LDR 6100 Covey Book Summary



The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Covey, Stephen R. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1989.

Book Notes by Brian Hofmeister

Part 1: Paradigms and Principles

Chapter 1: Inside-Out

• Too often we focus on fixing our personality, but not our character. We figure out how we must act to accomplish what we desire yet we are neglect the fact that a changed being produces the same actions and is actually fulfilling instead of fake. “In reaping for so long where we have not sown, perhaps we have forgotten the need to sow (21).” Relying on positions, titles, fake smiles, and shallow conversations is “borrowing” power from a source that is not true, or if true, may be fleeting. Live a life that works from the inside-out, not vise versa

• “Our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships with others (30).” Two people can clearly see the same thing and entirely disagree due to their different paradigms (the way you see something; your frame of reference). To fix problems, try to examine you paradigm and how it influences your approach to the situation; propose an alternative paradigm you could take. See pages 41-42 for illustrations and examples. Examining the paradigms of others may also help you relate.

• Integrating Inside-out and Paradigms: Examining you paradigms helps you examine self, subsequently improve self and therefore have a positive impact with others.

• Quotes: Thoreau: For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is on striking at the root. (31)

Chapter 2: Seven Habits Overview

• You must have personal victories before you will have public victories

• Habits involve three essentials: knowledge (what to do and why to do it), skills (ability to), and desire (want to). Like a space shuttle, habits take a lot to get off the ground, but you get a lot of easy mileage when in orbit.

• Maturity Cycle: dependence to independence to interdependence

• Maintain a P/PC Balance. P is production and PC is production capability. We cannot go so aggressively for production that we abuse the physical, financial, and human sources of our production capability.

Part 2: Private Victory

Chapter 3: Habit 1, Be Proactive

• Correcting Pavlov’s Theory: Between every stimulus and response lies our choice. “Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values (71).”

• Proactivity: Rather than moaning about what has happened to us, choose how you want it to affect you. Any time we think the problem is “out there,” that is the problem (89). We must learn that humans are responsible and are therefore response-able. I must acknowledge that I am where I am because of me.

• Circle of Concern and Influence: If you focus on your circle of influence, you improve what you can, and eventually your success will increase your Circle of Influence. If you focus on the Circle of Concern, you only dwell on that which you cannot change and eventually decrease your Circle of Influence. The point is that you can always do something; therefore focus on what you can address and be at peace with you cannot.

• We are free to choose actions, but not consequences. Do what you can to bring about change and do not beat yourself up over the response or lack thereof.

Chapter 4: Habit 2, Begin with the End in Mind

• Habit 1 taught us that we can write our own script, Habit 2 is writing it. This is not a step of “getting it done,” this is a step of clearly articulating what you want to end up with. If you do not right your own script, someone else will –your dependence on others, need for love or acceptance, need for a sense of worth or belonging will enable others to control the direction of your life.

• Familiarize yourself with your principles and values –these will never change.

o Consider what you would want said at your funeral by family, friend, co-worker, and church member.

o “People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value (108).”

• Avoid the activity trap: we often work harder, do more, and maximize efficiency only to climb a ladder that we later realize was leaned up against the wrong wall. Our hyper activity blinded us to the things that we value most, the things that are now gone (98-99).

• Write a mission statement of what you want to be and do based upon your principles/values.

• Having a “center” to who you are

o Your center is your principles and values mixed with your mission.

o Varying circumstances do not affect your center.

o Making family, work, church, self, or money your exclusive center will result in lopsided decisions. See page 126-127 for an example, page 119-121 for an explanation of each false center, and page 124 for what it means to be centered on your principles

o Your center has four parts

▪ Security: Assured of who you are

• Spiritual Application –CHRIST’S LIFE EXCHANGED FOR YOURS

• Changing circumstances do not affect your identity

• You stand confidently for your principles

▪ Wisdom: Properly assess the world around you

• Spiritual Application –PRAYER, SPIRITUAL BATTLES TAKING PLACE

• You discern what the outcome will be of surrounding trends and feel no obligation to join them.

