Book Review: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I can’t think of a single book that has added so much to the lexicon of corporate jargon. Proactive. Synergize. Think win/win. Urgency vs. importance. Circle of influence. Creative cooperation. Personal mission statements.

I don’t know how many of these terms were invented by Stephen Covey, but it sure seems like that he popularized them. Their current familiarity indicates that this book, published 23 years ago and still in print, has stood the test of time.

Despite the fact that some people only know these ideas through parody—as evidenced by  Scott Adams’ Dilbert book Seven Years of Highly Defective People and 7 Habits of Highly Defective People (ironically out of print)—the book is actually pretty good.

I first read The Seven Habits in 2002, but I picked it up again recently to see what additional perspective 9 years of life might add to the content. I was pleased with most of it.

The Seven Habits

The seven habits referred to are:

1. Being proactive: taking responsibility for yourself
2. Beginning with the end in mind: creating a vision of yourself and the impact you want to have in your life
3. Putting first things first: setting aside time for those important activities that support your vision from habit 2
4. Thinking win/win: whenever possible, being willing to walk away from deals where both parties are not happy with the outcome
5. Seeking first to understand, then to be understood: practicing empathic listening before trying to impose your view
6. Synergizing: creatively cooperating with other people to come up with “third way” solutions that are better than either person’s original idea
7. Sharpening the saw: recuperating in the physical, mental, spiritual, and social domains.

The habits are organized in a specific order. The first three habits move an individual from dependence—a child-like existence of irresponsibility—to independence—an more adult state where you take can take care of yourself. Those habits are focused on private victory.

However, independence is not the end state of an effective individual. Interdependence—working with other people to mutual benefit—is the objective. The second three habits focus on public victories which improve interdependence.

The last habit nourishes body, mind, spirit, and relationships so that one does not burn out.

One of the key points in the book is that independence is a necessary intermediate step on the way to interdependence. One can not be an effective collaborator until they can provide for themselves.

The model of the seven habits looks something like this (my own rendition considering the limitations of my diagramming software):

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, reformatted from the original Stephen Covey model

The Seven Principles

The very first chapter, Inside-Out, describes the early 20th century rise of the personality theory of effectiveness and leadership over the character-based theory. According to personality theory, people behave certain ways at certain times, which leads to success. The older theory (quite old, actually) is that a person possesses character traits or follows principles that lead them to behave in a certain manner, which then results in success. The popularity of the personality theory resulted from its promise of “shortcuts” to success. It seems that business and management literature is starting to move back to character, or trait, theory, but personality techniques are still popular.

Covey describes this process in detail and eschews “techniques” in favor of principles.

So, what I initially found interesting about the model is that it puts the “techniques” (the habits) first.

However, these habits are mere manifestations of underlying principles. Based on this idea, I reformulated the seven habits model into a “principles” model:

Seven Principles of Highly Effective People, model adapted from Stephen Covey

The reformulated model works as follows:

• Following principles of personal vision leads to being proactive.
• Following principles of personal leadership leads to beginning with the end in mind.
• Following principles of personal management leads to putting first things first.
• Following principles of interpersonal leadership leads to thinking win/win.
• Following principles of empathic communication leads to seeking first to understand.
• Following principles of creative cooperation leads to synergizing.
• Following principles of balanced self-renewal leads to sharpening of the saw.

This also makes is a little more obvious that the first three principles are about private victory, and the second three principles are about public victory. Finally, the linear path from dependence to independence to interdependence is clearly illustrated.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that the book is worth reading (or re-reading) for just about anyone. Although the last chapter delves a bit too deeply into new-agey mysticism for my taste, the content forms a sound basis for living, working, and developing relationships.

Related posts:

1. You Are Your Habits