Stay updated on our latest
articles with RSS
When a colleague loaned me Stephen Coveys The Seven Habits Of Highly Successful People many years ago, it took me about three months to get round to reading it “ I now realise that I wasted those three months! In fact, I read it three times in order to ensure that I had fully digested the wisdom.
Whilst I cannot claim to have experienced an epiphany of Damascus Highway proportions, it did cause me to make fundamental changes to the way I conducted business. In reality, I was practising much of what Covey suggests, but I was doing so in a fairly unstructured and ill-disciplined way. However, in what I now term my Post Covey period, I do ensure that I audit myself regularly and I would urge you to do the same.
Covey is also responsible for the book Principle Centred Leadership, and many of his ideas and approaches relate to the management of people. You are encouraged to consider, as you read through my summary of his ideas,(You will find this in the Self-Improvement section of my article vault - the address is in the sidepanel on the right)how any of it might relate to your own particular situation as an individual, as well a manager.
Coveys view focuses on interdependence, on what he calls mature interaction. When we are truly interdependent, then we have achieved and are practising all seven habits. The habits are in fact steps, leading us from dependent through independence to interdependence and making use of our innate human characteristics “ moving us in effect from what Covey terms private victories to public victories.
In any situation, our natural human response is to look for similarities to situations we have previously encountered. In doing this, we fail to recognise the situation we are actually in and we fail to recognise opportunities and challenges presented to us. In effect the way we see the problem is the problem ¦ which accounts for why we find ourselves repeating patterns of frustration and feeling unable to respond appropriately to situations facing us.
Einstein observed The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Covey develops this theme into what he calls an inside-out approach. This means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self “ with your principles, your values, your motives and your character.
We each have, and can develop further, various assets. Coveys view encourages wider recognition of these assets and the maintenance of them. Once we take for granted say effective working relationships, then we cease to actively maintain them. The result could well be a reduction in the effectiveness of the relationship and therefore of a very important asset. The key is balance between the use of any asset and maintenance of it.
Copyright © 2006 Jonathan Farrington. All rights reserved
Whilst I cannot claim to have experienced an epiphany of Damascus Highway proportions, it did cause me to make fundamental changes to the way I conducted business. In reality, I was practising much of what Covey suggests, but I was doing so in a fairly unstructured and ill-disciplined way. However, in what I now term my Post Covey period, I do ensure that I audit myself regularly and I would urge you to do the same.
Covey is also responsible for the book Principle Centred Leadership, and many of his ideas and approaches relate to the management of people. You are encouraged to consider, as you read through my summary of his ideas,(You will find this in the Self-Improvement section of my article vault - the address is in the sidepanel on the right)how any of it might relate to your own particular situation as an individual, as well a manager.
Coveys view focuses on interdependence, on what he calls mature interaction. When we are truly interdependent, then we have achieved and are practising all seven habits. The habits are in fact steps, leading us from dependent through independence to interdependence and making use of our innate human characteristics “ moving us in effect from what Covey terms private victories to public victories.
In any situation, our natural human response is to look for similarities to situations we have previously encountered. In doing this, we fail to recognise the situation we are actually in and we fail to recognise opportunities and challenges presented to us. In effect the way we see the problem is the problem ¦ which accounts for why we find ourselves repeating patterns of frustration and feeling unable to respond appropriately to situations facing us.
Einstein observed The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Covey develops this theme into what he calls an inside-out approach. This means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self “ with your principles, your values, your motives and your character.
We each have, and can develop further, various assets. Coveys view encourages wider recognition of these assets and the maintenance of them. Once we take for granted say effective working relationships, then we cease to actively maintain them. The result could well be a reduction in the effectiveness of the relationship and therefore of a very important asset. The key is balance between the use of any asset and maintenance of it.
Copyright © 2006 Jonathan Farrington. All rights reserved
I particularly like your article on your own website, Jonathan that summarises the 7 Habits so well.
David Bain, Edinburgh - November 29th, 2006