The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People explores a
number of paradigms,
principles and habits that can help you become more
productive, whether that be
as an individual, as part of an organisation or a
business.
This was an excerpt from -STEPHEN R. COVEY
PARADIGMS AND PRINCIPLES
On order to change a situation, you first have to
change yourself. And to change
yourself effectively, you first have to change your
perception.
A Paradigm is the way we “see” the world – not in terms
of our visual sense of sight,
but in terms of perceiving, understanding, and
interpreting. Paradigms are the
source of our attitudes and behaviours. We cannot act
with integrity outside of
them. We simply cannot maintain wholeness if we talk and
walk differently than we
see.
The Power of a Paradigm Shift
Whether they shift us in positive or negative
directions, whether they are
instantaneous or developmental, Paradigm Shifts move us
from one way of seeing
the world to another. And those shifts create powerful
change. Our paradigms,
correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes
and behaviours, and ultimately
our relationships with others.
A Paradigm Shift is the “a-ha” experience associated
with finally perceiving or
understanding some aspect of the world (or a
circumstance) in a different way.
The Principle-centred Paradigm
Principles are natural laws that cannot be broken.
While individuals may look at
their own lives and interactions in terms of paradigms
or maps emerging out of
their experience and conditioning, these maps are not
the territory. They are a
“subjective reality,” only an attempt to describe the
territory. The “objective
reality,” or the territory itself, is composed of
“lighthouse” principles that govern
human growth and happiness – natural laws that are
woven into the fabric of every
civilized society throughout history and comprise the
roots of every family and
institution that has endured and prospered.
Principles of Growth and Change
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In all of life, there are sequential stages of growth
and development. Each step is
important and each one takes time. No step can be
skipped. Consequently, we
sometimes look for a shortcut, expecting to be able to
skip some of these vital
steps in order to save time and effort and still reap
the desired result. It is simply
impossible to violate, ignore, or shortcut this
development process. It is contrary to
nature, and attempting to seek such a shortcut only
results in disappointment and
frustration.
The Way We See the Problem is the Problem
As we look around us and within us and recognize the
problems created as we live
and interact within the personality ethic, we begin to
realize that these are deep,
fundamental problems that cannot be solved on the
superficial level on which they
were created. We need a new level, a deeper level of
thinking – a paradigm based
on the principles that accurately describe the
territory of effective human being and
interacting – to solve these deep concerns.
THE SEVEN HABITS
Habits Defined
A habit is 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.
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Proactivity - means more than merely taking initiative.
It means that as human
beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our
behaviour is a function of our
decisions, not our conditions. We have the initiative
and the responsibility to make
things happen.
“Response-ability” – the ability to choose your
response. Highly proactive people
recognize that responsibility. They do not blame
circumstances, conditions, or
conditioning for their behaviour. Their behaviour is a product
of their own conscious
choice, based on values, rather than a product of their
conditions, based on feeling.
Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are
a function of conditioning and
conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision
or by default, chosen to
empower those things to control us. In making such a
choice, we become reactive.
Reactive people are often affected by their physical
environment. If the weather is
good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their
attitude and their performance.
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Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.
Whether it rains or shines
makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and
if their value is to produce
good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the
weather is conducive to it or
not.
Proactive people are driven by values – carefully
thought about, selected and
internalized values. Proactive people are still
influenced by external stimuli,
whether physical, social, or psychological. But their
response to the stimuli,
conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or
response.
Initiative - Our basic nature is to act, and not be
acted upon. Taking initiative does
not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does
mean recognizing our
responsibility to make things happen.
Businesses, community groups, organizations of every
kind can be proactive. They
can combine the creativity and resourcefulness of
proactive individuals to create a
proactive culture within the organization.
Another excellent way to become more self-aware
regarding our own degree of
proactivity is to look at where we focus our time and
energy. We each have a “Circle
of Concerns”– our health, our children, problems at
work, the national debt,
nuclear war. These things over which we have no real
control. Proactive people
focus their efforts in what we call the Circle of
Influence. They work on the things
they can do something about.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
To Begin with the End in Mind means to start with a
clear understanding of your
destination. It means to know where you’re going so
that you better understand
where you are now and so that the steps you take are
always in the right direction.
It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity
trap - it is possible to be busy –
very busy – without being very effective.
“Begin with the End in Mind" is based on the
principle that all things are created
twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a
physical or second creation to all
things. The extent to which you Begin with the End in
Mind often determines
whether or not you are able to create a successful
enterprise. Most business
failures begin in the first creation, with problems
such as undercapitalization,
misunderstanding of the market, or lack of a business
plan.
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The unique human capacities of self-awareness,
imagination, and conscience
enable us to examine first creations and make it
possible for us to take charge of
our own first creation, to write our own script.
