The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (25th Anniversary Edition) - by Stephen R. Covey
Date read: 2017-03-25How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
(See my list of 150+ books, for more.)
Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.
Good for anyone looking to develop traits to becoming more effective in their day-to-day. Tends to overlap with stoicism and other books on the same subject. A bit drawn out with too many examples at times.
Contents:
- HABIT 1: BE PROACTIVE
- HABIT 2: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
- HABIT 3: PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST
- HABIT 4: THINK WIN/WIN
- HABIT 5: SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
- HABIT 6: SYNERGIZE
- HABIT 7: SHARPEN THE SAW
My Notes
We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.
Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world. The power of a paradigm shift is the essential power of quantum change, whether that shift is an instantaneous or a slow and deliberate process.
The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.
Define a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.
Effectiveness lies in the balance - what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs. Every P problem is a PC opportunity.
You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself.
Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.
Six major deposits that build the Emotional Bank Account:
- Understanding the Individual - really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make.
- Attending to the Little Things - the little kindnesses and courtesies are so important. Small discourtesies, little unkindnesses, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, the little things are the big things.
- Keeping Commitments - keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal.
- Clarifying Expectations - unclear expectations in the area of goals also undermine communication and trust.
- Showing Personal Integrity - integrity is conforming reality to our words-in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. Being loyal to those who are not present.
- Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.
Proactive people are driven by values - carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.
Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.
Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done.
Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase.
The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.
For thirty days work only in your Circle of Influence. Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
We are responsible - "response-able."
APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS
- For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of the people around you. How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as "If only," "I can't," or "I have to"?
- Identify an experience you might encounter in the near future where, based on past experience, you would probably behave reactively. Review the situation in the context of your Circle of Influence. How could you respond proactively? Take several moments and create the experience vividly in your mind, picturing yourself responding in a proactive manner. Remind yourself there is a gap or a space between stimulus and response, and that the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that space. Make a commitment to yourself to exercise your freedom to choose.
- Select a problem from your work or personal life that is frustrating to you. Determine whether it is a direct, indirect, or no control problem. Identify the first step you can take in your Circle of Influence to solve it and then take that step.
- Try the thirty-day test of proactivity. Be aware of the change in your Circle of Influence.
Begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined.
By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.
Start with a clear understanding of your destination.
If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.
All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation. If we do not develop our own self-awareness and do not become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default.
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
Develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based. It becomes a personal constitution, the basis for making major, life-directing decisions.
Our security comes from knowing that, unlike other centers based on people or things which are subject to frequent and immediate change, correct principles do not change.
As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options.
Write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution and review it regularly and make minor changes as the years bring additional insights or changing circumstances.
Good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it's personal, it's positive, it's present tense, it's visual, and it's emotional. So I might write something like this: "It is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave."
An effective goal focuses primarily on results rather than activity. It identifies where you want to be, and, in the process, helps you determine where you are.
APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS
- Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of this chapter. You may want to use the chart below to organize your thoughts.
- Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with that mirror image of your life?
- Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and to begin work on your personal mission statement.
- Go through the chart in Appendix A showing different centers and circle all those you can identify with. Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life? Are you comfortable with the implications of your analysis?
- Start a collection of notes, quotes, and ideas you may want to use as resource material in writing your personal mission statement.
- Identify a project you will be facing in the near future and apply the principle of mental creation. Write down the results you desire and what steps will lead to those results.
- Share the principles of Habit 2 with your family or work group and suggest that together you begin the process of developing a family or group mission statement.
It's the fulfillment, the actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2. It's the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered. It's the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment doing it.
While leadership decides what "first things" are, it is management that puts them first, day-by-day, moment-by-moment. Management is discipline, carrying it out.
Organize and execute around priorities.
"Time management" is really a misnomer - the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.
Rather than focusing on things and time, fourth generation expectations focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and on accomplishing results.
The way you spend your time is a result of the way you see your time and the way you really see your priorities.
Organize your life on a weekly basis. You can still adapt and prioritize on a daily basis, but the fundamental thrust is organizing the week.
Quadrant II organizing involves four key activities:
- IDENTIFYING ROLES - the first task is to write down your key roles. Roles as a family member and a few roles in your work.
- SELECTING GOALS - think of one or two important results you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next seven days.
