Overcome Personal and Professional Challenges With The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People

I had never heard of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People until I was asked to attend a 3-day seminar as part of my orientation into my new employment. In fact, a few years ago, I was introduced to these basic principles of effective living published 11 years ago. The year was 1989 when Steven Covey published this book which has become a no. 1 bestseller on the New York Times and other bestseller lists all throughout this country and many other countries in the world. As I was progressing through the seminar, I quickly realized the attraction to this book. The principles are based on qualities that don't change. They are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Responsibility whether personal and professional will still be needed. How about respect, integrity, mutual understanding, patience and purpose? They should be the foundations of all human and humane interactions. Unfortunately, for our times, they are lacking in many ways.

Before, I lose your attention, I am going to list these principles. I will comment on them later. Quotes and examples from the book will be used all throughout this review.

1. Be Proactive

2. Begin with the end in mind

3. Put first things first

4. Think win-win

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood

6. Synergize

7. Sharpen The Saw

My experience with this material

Colleagues' testimonials

To get myself ready for the seminar, I started talking to some of the colleagues who had already gone through the course. As far as they were concerned, this was a seminar I could not miss. I was told that I would like every presentation. After receiving my packet from the seminar organizers/facilitators, I had to fill out a form and answer some questions. Then, I was asked to hand out a pretty long questionnaire to some colleagues and managers who knew me. They would fill these forms out and mail them out to the Covey presenters. They were not to tell me what they wrote about me. Then, before receiving my certificate of participation at the end of the seminar, I would be handed a sealed packet aptly named, Profile Center Confidential

To facilitate understanding, let's first take a look at the terms used in the introduction of the training material.

A quick look at habits lets us realize that they are based on knowledge (what to and why to), skill (how to) and desire (want to). Then the author takes a look at the four levels of leadership (personal, interpersonal, managerial, and organizational) as related to the 7 habits. Working from the inside out by building trustworthiness, you will reach the interpersonal level or trust. Then comes empowerment with the managerial level. With all these levels in place, the organization can work on fulfilling its mission. "Alignment will contribute to greater empowerment and higher trust." Then, character and competence are defined. Then, we have the maturity continuum. This is where many participants started feeling all anxious about the theories. But with quotes and examples, they started making sense. For example, it makes that when we learn self-mastery and self-discipline, we experience the Private Victory. And we reap the Public Victory when we build deep, lasting, highly effective relationships.

Principles, values and paradigms

The author writes that "principles are natural laws and fundamental truths." In other words, we don't break principles, we break ourselves against them. Principles are universal, timeles, produce predictable outcomes, are external to ourselves, operate with or without our understanding or acceptance and are self-evident and enabling when understood.

Values are the worth or priority we place on people, things, ideas or principles. They are self-chosen beliefs and ideals, internal, subjective, based on how we see the world, and influenced by upbringing, society, and personal reflection.

A paradigm is a mental map; it's the way an individual perceives, understands, and interprets the surrounding world. Franklin Covey notes that we, individuals are the products of learning and experience. There are no two of you since no two individuals share the same knowledge and the same set of experiences. Consequently, your paradigm will be different from mine.

What can you get out of this training material or book?

1. Be proactive: Try to subordinate your feelings, moods and circumstances to values based on principles. In other words, your life is a product of your decisions, not your feelings. Don't be a slave to anything if it's not part of your value system. Choose your attitudes in any given set of circumstances as Viktor Frankl offered a superb example. It's not what people do to us that hurts us. In the most fundamental sense it is our chosen response to what they do to us that hurts us. This leads us to realize that when we blame and accuse others, we are reactive.

2. Begin with the end in mind: Think about all the components of your life. Go from your public life to your private life and deep inner life. Make good use of your endowments such as self-awareness, imagination, conscience and independent will. Ask yourself what you want out of life. You may want to start with a mission statement. Franklin Covey suggests a family statement. Bear in mind that mental creation precedes physical creation.

3. Put first things first: Think about things that matter first in your life. Are they your health, financial independence or work, family relationships, creative endeavors?

4. Think Win-win: "It's a philosophy of human interaction supported by an Abundance Mentality." The question we must ask ourselves is whether or not we always seek mutual benefit in all of our relationships.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood

This is about the challenges of effective communication. Diagnosis must precede prescription. We are invited to listen, pay close attention to the people we interact with. Emphatic listening is encouraged.

6. Synergize: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When two or more people produce together, its much better. There are some blocks to synergy. Defensiveness, fear of risks, self-centeredness, closed-mindedness, manipulation, poor communications can hinder synergy. Keep in mind that by listening to the other person's point, you become less adversarial. This can apply to parents bickering over some issues. The ground rule of interaction is this: You cannot make your point until you restate the other person's point to his or her satisfaction.

7. Sharpen The Saw:

We can sharpen the saw by looking at these areas:

Physical: we can build physical wellness through proper nutrition, exercise, rest and stress management

Mental: Reading, writing and thinking increase our mental capacity

Spiritual: Read inspiring literature, meditate, pray and spend time in your haven or nature.

Social/emotional: Be with others and those you care about.

Recommendations

If you take some time to go over the main sections of this book, you will discover a mine, a set of treasures that will lead to more wisdom.

Good luck to you!