Habit 2 is based on principles of personal leadership,
which means that leadership
is the first creation. Leadership is not management.
Management is the second
creation. But leadership has to come first. Management
is a bottom-line focus:
How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership
deals with the top line: What
are the things I want to accomplish?
Through imagination, we can visualize the uncreated
worlds of potential that lie
within us. Through conscience, we can come in contact
with universal laws or
principles with our own singular talents and avenues of
contribution, and with the
personal guidelines within which we can most
effectively develop them. Combined
with self-awareness, these two endowments empower us to
write our own script.
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. Once you have that
sense of mission, you have the essence of your own
proactivity. You have the vision
and the values which direct your life.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 3, is the second creation – the physical
creation. It’s the fulfilment, the
actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2.
The ability to manage well determines the quality and
even the existence of the
second creation. Management is the breaking down, the
analysis, the sequencing,
the specific application, the time-bound left-brain
aspect of effective selfgovernment.
In addition to self-awareness, imagination, and conscience,
it is the fourth human
endowment – independent will – that really makes
effective self-management
possible. It is the ability to make decisions and
choices and to act in accordance
with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be
acted upon, to proactively carry
out the program we have developed through the other
three endowments.
Time Management has 4 ‘generations’. The first
generation is characterized by
notes and checklists, an effort to give recognition to
the many demands placed on
our time and energy. The second generations is
characterized by calendars and
appointment books, reflecting an attempt to look ahead
and schedule events in the
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future. The third generation reflects the current
time-management field. It adds the
important idea of prioritization, of clarifying values,
and of comparing the relative
worth of activities based on their relationship to
those values. In addition, it
focuses on setting goals – specific long-,
intermediate-, and short-term targets
toward which time and energy would be directed in
harmony with values. It also
includes the concept of daily planning, of making a
specific plan to accomplish
those goals and activities determined to be of greatest
worth.
While the third generation has made a significant contribution,
people have begun
to realize that “efficient” scheduling and control of
time are often
counterproductive. There is an emerging fourth
generation that is different in kind.
It recognizes that “time management” is really a
misnomer – the challenge is not to
manage time, but to manage ourselves. Satisfaction is a
function of expectation as
well as realization. And expectation (and satisfaction)
lie in our Circle of Influence.
Rather than focusing on things and time,
fourth-generation expectations focus on
preserving and enhancing relationships and
accomplishing results.
The fourth-generation tool recognizes that the first
person you need to consider in
terms of effectiveness rather than efficiency is
yourself. It encourages you to spend
time to understand and centre your life on principles,
to give clear expression to the
purposes and values you want to direct your daily
decisions.
We accomplish all that we do through delegation –
either to time or to other people.
If we delegate to time, we think efficiency. If we
delegate to other people, we think
effectiveness. Many people refuse to delegate to other
people because they feel it
takes too much time and effort and they could do the
job better themselves. But
effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single
most powerful high-leverage
activity there is.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Win-win is not a technique; it’s a total philosophy of
human interaction. In fact, it is
one of six paradigms of interaction. The alternative
paradigms are win-lose, losewin,
lose-lose, win, and Win-Win or No Deal TM.
Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly
seeks mutual benefit in all
human interactions. Win-win means that agreements or
solutions are mutually
beneficial, mutually satisfying. With a win-win solution,
all parties feel good about
the decision and feel committed to the action plan.
Win-win sees life as a
cooperative, not a competitive arena.
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Think Win-Win is the habit of interpersonal leadership.
It involves the exercise of
each of the unique human endowments – self-awareness,
imagination,
conscience, and independent will – in our relationships
with others. It involves
mutual learning, mutual influence, and mutual benefits.
It takes great courage as
well as consideration to create these mutual benefits,
particularly if we’re
interacting with others who are deeply scripted in
win-loss.
Win-win is not a personality technique. It’s a total
paradigm of human interaction.
It comes from a character of integrity, maturity, and
the Abundance Mentality. It
grows out of high-trust relationships. It is embodied
in agreements that effectively
clarify and manage expectations as well as
accomplishments. It thrives in
supportive systems. And it is achieved through the
process of Habits 5 and 6.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be
understood
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. This
principle is the key to effective interpersonal
communication.
Communication is the most important skill in life. We
spend most of our waking
hours communicating. But consider this: You’ve spent
years learning how to read
and write, years learning how to speak. But what about
listening?
If you want to interact effectively with someone, to
influence them, you first need
to understand them. If you want to be really effective
in the habit of interpersonal
communication, you have to build the skills of empathic
listening on a base of
character that inspires openness and trust.
