The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Author: Stephen R. Covey

Who should read it: CEOs, Company Founders, Entrepreneurs, Managers  

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  This is a ‘classic’ for entrepreneurs and executives.  First published 1989, it has become a cornerstone book on how to achieve success and make your visions reality.  In it, Steven Covey discusses how to set your goals, how to manage your time and resources against them, and how to align with others so that you achieve success.   If you are new to the book, it is a ‘must read’. To the many of you who have already read it, I trust that my experience on how to apply it will be useful.

I regard this as one of the top three reads (the other two to be reviewed soon – stay tuned). Of the three, this is THE book to read on developing a game plan for accomplishing what you want in life.  If there is one book you should recommend to that graduating student (MBA, college, high school) who looks to you for advice, and to your executive team – this is it. 

 The biggest challenge with this book is that there is so much in it that readers often have to put it down before it is finished, so they can ‘process’ what it says. When I first read it, I had to stop half way through. I have now read it three times and strongly recommend that you persevere too, since every chapter is rich with powerful advice.

The Ideas: Stephen Covey’s Elegant Model in a Nutshell:

Manage yourself

• Begin with the end in mind - decide what you want from your life and what is truly important. This is key for goal alignment in both your life and your company, and the author explains why in a very motivating and engaging way.
• Be proactive – take control of the events that affect your goals. This is particularly important in the world of entrepreneurship where a small team of people can change how things are done and solve major problems.
• Put first things first - prioritize. There is too much to summarize here, but one concept that has a major impact when applied is outlined below, “Important not urgent”.

Align yourself with others

• Seek first to understand, then to be understood – listen. No communication happens unless listening is involved. Covey presents a specific and effective process for this.
• Think win-win. This can seem trite but there is a lot to it. In Covey’s book (and my own) it isn’t an option. Speaking from the experience of having managed hundreds of negotiations, I know that people and their organizations get so caught up on achieving their own personal or corporate goals that they miss this step. 
• Synergize – This is my favorite and, I believe, most valuable lesson to be learned from the book. This is about the power of identifying your partner’s win (or anyone you deal with in a major way), and aligning it with yours. Put this into action and you will attend to your own needs while working for their success. Practice it and you will see tremendous outcomes. 

Keep growing. For those of you that read Talent is Over Rated, this point will hit home.   Covey sets out why this requires an ongoing, focused time investment and highlights how you achieve it.

Seven Habits Applied:

This book has proven to be a valuable resource to me over the years. It is relevant to me as an entrepreneur both in terms of how I manage myself, and in how I have influenced and managed my businesses. In one business,  we asked the entire company (hundreds of people) to read it and then implemented consulting sessions to help get the organization using the same frameworks and language that Covey uses.   It was very helpful and empowering.  

In a book this relevant, with this much rich content, there is a lot to discuss as it applies to entrepreneurs. For the purposes of this review I will highlight two habits and ask you to bear in mind that these lessons applied here are just a part of the content and advice offered.  

Habit 3:  Put first things first. 

 A vital skill for the successful entrepreneur.

Covey classifies tasks into four quadrants according to whether they are Important/Not important and Urgent/Not Urgent.   

 
Spend too much time on tasks that are Urgent, Important and Urgent, Not Important (the emergencies) and you will be busy, perhaps manic, but not effective. Covey proposes that we would be better to prioritize that which is is Important, Not Urgent  by reserving time that you currently spend on tasks in the other categories. It's hard to do but is the proven way to make real, goal-measured progress. If you apply yourself to this, you will find that, over time, you will have fewer Urgent tasks because you have addressed their root causes.

The transition involves a significant change in behavior and Covey also discusses some ways to achieve that in the book. 

You can think of focusing on Important, Not Urgent versus Important, Urgent as farming versus hunting for food.  Every day we have immediate challenges to take on, and we work hard to tackle them.  This is the hunting model and it is the Important, Urgent because if we don't do it we will go hungry.  But if we invest some of our time every day on farming, over time we will have positive results and options on how we can spend our time. Perhaps we will even grow enough food to hire some hunters to hunt for us!

Think of Important, Not Urgent as the key to entrepreneurship, this where you find the time to innovate (Talent is Overrated). Important, Not Urgent is where you find the time to invest in developing predictive models ( Supercrunching).

 Mastering Important, Not Urgent is how you innovate to where you want to take your business. For you and I, me writing this blog and your reading it is Important, Not Urgent. So is reading this book.

 

Habit 6:  Synergize
Figure out what is the most important or desire goal for your clients to achieve, and then figure out a business model where you are 100% focused on them hitting that goal (Note: you can substitute any other important person here : wife, kids, brother, employee etc.). Do this and your personal win becomes perfectly aligned with theirs and you have tremendous positive force for action – lots of positive energy.  Apply this to a channel and you have a great flywheel driving your vision forward. 

As an example of this application, in my current business, we have made one of our primary goals protecting and maximizing the value of founder equity.  The skills we work on are focused on achieving this goal.   We evangelize bootstrapping to entrepreneur start ups that are too small for our fund to invest in because it supports our mission/goal.   Bootstrapping is one of the most effective ways for founders to preserve equity.  We like to back companies where founders retain their equity so there is a realistic chance for a big win over a wide range of outcomes. 

So, in summary, I suggest you read the book in its entirety. Be patient if you get stuck half way through – this one is worth finishing.  Then think about which of the 7 Habits would be most helpful for your team.  You can have them read the book, or perhaps focus on a chapter (accept that not everyone spends an equal time reading).  If you can get your organization to synergize internally and externally then you will have a lot of people working to make your shared vision a reality.   Finally, consider hiring their consultants to work with your team in implementing the relevant component of their program. We have used them in the past and found them to be quite effective. 

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.  Thomas A. Edison

A comment added by the book's author, Stephen Covey on 1/26/2010:

"Javier, I graciously thank you for your insightful review of my book, 7 Habits.  Although it was written more than twenty years ago, I still fervently feel its message is as timeless and pertinent today as ever for people in all walks of life, including entrepreneurs.  Enduring principles never change or bend despite the whirlwinds surrounding them-- be it economical, political or personal. One thing is for sure,  I've had enough feed-back over the years to know that these habits have been tried and tested again and again and I am happy to say that they still hold strong.  That is because the habits are based on universal principles.  I didn’t discover these principles, of course, as they belong to all humankind.  I just organized the 7 Habits into a useful framework that enables people to access the power of these principles.  Thank you again for the kindness of your review and best of luck in all of your future endeavors!"  
        --Stephen R. Covey, author, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and co-founder, FranklinCovey Co.

ISBN: 978-06717-08634

Comments

[Michael Miller]

Javier ~

Thank you for the reminder. I noticed your post of this review on my favorite site ... linkedin.com.

It's been many years since I read 7 Habits. It's time to read again. These books are like getting a booster shot for life. And Covey is one of the great authors.

What do you think about Napoleon Hill's epic success book? A paperback copy of Think and Grow Rich was given to me by a mentor during my undergrad studies in business and it has served well throughout my journey.

I look forward to your next review ...

~ Michael

[Richard Goldstein]

Nice job.