Elevate Your Effectiveness with the Timeless Wisdom of Covey's 7 Habits!

Dear Career Carnival Community,

Embark on a transformative journey to heightened effectiveness with Stephen R. Covey's renowned masterpiece, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." ??

This is about Effective people who taste success; Covey simply guides us to be effective: by accomplishing our goals to what he calls "true north" principles of a character ethic that he presents as universal and timeless.?The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a wonderful, self-help, and business management book, if you will, written by Stephen R. Covey. It has been the bestseller and sold more than 15 million copies. It has been written in 38 languages worldwide, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books. U.S. President Bill Clinton invited Covey to suggest him on how to incorporate the book into his presidency. Here is an attempt to introduce our readers to this excellence in possible chunks & trenches

Tree Activity

Draw a tree, giving yourself 2 minutes to do it. To make it more interesting ask your family and friends to do it too. After a couple of minutes, check what people have sketched on the paper: few would have drawn a root – long or bushy – to the tree!!! A few, you would notice, have drawn apples on their trees perhaps, but hardly do they remember the roots. Covey says that Character is the root of all effectiveness. Like the upper part of a tree, our personality is what is visible to people at first. Although our persona, expertise and competencies can influence our success, the real source of long standing effectiveness remains in a strong character – the roots. The 7 habits cover both competency-building & character-based content that addresses our personal & professional life. So, basically the change starts from?‘Self’?and our roots

Character & Competence

While a person with high character exhibits honesty, maturity and an ‘Abundance Mentality’, a person with high capability has knowledge and competency in a given area. As people balance these two elements, they build their personal dependability and their faith with others. As people strike a balance between these two elements, they increase their personal capacity to hold trust of others in them. And the most important thing: Habits are intersection of Knowledge, Skills & Desire. Therefore, our habits form our character.

The 7 Habits

1. Be Proactive:?This primarily talks about all roles and relationships that we have and make in life. As change comes from us, and ourselves, just like a stone thrown in water creates ripples, the same way does our internal change of being proactive and taking initiative have ripples on the minds of others and the environment around us.

2 - Begin with the End in Mind:?Covey gives a wonderful envision what you want is the picture you should have in mind before you start setting yourself to a task; that is what primarily makes to turn your picture to reality.

3 - Put First Things First:?A person or a professional must manage his own person, personally and professionally. When we implement activities that aim to reach the bigger picture at the end, we must start with prioritizing every moment, once the map of goals is set. Covey says that rule two is the mental creation; rule three is the physical creation.

4 - Think Win-Win:?There’s no stopping or looking back when you have an attempt to genuinely feel for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships – both personal & professional. Once we value people by realizing a "win" for all is a better long-term resolution than if only one person got his way, we have a hang of the 4th?Habit: there we are!

5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood:?Empathic listening is basically feeling what the other person feels. Covey suggests your listening to have real empathy to be influenced by a person, which actually in turn forces the other respond similarly to you, thereby having an open mind to being influenced by you too. This leads to positive problem solving.

6 – Synergize:?Covey suggests combining the strong points and capabilities of people through positive team spirit in order to achieve goals that we can’t do alone if we work singularly.

7 - Sharpen the Saw:?The final habit is that of continuous improvement in both the personal and interpersonal domains of influence. It asks you to keep balancing and renewing your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle. It primarily stresses on mental & spiritual well being & practices as well as a good reading for mental refreshment.

The Final Word: Effectiveness

‘Effectiveness’ is defined as an inside-out approach: It is getting desired results – the P/PC Balance. P = Production = what is produced, or the desired results produced; PC = Production capacity/asset, which is our character, or Habits – the roots. Maintaining, preserving and enhancing the resources that produce the desired results. The key is to continuously maintain the p/pc balance: balance your short term & long term goals; Spend time in relationships that matter; and finally the person behind the work/assignment becomes more important

In a nutshell

The crux of this unparallel piece of writing is being ‘successfully effective’ by understanding and imbibing ‘Habits’. Thus personality changes moves one on from ‘dependence’ to ‘independence’ and then finally to ‘interdependence’.

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