Preface: Steve R. Covey has written a book about what he thinks are seven habits of highly effective people. Read a summary here.

 

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – Summary

Highly effective people share some habits. The first habit = they are proactive. What is the difference between a proactive person and reactive. Simply Vision. If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, you don’t know when you have reached what you call an accomplishment. Highly effective people need a clear blue print of what they (you) are building, then they build it. That’s being proactive. Maybe you can build a playhouse without a blue print, but not a Cape Cod house. And if you’re trying to build One World Trade Center, let’s say to aim high you need to proactive. You need a comprehensive blueprint.

Measure twice, Cut Once. Every building requires blueprint revision, tweaking, and perfection, before any construction begins. Your life should have the same systematic planning. Everything is created twice. Once in the mind, and then again in reality – the finished product. Highly effective people are first visionary creators, then secondly builders.

Habit Two = begin with the end in mind. Think of the project you’re working on, or a project you want to work on. Visualize the completed product. See it, touch it, taste it, feel it. What is your reaction to the finished product? Will your customers or clients like it? Will it merely be ok, or delight them? Highly effective people think of masterpiece – every time.

Put first things first = the third habit. What is important? Do that first.

Habit four = Go for the win-win. Seek win-win solutions for everyone involved. You must understand what the other party wants and needs, their objectives to achieve win-win. You must also know what win-win means to you. You must understand to manage yourself, before you can manage the building project.

Habit five = Seek first to understand then to be understood. You must communicate clearly and effectively with all parties to clearly understand everyone’s uniquely desired outcome. Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of waking hours communicating. Think about this. You spent years learning to read and write, years learning to speak. But how many years have you spent learning to listen? What training to you have or education that has taught you to listen so you really understand another person in communication. Maybe you’re saying, oh, come one – I know how to listen, I’ve been listening for years. Ok, but have you be doing it effectively? Learn to listen with purpose. What is your purpose for listening? What do you hope to accomplish? You can listen at four levels i) ignoring ii) pretending iii) selective iv) attentive listening – paying attention and focusing on the words that are being said. Then a fifth level of listening exists – empathetic listening. Listing with intent to understand. Seeing the world through the other person’s eyes and understanding the emotion and motive behind the words. Just keep in mind, words aren’t the whole story. At the end of the day, people just want to be heard. Empathetic listening is about rephrasing the content and reflecting the feeling of what’s being communicated.

Habit six = Synergy. Seek out ways that one plus one equals eleven and not two. How do people complement each other, and achieve more. When you can build synergy you can be more effective. Together you can achieve more than alone.

Habit seven = Sharpening the Saw. That includes scheduling what matters, each and every day. It’s about taking time to build your most important asset – you. Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable long-term effective lifestyle. Primary emphasis on renewing the physical and spiritual being.

 

Read entire book here –http://www.depts.ttu.edu/upwardbound/books/the-7-habits-ofhighly-effective-people.pdf