The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People suggests a discipline for our personal dealings with people which would be undoubtedly valuable if people stopped to think about it.
-- James C. Fletcher, Director, NASA
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey serves up a seven-course meal on how to take control of one's life and become the complete, fulfilling person one envisions. It is a satisfying, energetic, step-by-step book that is applicable for personal and business progress.
-- Roger Staubach, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback
THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE brought to you by FlyHeart
Paradigms and Principles
The Personality and Character Ethics
The character ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.
Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even deceptive, encouraging people to use techniques to get other people to like them, or to fake interest in the hobbies of others to get out of them what they wanted, or to use the "power look," or to intimidate their way through life.
Some of this literature acknowledged character as an ingredient of success, but tended to compartmentalize it rather than recognize it as foundational and catalytic. Reference to the character ethic became mostly lip service; the basic thrust was quick-fix influence techniques, power strategies, communication skills, and positive attitudes.
This personality ethic, I began to realize, was the subconscious source of the solutions Sandra and I were attempting to use with our son. As I thought more deeply about the difference between the personality and character ethics, I realized that Sandra and I had been getting social mileage out of our children's good behavior, and, in our eyes, this son simply didn't measure up. Our image of ourselves, and our role as good, caring parents was even deeper than our image of our son and perhaps influenced it. There was a lot more wrapped up in the way we were seeing and handling the problem than our concern for our son's welfare.
Primary and Secondary Greatness
I am not suggesting that elements of the personality ethic -- personality growth, communication skill training, and education in the field of influence strategies and positive thinking -- are not beneficial, in fact sometimes essential for success. I believe they are. But these are secondary, not primary traits.
Perhaps, in utilizing our human capacity to build on the foundation of generations before us, we have inadvertently become so focused on our own building that we have forgotten the foundation that holds it up; or in reaping for so long where we have not sown, perhaps we have forgotten the need to sow.
If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other -- while my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity -- then, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I do -- even using so-called good human relations techniques -- will be perceived as manipulative. It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique.
To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don’t pay the price day in and day out, you ever achieve true mastery of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind.
Many people with secondary greatness -- that is, social recognition for their talents -- lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner or later, you'll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it is with a business associate, a spouse, a friend, or a teenage child going through an identity crisis. It is character that communicates most eloquently. As Emerson once put it, "What you are shouts so loudly in my ears that I cannot hear what you say."
There are, of course, situations where people have character strength but they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well. But the effects are still secondary.
In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.
We all know it. There are people we trust absolutely because we know their character. Whether they're eloquent or not, whether they have the human relations techniques or not, we trust them, and we work successfully with them.
The Power of a Paradigm
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People embody many of the fundamental principles of human effectiveness. These habits are basic; they are primary. They represent the internalization of correct principles upon which enduring happiness and success are based.
You might work on your behavior -- you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.
You might work on your attitude -- you could think more positively. You still wouldn't get to the right place, but perhaps you wouldn't care. Your attitude would be so positive, you'd be happy wherever you were.
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.
The Power of a Paradigm Shift
Not all Paradigm Shifts are in positive directions. As we have observed, the shift from the character ethic to the personality ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.
But whether they shift us in positive or negative directions, whether they are instantaneous or developmental, Paradigm Shifts move us from one way of seeing the world to another. And those shifts create powerful change. Our paradigms, correct or incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships with others.
It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
Seeing and Being
The approach we had first taken with him was the outgrowth of years of conditioning and experience in the personality ethic.
Our Paradigms are the way we "see" the world or circumstances -- not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting. Paradigms are inseparable from character. Being is seeing in the human dimension. And what we see is highly interrelated to what we are. We can't go very far to change our seeing without simultaneously changing our being, and vice versa.
Even in my apparently instantaneous paradigm-shifting experience that morning on the subway, my change of vision was a result of -- and limited by -- my basic character.
I'm sure there are people who, even suddenly understanding the true situation, would have felt no more than a twinge of regret or vague guilt as they continued to sit in embarrassed silence beside the grieving, confused man. On the other hand, I am equally certain there are people who would have been far more sensitive in the first place, who may have recognized that a deeper problem existed and reached out to understand and help before I did.
Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world. The power of a Paradigm Shift is the essential power of quantum change, whether that shift is an instantaneous or a slow and deliberate process.
The Principle-Centered Paradigm
While individuals may look at their own lives and interactions in terms of paradigms or maps emerging out of their experience and conditioning, these maps are not the territory. They are a "subjective reality," only an attempt to describe the territory. The principles I am referring to are not esoteric, mysterious, or "religious" ideas. There is not one principle taught in this book that is unique to any specific faith or religion, including my own. These principles are a part of every major enduring religion, as well as enduring social philosophies and ethical systems. They are self-evident and can easily be validated by any individual. Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. They're fundamental. They're essentially unarguable because they are self-evident. One way to quickly grasp the self-evident nature of principles is to simply consider the absurdity of attempting to live an effective life based on their opposites. I doubt that anyone would seriously consider unfairness, deceit, baseness, uselessness, mediocrity, or degeneration to be a solid foundation for lasting happiness and success. Although people may argue about how these principles are defined or manifested or achieved, there seems to be an innate consciousness and awareness that they exist.
Principles of Growth and Change
We know and accept this fact or principle of process in the area of physical things, but to understand it in emotional areas, in human relations, and even in the area of personal character is less common and more difficult. And even if we understand it, to accept it and to live in harmony with it are even less common and more difficult. Consequently, we sometimes look for a shortcut, expecting to be able to skip some of these vital steps in order to save time and effort and still reap the desired result.
But what happens when we attempt to shortcut a natural process in our growth and development?
If you are only an average tennis player but decide to play at a higher level in order to make a better impression, what will result? Would positive thinking alone enable you to compete effectively against a professional?
What if you were to lead your friends to believe you could play the piano at concert hall level while your actual present skill was that of a beginner?
The answers are obvious. It is simply impossible to violate, ignore, or shortcut this development process. It is contrary to nature, and attempting to seek such a shortcut only results in disappointment and frustration.
The Way We See the Problem is the Problem
People are intrigued when they see good things happening in the lives of individuals, families, and organizations that are based on solid principles. They admire such personal strength and maturity, such family unity and teamwork, such adaptive synergistic organizational culture.
The personality ethic tells me there must be something out there -- some new planner or seminar that will help me handle all these pressures in a more efficient way.
But is there a chance that efficiency is not the answer? Is getting more things done in less time going to make a difference -- or will it just increase the pace at which I react to the people and circumstances that seem to control my life?
Whether people see it or not, many are becoming disillusioned with the empty promises of the personality ethic. As I travel around the country and work with organizations, I find that long-term thinking executives are simply turned off by psyche up psychology and "motivational" speakers who have nothing more to share than entertaining stories mingled with platitudes.
They want substance; they want process. They want more than aspirin and band-aids. They want to solve the chronic underlying problems and focus on the principles that bring long-term results.
A New Level of Thinking
Albert Einstein observed, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
As we look around us and within us and recognize the problems created as we live and interact within the personality ethic, we begin to realize that these are deep, fundamental problems that cannot be solved on the superficial level on which they were created.
We need a new level, a deeper level of thinking -- a paradigm based on the principles that accurately describe the territory of effective human being and interacting -- to solve these deep concerns.
This new level of thinking is what Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is about. It's a principle-centered, character-based, "Inside-Out" approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.
"Inside-Out" means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self -- with your paradigms, your character, and your motives.