- SCHEDULING - now you can look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.
- DAILY ADAPTING - prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated events, relationships, and experiences in a meaningful way.
Transferring responsibility to other skilled and trained people enables you to give your energies to other high-leverage activities. Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations.
There are basically two kinds of delegation: "gofer delegation" and "stewardship delegation." Gofer delegation means "Go for this, go for that, do this, do that, and tell me when it's done." Most people who are producers have a gofer delegation paradigm. Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice of method and makes them responsible for results.
Create commitment regarding expectations in five areas:
- DESIRED RESULTS - create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results, not methods.
- GUIDELINES - identify the parameters within which the individual should operate. These should be as few as possible to avoid methods delegation, but should include any formidable restrictions.
- RESOURCES - identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational resources the person can draw on to accomplish the desired results.
- ACCOUNTABILITY - set up the standards of performance that will be used in evaluating the results and the specific times when reporting and evaluation will take place.
- CONSEQUENCES - specify what will happen, both good and bad, as a result of the evaluation. This could include such things as financial rewards, psychic rewards, different job assignments, and natural consequences tied into the overall mission of an organization.
APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS:
- Identify a Quadrant II activity you know has been neglected in your life-one that, if done well, would have a significant impact in your life, either personally or professionally. Write it down and commit to implement it.
- Draw a time management matrix and try to estimate what percentage of your time you spend in each quadrant. Then log your time for three days in fifteen-minute intervals. How accurate was your estimate? Are you satisfied with the way you spend your time? What do you need to change?
- Make a list of responsibilities you could delegate and the people you could delegate to or train to be responsible in these areas. Determine what is needed to start the process of delegation or training.
- Organize your next week. Start by writing down your roles and goals for the week, then transfer the goals to a specific action plan. At the end of the week, evaluate how well your plan translated your deep values and purposes into your daily life and the degree of integrity you were able to maintain to those values and purposes.
- Commit yourself to start organizing on a weekly basis and set up a regular time to do it.
- Either convert your current planning tool into a fourth generation tool or secure such a tool.
- Go through "A Quadrant II Day at the Office" (Appendix B) for a more in-depth understanding of the impact of a Quadrant II paradigm.
It's not your way or my way; it's a better way, a higher way.
Work for a Win/Win. Let's really hammer it out. And if we can't find it, then let's agree that we won't make a deal at all. It would be better not to deal than to live with a decision that wasn't right for us both.
FIVE DIMENSIONS OF WIN/WIN
- Character - three character traits essential to the Win/Win paradigm:
- INTEGRITY
- MATURITY - maturity is the balance between courage and consideration.
- ABUNDANCE MENTALITY - there is plenty out there for everybody.
- Relationships
- Agreements - four kinds of consequences (rewards and penalties) that management or parents can control:
- Financial consequences include such things as income, stock options, allowances, or penalties.
- Psychic or psychological consequences include recognition, approval, respect, credibility, or the loss of them.
- Opportunity includes training, development, perks, and other benefits.
- Responsibility has to do with scope and authority, either of which can be enlarged or diminished.
- Supportive Systems - so often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results.
- Processes - use this four-step process:
- See the problem from the other point of view. Really seek to understand and to give expression to the needs and concerns of the other party as well as or better than they can themselves.
- Identify the key issues and concerns (not positions) involved.
- Determine what results would constitute a fully acceptable solution.
- Identify possible new options to achieve those results.
- Think about an upcoming interaction wherein you will be attempting to reach an agreement or negotiate a solution. Commit to maintain a balance between courage and consideration.
- Make a list of obstacles that keep you from applying the Win/Win paradigm more frequently. Determine what could be done within your Circle of Influence to eliminate some of those obstacles. Select a specific relationship where you would like to develop a Win/Win agreement.
- Try to put yourself in the other person's place, and write down explicitly how you think that person sees the solution. Then list, from your own perspective, what results would constitute a Win for you. Approach the other person and ask if he or she would be willing to communicate until you reach a point of agreement and mutually beneficial solution.
- Identify three key relationships in your life. Give some indication of what you feel the balance is in each of the Emotional Bank Accounts. Write down some specific ways you could make deposits in each account.
- Deeply consider your own scripting. Is it Win/Lose? How does that scripting affect your interactions with other people? Can you identify the main source of that script? Determine whether or not those scripts serve well in your current reality.
