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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective PeoplePowerful Lessons in Personal Changeby Stephen R. CoveyHabits are powerful factors in our lives. According to Dr. Stephen Covey, a graduate

of Harvard Business School and author of the top-selling The 7 Habits of HighlyEffective People, our character is basically a composite of our habits. And, contraryto popular belief, breaking a bad habit involves more than a little willpower and a fewminor changes in our lives. In actual fact, ridding ourselves of negative habitualtendencies involves a process of tremendous commitment - one which actuallymirrors life's natural stages of development.

The process of moving from total dependence (infant) to complete interdependence(adult) could be thought of as progressing along a natural "maturity continuum." Weeach begin life as an infant, totally dependent on others. We are directed, nurtured,and sustained by family and friends. Without this nurturing, we could only live for a

few hours or a few days at most. But gradually, over the ensuing months and years,we become more and more independent - physically, emotionally and financially -until eventually we are able to take care of ourselves. As we continue to grow andmature we become increasingly aware that all of nature is interdependent, and thatthe higher reaches of our human nature have to do with forming and maintainingrelationships with others.

Simply put then, dependent people need others to get what they want. Independentpeople can get what they want through their own efforts and interdependent peoplecombine their efforts with the efforts of others to achieve great things.

It's easy to see that independence is much more mature than dependence but,according to Dr. Covey, it is not the ultimate goal in effective living. Independentpeople who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be goodindividual producers, but they won't be great leaders or team players. They lack thequalities necessary to truly succeed in marriage, family or organizational reality. Yetinterdependence is a choice that only independent people can make. Dependentpeople cannot choose to be interdependent. They don't have the character to do it;they don't own enough of themselves.

That's why parts 1, 2 and 3 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People deal with theconcept of self-mastery. They provide the tools we need to move from totaldependence to independence. Then, once we've become truly independent aspeople, we have the foundation we need to understand the habits ofinterdependence discussed in parts 4, 5 and 6. Finally, the seventh habit, discussedin the closing chapter of the book, makes all the others possible.

You may choose to read The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People completelythrough from cover to cover to gather a sense of the whole book, but the material isnot meant to be read that way. Instead, the book is designed to be a companion inlife's continual process of change and growth. It is organized with suggestions forapplication after each section so that you can study and focus on any particular habit

as you are ready. Remember, this book was not written to be a quick fix for all of life'sproblems.

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Habit One: Be Proactive. While the word "proactivity" is now fairly common inmanagement literature, it is a word you won't find in most dictionaries. It involves a lotmore than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsiblefor our own lives. Highly proactive people, says Dr. Covey, do not blamecircumstances or conditions for their behavior. Unlike their reactive counterparts,

proactive people are rarely affected by their physical environment. For example, if theweather is good, reactive people feel good. If it isn't so good, their attitude andperformance suffer. By contrast, proactive people carry their own weather with themwherever they go. Whether it rains or not makes no difference to a proactive person.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of a proactive person.Proactive people are still affected by external stimuli, but their response to the stimuliis a value-based choice. As Eleanor Roosevelt once observed, "No one can hurt youwithout your consent." In short, it's not what happens to us in life, but our response towhat happens that hurts us.

Our basic human nature is to act and not be acted upon. But, being proactive andtaking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious or aggressive. It does meanfollowing our human nature and recognizing our personal responsibility to makethings happen. Knowing we are responsible for our own actions is fundamental toevery other habit discussed in Stephen Covey's book.

Habit Two: Begin With the End in Mind. One man asked another on the death of amutual friend, "How much did he leave?" His friend responded, "He left it all." Whenyou begin with the end in mind, you gain a different perspective.

Although Habit Two applies to many different circumstances and levels of life, themost important application of "begin with the end in mind" is to begin today with theimage of the end of your life as your frame of reference by which everything else isexamined. By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whateveryou do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined assupremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful wayto the vision you have of your life as a whole. If you consider carefully what you wantto be said of you at your funeral, writes Covey, then you will find your personaldefinition of success. Perhaps fame, money, achievement or some of the other thingswe strive for every day are not what really matters to us at all.

To use a computer metaphor, if Habit One tells us that we are the programmer in ourlives, then Habit Two says that we should write our own programs. As proactivepeople, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and do. To this end,Stephen Covey recommends sitting down and physically writing a personal missionstatement. Of course, to do this properly takes time, patience and involvement.Remember, this book is not a quick fix.

Habit Three: Put Things First. In Habit Three, Stephen Covey deals with many ofthe questions addressed in the field of personal management. Personal managementtheory, he writes, has evolved in a pattern similar to many other areas of humanendeavor. In social development, for example, the agricultural revolution was

followed by the industrial revolution which eventually gave way to the informationalrevolution. Likewise, in the area of personal management, each generation ofthinking builds on the one before it.