• You are continually learning.

• You proactively work within your sphere of influence

▪ Guidance: An approach to life

• Spiritual Application –SCRIPTURE

• You have discerned how to get to where you are going

• You stand on truth and are not intimidated by others disagreeing

• You make well pondered proactive decisions rather than being tossed about by the emotions of the situation

▪ Power: The ability to act

• Spiritual Application –HOLY SPIRIT

• You do what you set out to do regardless of varying responses and circumstances

• You work within an interdependent network

• Apply your mission statement to your different roles in life. What does “honoring God above all else” translate into you involvements as a husband, son, brother, pastor?

• Visualization and Affirmation

o Visualize your involvements before you are in them.

o Affirm a positive picture of what you will do and be, especially in anticipation of difficult circumstances that tend to sway you.

• Family and Organizational Application: The individual principles above can be used at a corporate level, yet always keep in mind that they must be deeply involved in the mission statement if they are to be committed.

• Quotes: Warren Bennis “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” (101)

Chapter 5: Habit 3, Put First Things First

• Habit 1 says, “You’re the programmer, Habit 2 says, “write the program,” Habit 3 says, “Run the Program.” Habit 3 is all about organizing and executing priorities.

• What one thing could you do that would most improve your personal or professional life? You probably named a Quadrant II activity, thus showing the value of focusing your life on Quadrant II activities.

Urgent Not Urgent

Important

Not Important

• Setting a Quadrant II Focus. Do not attend to leaves and neglect roots. Feed opportunities and starve problems. Eliminate Quadrant III and IV activities immediately, and slowly minimize quadrant I. You are always going to have to say “no” to something; wouldn’t you rather say no to the “good” rather than the “best?”

• Needs of a Quadrant II Organization Tool

o Coherence: What you do matches what you most want to be. Your mission statement is placed in your organizer so that it may be regularly referred to and lived out.

o Balance: Success is pursued in all critical areas. It does you little good to achieve a successful business career while suffering a broken marriage, ruined health, shallow faith, and weak character.

o Quadrant II Focus: Schedule your priorities rather than prioritizing what is on your schedule. Weekly schedule accomplish this more readily than daily schedules.

o People Dimension: Most agree that people are more important than tasks and therefore this must be factored into your schedule.

o Flexibility: Make the organizer work for you; do not be run by it.

o Portability: Your organizer must travel well.

• Quadrant II Activities

o Identify Roles (ex: father, employee, church member, etc…)

o Select Goals: Each week, set 2-3 important goals for each of your roles. Make weekly goals consistent with your overall mission/long-term goals.

o Scheduling: Assign each goal to a particular day or appointment.

o Daily Adapting: Review goals at the beginning of the day to gain prioritization.

• Stewardship Delegation

o You get more done if you empower others to work with/for you. see page 172 for lever analogy

o Needed Communication for Stewardship Delegation

▪ Desired Results: Create a clear, mutual understanding of what the desired results will look like. Tell them what, not how.

▪ Guidelines

• Set parameters of unacceptable approaches

• Tell them what has failed before

• Remember to only tell them what not to do, not what to do.

▪ Resources: Explain human, financial, technical, and organizational tools at their disposal.

▪ Accountability: Establish criteria from which the outcome will be evaluated and how often progress will be evaluated.

▪ Consequences: Explain the rewards and punishments that will result when evaluated.

o TRUST

▪ “Trust is the highest form of human motivation,” (178).

▪ Establishing appropriate amounts of trust

• For Immature People: Specify few desired results and more guidelines, resources, frequent accountability, and immediate consequences.

• For Mature People: Specify more challenging desired results; less guidelines and frequent accountability; less measurable but more discernable consequences.

Part 3: Public Victory

Chapter 6: Paradigms of Interdependence

• The Covey concept of “Emotional Bank Accounts” teaches that you must make significant deposits in a person before you can expect significant withdrawals.