- Try to identify a model of Win/Win thinking who, even in hard situations, really seeks mutual benefit. Determine now to more closely watch and learn from this person's example.
We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.
Listening with intent to understand. You see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.
Not that you agree with someone; it's that you fully, deeply, understand that person, emotionally as well as intellectually.
Diagnose before you prescribe, just like a good doctor would do.
The skills, the tip of the iceberg of empathic listening, involve four developmental stages:
- Mimic content - least effective. Just listen to the words that come out of someone's mouth and you repeat them.
- Rephrase the content - it's a little more effective, but it's still limited to the verbal communication.
- Reflect feeling - now you're not paying as much attention to what he's saying as you are to the way he feels about what he's saying. Example: Son: "Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" Dad's response: "You're feeling really frustrated."
- Rephrase the content and reflect the feeling - includes both the second and the third stages. Example: Son: "Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" Dad's response: "You're really frustrated about school." Frustration is the feeling; school is the content.
APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS:
- Select a relationship in which you sense the Emotional Bank Account is in the red. Try to understand and write down the situation from the other person's point of view. In your next interaction, listen for understanding, comparing what you are hearing with what you wrote down. How valid were your assumptions? Did you really understand that individual's perspective?
- Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you. Tell him or her you want to work on really listening to others and ask for feedback in a week. How did you do? How did it make that person feel?
- The next time you have an opportunity to watch people communicate, cover your ears for a few minutes and just watch. What emotions are being communicated that may not come across in words alone?
- Next time you catch yourself inappropriately using one of the autobiographical responses - probing, evaluating, advising, or interpreting-try to turn the situation into a deposit by acknowledgment and apology. ("I'm sorry, I just realized I'm not really trying to understand. Could we start again?")
- Base your next presentation on empathy. Describe the other point of view as well as or better than its proponents; then seek to have your point understood from their frame of reference.
Synergy is the highest activity in all life-the true test and manifestation of all of the other habits put together.
You need to value differences - to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses.
Open your mind and heart and expressions to new possibilities, new alternatives, new options. Seek the third alternative.
Realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are.
Create a climate that is more positive, more respectful, more open and trusting.
APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS:
- Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.
- Make a list of people who irritate you. Do they represent different views that could lead to synergy if you had greater intrinsic security and valued the difference?
- Identify a situation in which you desire greater teamwork and synergy. What conditions would need to exist to support synergy? What can you do to create those conditions?
- The next time you have a disagreement or confrontation with someone, attempt to understand the concerns underlying that person's position. Address those concerns in a creative and mutually beneficial way.
It's preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have - you. It's renewing the four dimensions of your nature-physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional:
The Physical Dimension - involves caring effectively for our physical body - eating the right kinds of foods, getting sufficient rest and relaxation, and exercising on a regular basis.
The Spiritual Dimension - is your core, your center, your commitment to your value system, e.g. daily prayerful meditation. Immersion in great literature or great music can provide a similar renewal of the spirit for some. Communicate with nature.
The Mental Dimension - Continuing education, continually honing and expanding the mind (i.e. read, Write). Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings. Organizing and planning your life.
The Social/Emotional Dimension - Our relationships with others.
In an organization, the physical dimension is expressed in economic terms. The mental or psychological dimension deals with the recognition, development, and use of talent. The social/emotional dimension has to do with human relations, with how people are treated. And the spiritual dimension deals with finding meaning through purpose or contribution and through organizational integrity.
The Daily Private Victory - a minimum of one hour a day in renewal of the physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions.
APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS:
- Make a list of activities that would help you keep in good physical shape, that would fit your life-style and that you could enjoy over time.
- Select one of the activities and list it as a goal in your personal role area for the coming week. At the end of the week evaluate your performance. If you didn't make your goal, was it because you subordinated it to a genuinely higher value? Or did you fail to act with integrity to your values?
- Make a similar list of renewing activities in your spiritual and mental dimensions. In your social-emotional area, list relationships you would like to improve or specific circumstances in which Public Victory would bring greater effectiveness. Select one item in each area to list as a goal for the week. Implement and evaluate.
- Commit to write down specific "sharpen the saw" activities in all four dimensions every week, to do them, and to evaluate your performance and results.