanding adventures always exists. The device that
opens
us to
synergy’s power depends on all the habits of effectiveness at once, requiring
confidence,
integrity,
and empathy. It’s all embodied in one crucial ability: to value and exploit the
mental,
emotional,
and psychological differences between people.
Once people have been through synergy, they’re not the same.
7HABIT SEVEN – SHARPEN THE SAW
Suppose
you come upon a man in the woods feverishly sawing down a tree.
“You look
exhausted!” you exclaim. “How long have you been at it?”
“Over
five hours,” he replies, “and I am beat. This is hard.”
“Maybe
you could take a break for a few minutes an sharpen that saw. Then the work
would
go
faster.”
“No time,”
the man says emphatically. “I’m too busy sawing.”
Habit
seven is taking time to sharpen the saw (you’re the saw). It’s the habit that
makes all the
others
possible.
To
sharpen the saw means renewing ourselves, in all four aspects of our natures:
• Physical - exercise, nutrition, stress management;
• Mental - reading, visualizing, planning, writing;
• Social/Emotional - service, empathy, synergy, security;
• Spiritual - spiritual reading, study, and meditation;
To
exercise in all these necessary dimensions, we must be proactive. No one can do
it for us or
make it
urgent for us; it is a quadrant IV activity.
For
instance, exercise is a typical, high- leverage, quadrant II activity that most
of us don’t do
consistently
enough.
We think
we don’t have time to exercise. What distorted thinking! We don’t have time not
to.
We’re
talking about three to six hours a week. That’s a drop in the bucket compared
with the
enormous,
beneficial impact on the other 162-plus hours in the week. Be proactive. If it’s
mining on
the morning you’ve scheduled to jog, do it anyway. “Oh good!” you’ll cry. “It’s
raining!
I get to develop my willpower as well as my body.”
Reading
for your work and planning require their own allotment of quadrant II time; and
you
obviously
must be wise enough not to “sacrifice” much for your profession that you
neglect
your
family, friends, and community.
Taking
care of your spiritual dimension renews your core, your center, your commitment
to all
your
principles. People do this in a variety of ways. Some meditate on the
scriptures. Others
immerse
themselves in great literature or music, or commune with nature.
To become strong, renew the spirit.
In a
story called “The Turn of the Tide,” Arthur Gordon describes a time when he
found his
world
stale and flat. His enthusiasm for life waned, and he was getting worse daily.
A medical
doctor found nothing physically wrong with him, but said he might be able to
help
if Gordon
could follow his instructions for one day. He was to spend the next day in the
place
where he’d
been happiest as a child. He was not to talk to anyone, nor to read, write, or
listen
to the
radio. The doctor then wrote out four prescriptions and told him to open one at
9a.m.,
noon, 3
p.m., and 6 p.m.
The next
morning, Gordon went to the beach. His first prescription said only this: “Listen
carefully.”
It seemed insane to listen to waves for three hours. But he did it - and began
to hear
more and
more sounds that weren’t obvious at first. He began to think of lessons he’d
learned
as a
child from the sea: patience, respect for the interdependence of things. He
felt a growing
peace.
The noon
prescription read, “Try reaching back.” To what? He thought of the joyful times
of his
childhood,
and felt a growing warmth inside.
The 3
p.m. message threw some cold water on him: “Examine your motives.” At first, he
was
defensive.
Of course he wanted success, fame, security - he could justify them all. But
then it
occurred
to him that these motives weren’t good enough, and that fact was making him
stagnant.
“It makes no difference,” he wrote later, “whether you are a mailman, a
hairdresser, a
housewife
- whatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do the job well.
When
you are
concerned only with helping yourself you do it less well - a law as inexorable
as
gravity.”
When 6
p.m. came, the final prescription didn’t take long to fill: “Write your worries
on the
sand.” He
knelt and wrote several words with a piece of broken shell; then he turned and
walked
away. He didn’t look back; he knew the tide would come in.
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