“Seek first to understand” involves a very deep shift
in paradigm. We typically seek
first to be understood. Most people do not listen with
the intent to understand; they
listen with the intent to reply. They’re either
speaking or preparing to speak. They’re
filtering everything through their own paradigms,
reading their autobiography into
other people’s lives.
Empathetic Listening - gets inside another person’s
frame of reference. You look
out
through it, you see the world the way they see the
world, you understand their
paradigm, you understand how they feel. The essence of
empathic listening is not
that you agree with someone; it’s that you fully,
deeply, understand that person,
emotionally as well as intellectually.
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Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal
of security to go into a deep
listening experience because you open yourself up to be
influenced. You become
vulnerable. It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in
order to have influence, you have
to be influenced. That means you have to really
understand.
As you learn to listen deeply to other people, you will
discover tremendous
differences in perception. You will also begin to
appreciate the impact that these
differences can have as people try to work together in
interdependent situations.
When we really, deeply understand each other, we open
the door to creative
solutions and Third Alternatives. Our differences are
no longer stumbling blocks to
communication and progress. Instead, they become the
stepping stones to
synergy.
Habit 6: Synergize
When properly understood, synergy is the highest
activity in all life – the true test
and manifestation of all the other habits put together.
Synergy is the essence of
Principle-Centered Leadership. It is the essence of
principle-centered parenting. It
catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers
within people.
What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the
whole is greater than the sum of
its parts. It means that the relationship which the
parts have to each other is a part
in and of itself. It is not only a part, but the most
catalytic, the most empowering,
the most unifying, and the most exciting part.
When you communicate synergistically, you are simply
opening your mind and
heart and expressions to new possibilities, new
alternatives, new options. It may
seem as if you are casting aside Habit 2 (to Begin with
the End in Mind); but, in fact,
you’re doing the opposite – you’re fulfilling it.
You’re not sure when you engage in
synergistic communication how things will work out or
what the end will look like,
but you do have an inward sense of excitement and
security and adventure,
believing that it will be significantly better than it
was before. And that is the end
that you have in mind.
Once people have experienced real synergy, they are
never quite the same again.
They know the possibility of having other such
mind-expanding adventures in the
future. Synergy is exciting. Creativity is exciting.
It’s phenomenal what openness
and communication can produce. The possibilities of
truly significant gain, of
significant improvement are so real that it’s worth the
risk such openness entails.
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There are some circumstances in which synergy may not
be achievable and no deal
isn’t viable. But even in these circumstances, the
spirit of sincere trying will usually
result in a more effective compromise.
Synergy works; it’s a correct principle. It is the
crowning achievement of all the
previous habits. It is effectiveness in an
interdependent reality – it is teamwork,
team building, the development of unity and creativity
with other human beings.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
“Sharpen the Saw” means preserving and enhancing the
greatest asset you have –
you. It’s renewing the four dimensions of your nature –
physical, spiritual, mental,
and social/emotional. To do this, we must be proactive.
This is the single most powerful investment we can ever
make in life – investment
in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which
to deal with life and to
contribute. We are the instruments of our own
performance, and to be effective, we
need to recognize the importance of taking time
regularly to sharpen the saw in all
four ways.
The Physical Dimension: 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: The spiritual dimension is
your core, your centre, your
commitment to your value system. It’s a very private
area of life and a supremely
important one. It draws upon the sources that inspire
and uplift you and tie you to
the timeless truths of all humanity. And people do it
very, very differently whether
that be meditation, experiencing nature or yoga.
The Mental Dimension: Most of our mental development
and study discipline
comes through formal education. But as soon as we leave
the external discipline of
school, many of us let our minds atrophy. Education –
continuing education,
continually honing and expanding the mind – is vital mental
renewal. Sometimes
that involves the external discipline of the classroom
or systematized study
programs; more often it does not. Proactive people can
figure out many, many ways
to educate themselves. It is extremely valuable to
train the mind to stand apart and
examine its own program.
The Social/Emotional Dimension: These dimensions of our
lives are tied together
because our emotional life is primarily, but not
exclusively, developed out of and
manifested in our relationships with others. Renewing our
social/emotional
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dimension does not take time in the same sense that
renewing the other
dimensions does. We can do it in our normal everyday
interactions with other
people. But it definitely requires exercise.
Most people are a function of the social mirror,
scripted by the opinions, the
perceptions, the paradigms of the people around them.
As interdependent people,
you realise that we are a part of that social mirror.
Choose to reflect back to others
a clear, undistorted vision of themselves.
The self-renewal process must include balanced renewal
in all four dimensions of
our nature: the physical, the spiritual, the mental,
and the social/emotional.
Although renewal in each dimension is important, it
only becomes optimally
effective as we deal with all four dimensions in a wise
and balanced way. To neglect
any
one area negatively impacts the rest.