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The first generation of personal management theory could be characterized by theuse of notes and checklists in an effort to give some semblance of organization to themany demands placed on our time and energy. Similarly, the second generationcould be characterized by calendars and appointment books. This phase reflects anattempt to look ahead and plan for future activities and events. The third generation

reflects the current state of personal management. It focuses on setting goals -specific long, intermediate and short-term targets toward which our time and energywould be best directed.

While the third generation of personal management theory has made importantcontributions to the field, people are beginning to realize that "efficient" schedulingand control of time are often counterproductive. The efficiency focus has createdexpectations that clash with opportunities to develop rich relationships, to meethuman needs and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis.

But there is an emerging fourth generation that is different in kind from all of its

predecessors. It recognizes that the challenge is not to manage time but rather tomanage ourselves. Habit Three goes to the heart of effective personal management.It deals with things that are not urgent but are important, such as buildingrelationships, exercising, preparation and preventative maintenance - all those thingswe need to do but rarely get around to doing because they aren't urgent. The objectof Habit Three is to teach us to manage our lives from a center of sound principleswith a focus on balancing the urgent with the important. To return once again to thecomputer metaphor, if Habit One says "You're the programmer," and Habit Two says,"Write the program," then Habit Three says, "Run the program." Running the programis primarily a function of our independent will and our commitment not to short-termgoals but to correct principles and our own deepest values which give context andmeaning to our lives.

Habit Four: Think Win/Win. Whether you're the president of a company or thejanitor, the moment you move from independence to interdependence you step into aleadership role. And the habit of truly effective interpersonal leadership is to ThinkWin/Win.

Win/Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in allhuman interactions. With a Win/Win solution, all parties feel good about a decisionand are committed to a common plan of action.

Roger Fisher and William Ury, two Harvard Law professors, have done someoutstanding work on this subject in what they call the "principled" approach versusthe "positional" approach to interpersonal bargaining. They suggest that the essenceof principled negotiation is to separate the person from the problem, to focus oninterests and not positions, to invent options for mutual gain, and to insist on externaland objective criteria that all parties can buy into. Stephen Covey firmly supports theirapproach. In fact, Habits Five and Six deal directly with several elements of thisstrategy.

Habit Five: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. We all have a

tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But often we fail to take thetime to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.

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According to Dr. Covey, the most important principle in the field of interpersonalrelations is to Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. Many people do notlisten with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply. They're eitherspeaking or preparing to speak. Yet, next to physical survival, the greatest needs of ahuman being are to be understood, to be validated and to be appreciated. Seeking to

understand, therefore, is an extremely powerful habit of effective interdependence.

Habit Six: Synergize! When Sir Winston Churchill was called to head up the wareffort for Great Britain, he remarked that all of his life had prepared him for this hour.In a similar sense, the exercise of Habits One through Five prepares us for the Habitof Synergy.

Synergy, simply defined, means the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Itmeans that the relationship which the parts have to each other is a part in and ofitself. Valuing differences is the essence of synergy - the mental, emotional andpsychological differences between people. And the key to valuing those differences,

writes Stephen Covey, is to realize that all people see the world not as it is, but asthey are. When someone disagrees with you, you can say, "Good! You see itdifferently." And you don't have to argue with them, you can simply affirm them. Andyou can seek to understand.

When you see only two alternatives - yours and the "wrong" one - you can look for asynergistic third alternative. And if you work with a Win/Win philosophy, you canusually find a solution that will be better off for everyone concerned.

Habit Seven: Sharpen The Saw. Habit Seven is all about preserving and enhancingthe greatest asset you have - you. It's renewing the four dimensions of your nature:physical, spiritual, mental and social.

The physical dimension involves caring properly for our body by eating the right kindsof foods, getting sufficient rest and exercising on a regular basis. Renewing thespiritual dimension provides leadership to your life just as a commitment to life-longeducation provides vital mental renewal. Finally, while the physical, spiritual andmental dimensions of your nature are closely related to Habits One, Two and Three,the social dimension focuses the principles of interpersonal leadership and effectivecommunication enshrined in Habits Four, Five and Six. Success in the final threeHabits is not primarily a matter of intellect; it's primarily a matter of emotion. It's highly

related to our sense of personal security, which comes from sources withinourselves. Living a life of integrity, says Stephen Covey, is the only way to achievepersonal security and to realize the important social dimension of human nature.

To sum up, then, if we take nothing else away from Stephen Covey's book, we woulddo well to remember that change - real change - comes from the inside out. It doesn'tcome from hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior with quick fix personalityoriented techniques. It comes from striking at the root; at the fabric of our thought thatgives definition to our character and creates the lens through which we see the world.It isn't an easy process. But it is possible. It begins with the desire to center our liveson correct principles and to rid ourselves of unworthy habits.