The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B0006IU4C0 | Format: EPUB
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Description
Stephen R. Covey's book,
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has been a top seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. Celebrating its 15th year of helping people solve personal and professional problems, this special anniversary edition includes a new forward and afterword written by Covey that explore whether the 7 Habits are still relevant and answer some of the most common questions he has received over the past 15 years.
This audio edition is the first ever unabridged recording of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 13 hours and 7 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; 15 edition
- Audible.com Release Date: October 6, 2004
- Language: English, English
- ASIN: B0006IU4C0
As the title of the book implies, Covey describes the seven habits of highly effective people and techniques for adopting the seven habits. Covey makes clear that an individual must make a paradigm shift before incorporating these habits into his/her own personal life. A paradigm is essentially the way an individual perceives something. Covey emphasizes that if we want to make a change in our lives, we should probably first focus on our personal attitudes and behaviors. He applies different examples via family, business, and society in general.
This book's focal point is on an approach to obtain personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Covey points out that private victories precede public victories. He makes the example that making and keeping promises to ourselves comes before making and keeping promises to others.
Habits 1, 2, and 3 deal with self-mastery. They move an individual from dependency on others to independence. Habits 4, 5, and 6 deal with teamwork, cooperation, and communication. These habits deal with transforming a person from dependency to independence to interdependence. Interdependence simply means mutual dependence. Habit 7 embodies all of the other habits to help an individual work toward continuous improvement.
Habit 1 discusses the importance of being proactive. Covey states that we are responsible for our own lives; therefore, we possess the initiative to make things happen. He also points out that proactive people so not blame various circumstances for their behaviors but they realize behavior comes from one's conscious. Covey also explains that the other type of person is reactive. Reactive people are affected by their social as well as physical surroundings.
"If you don't have confidence in the diagnosis, you won't have confidence in the prescription" (244)
Stephen Covey has much to say on the qualities of effective people. Covey's purpose in detailing the seven habits is to help people improve themselves. The seven habits are woven into a tapestry on a diagram that shows the working of all seven habits in communion. When viewing the diagram, one is reminded of Benjamin Franklin's engraving of the snake which was divided into thirteen pieces, with the caption "Join or Die." Each of the seven habits is integral to viewing the picture as a whole, as well as seeing the development from dependence to independence to interdependence. The reader is pulled into activities for further application, to decide what type of Quadrant II activities exist, and to find what is at the center of the reader's life in a bid to understand how paradigms work. The first three habits, which lead to independence, a private victory, lead to the final four steps, which include public victory.
Habit #1: Be Proactive
Being proactive is the foundation of the entire seven habits paradigm. In a sense, all the other habits are types of being proactive. This entails a realization that you are a person who can take direct control of a situation and, even if you have no actions that you are allowed to perform, you can still control your outlook.
Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind
Covey begins this section with the description of the reader's funeral as an illustration of how one end in view can change the previous years' effort. The visualized step of seeing the end is the first part of any successful plan.
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