“ The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
By Stephen R Covey
Foundation
What is a Habit?
Knowledge: what to do
Skill: how to do
Desire: motivation to do
What is Effectiveness?
Effectiveness is the balance between the goose and the golden egg. Without balance between the producer (the goose) and the product (the golden egg), there is not any long-lasting success.
Effectiveness is the over time result. It’s sustained superior’s performance.
Effectiveness begins DEEP WITHIN YOU! Effectiveness lies in your personal “character”---not your “personality.”
“Personality” deals with what others think of you. When you focus on personality, you pay more attention to “looking” successful on the outside, with no real attention to what is happening on the inside. This is the Outside-In approach.
“Character” deals with what is happening on the inside. Character focuses on understanding ourselves; taking a deeper look at who we really are, what we stand for, what is important to us, and what we have determined our purpose to be. This is the Inside-Out approach.
The Maturity Continuum
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People form the Maturity Continuum. Before you can ever successfully LEAD others, you must first successfully MANAGE yourself!
. Dependence: I rely on others to take care of me and make me happy
. Independence: I make my own decisions and can take care of myself.
. Interdependence: I cooperate with others to achieve something that cannot be achieved by myself.
The Impact of How We See the World
“If you always do what you have always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
The way we SEE things determines what we do, which in turn determines the results that we get. The way you “see the world” is called a “Paradigm”.
Paradigms are like city map. A map is simply an explanation of certain aspects of the city, it is not the city.
Suppose you want to get from A to B. you might work on your behavior, working much harder so that you can get there faster. But unless you have the right map you only succeed in getting to the wrong place faster.
A change from one way of thinking to another is called a Paradigm Shift.
As you learn more about the 7 Habits, you will notice that each habit will challenge your current paradigms. In fact, the 7 habits will most likely create paradigm shifts and suggest new and better ways of seeing things!
“If you want small changes, work on your behavior; if you want quantum-leap change, work on your paradigms.”