• There are six ways to make deposits:

o Efforts to Understand People

o Small acts of kindness and concern

o Keeping commitments

o Clarifying Expectations

o Showing Personal Integrity –“It’s how you treat the one that reveals how you regard the ninety-nine, because everyone is ultimately a one,” (197).

o Sincere Apologies

Chapter 7: Habit 4, Think Win/Win

• Six Paradigms of human interaction:

o Win/Win – Collaborate

o Win/Lose = Compete

o Lose/Win = Accommodate

o Lose/Lose = Avoid

o Win

o Win/Win or No Deal

• All six may be appropriate according to varying circumstances but “Win/Win or No Deal” should be the dominant paradigm.

• “Win/Win or No Deal”

o Means that if we cannot find a solution that would benefit both of us, we agree to disagree agreeably.

o It is built on the “Abundance Mentality” -there is plenty out there for everybody. Enough personal worth and security exists to share authority, recognition, and profits. You are comfortable with and desire to share success.

• Win/Win in Management settings

o Organizations and individuals profit most when appropriate responsibility and freedom is given to individuals.

o Focus is on results, not methods

o Accountability comes from people evaluating themselves.

o Establish consequences

• Financial (income, allowances, etc…)

• Psychic (approval, respect, etc…) –usually more motivating than financial

• Opportunity (training, benefits, etc…)

• Responsibility (shift of authority domain)

o “If you talk Win/Win but reward Win/Lose you’ve got a losing program on your hands,” (229).

o Process for creating a Win/Win organization:

• Understand the problem from the other view

• Identify the key issues and concerns (not positions)

• Determine what results would constitute and acceptable solution

• Identify options to achieve the desired results

Chapter 8: Habit 5, Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

• “Unless you are influenced by my uniqueness, I’m not going to be influenced by your advice (239).” Too often we proscribe before gaining enough understanding to diagnose.

• Effective communication

o Rephrase their content and reflect their feelings. You must show you caught their emotion and their words. Understand people emotionally!

o Ethos, Pathos, Logos Sequence: Communication starts with your credibility, grasps the other’s concerns/wants, and then gives a logical response that addresses those concerns.

o Effective business transactions often come down to communicating an understanding of the other’s needs and then honestly explaining to what extent you can meet those needs.

Chapter 9: Habit 6, Synergize

• 1+1=3 or 4. Covey’s “synergy” philosophy teaches that two people, perspectives, or thoughts can be pooled together to create something entirely different and notably better than the summation of individuality. This is essentially the Buddhist teach on the “middle way” – middle is not the compromise, but the higher point between the two, for example the apex of a triangle.

• Our ability to Synergize comes down to how we proportionately value one thought vs. another. If you are extremely confident in your ability to make proper assessments and plans, you will not sense a need for help from everyone else that is “off track” and therefore will not synergize. For Synergy to happen we must believe that another person is extremely valuable in working with us to create success in that they represent experiences and perspectives that I will never be able to take into account all on my own.

• Do not press your mold on another, do not accept another’s mold for yourself; work with them to create a new mold superior to either.

Part 4: Renewal

Chapter 10: Habit 7, Sharpen the Saw

Previous chapters taught that we must monitor the health of that which creates our “production capability” if we want to “produce.” This chapter focuses on taking care of ourselves as the highest source of “production capability.”

• Physically: Exercise, Nutrition, Manage stress

• Spiritually: Take retreats to 1) Listen carefully, 2) Try reaching back, 3) Examine your motives, 4) Write your worries on the sand. Prayer and Meditation

• Mentally: Our minds were sharpest in college. We would do well to maintain mental excellence through reading, writing, planning, and visualizing.

• Emotionally: Serve, Empathize, Synergize, Develop Intrinsic Security.

“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.” – Goethe

Chapter 11: Inside-Out Again

Covey closes with personal lessons of how he and his wife came together in greater unity as they conversationally exposed personal scripting and did not intimidate the other by probing.

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