The Seven Habits The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Peopleof Highly Effective People

Habit 1: Be ProactiveHabit 2: Begin With the End in MindHabit 3: Put First Things FirstHabit 4: Think Win-winHabit 5: Seek First To Understand,

Then to Be UnderstoodHabit 6: SynergizeHabit 7: Sharpen the Saw

From the Moment of Birth We From the Moment of Birth We Conditioned Ourselves to Develop Conditioned Ourselves to Develop Personal Habits and As We Grow Personal Habits and As We Grow Older We Fall Victim of Such Older We Fall Victim of Such Conditioning. But We Are Not Our Conditioning. But We Are Not Our Habits. We Can Make and Break Habits. We Can Make and Break Them.Them.

Habits are patterns of behavior composed of three overlapping components:

knowledgeattitudes skills

And since these are learned rather than inherited, our habits constitute our second nature, not our first.

But, we are not our But, we are not our habits habits

Hence, we should avoid defining ourselves in terms of our habits and characteristic tendencies. Habits of effectiveness can be learned; habits of ineffectiveness, unlearned.

“All successful people have the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either, necessarily, but their dislike is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.”

Successful people daily weave habits of effectiveness into their lives in order to achieve desired results. Often, they are internally motivated by a strong sense of mission.By subordinating their dislike for certain tasks to their goals, they commonly develop seven basic habits and discipline their lives in accordance with the underlying principles.

The Character Ethic and the The Character Ethic and the Personality EthicPersonality Ethic The Seven Habits grew out of Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s

extensive review of success literature in America since 1776. In his research, he discovered that during the nation’s formative years years and throughout its first 150 years, the character ethic (moral qualities of self-discipline) was emphasized over personality development. Prominently featured were such traits as temperance, sincerity, humility, courage, integrity, honesty, industry, and thrift. The character Ethic taught that there are certain basic principles of enduring happiness as they learn and intergrate these principles into their basic character.

Since the 1930s, however, the emphasis has steadily shifted from character to personality or influence techniques, methods, and skills – all designed to achieve quick and painless results.

The “success literature” of recent years has virtually severed social and career development from character development, leaving people uprooted and swayed by the whims of others and the winds of expediency.

This Personality Ethic teaches that success is a function of public image, of attitudes and behaviors, skills and formulas that lubricate the processes of human interaction.

This personality-based approach often becomes 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 want, or to intimidate their way through life.

Timeless PrinciplesTimeless Principles Character, basically, is a composite of habits.

The Seven Habits are based upon the timeless principle called the Law of the Harvest: we tend to reap what we sow. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny,” the maxim goes.

Habits are powerful factors in our lives. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character and produce our effectiveness –or ineffectiveness.

Those who watched the lunar voyage of Apollo 11 were transfixed as the first men walked on the moon and returned to earth. But to get there, those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of lift off, in the first few miles of travel, than was used over the next several days to travel half a million miles.

Habits, too, have tremendous gravity pull-more than most people realize or would admit. Breaking deeply imbedded habitual tendencies such as procrastination, impatience, criticalness, or selfishness that violate basic principles of human effectiveness involves more than a little willpower and a few minor changes in our lives. “Liftoff” takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the pull of gravity, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension.

Like any natural force, gravity can work with us or against us. The gravity pull of some of our habits may currently be keeping us from going where we want to go. But it is also gravity that keeps our world together, that keeps the planets in their orbits and our universe in order. It is a powerful force, and if we use it effectively, we can use the gravity pull of habit to create the cohesiveness and order necessary to establish effectiveness in our lives.

EffectivenessEffectiveness and Balanceand BalanceWe are effective when we balance

Production and Production Capability.Most people, when they talk about being effective, mean getting results. Getting results is certainly a key part of being effective, but that’s not all there is to it. Effectiveness has a second dimension as well.That second dimension of effectiveness is preserving and enhancing our assets.

By assets, we mean more than just money, equipment, and buildings. We also mean things like physical health, mental alertness, emotional stability, skills, knowledge, values,

and relationships with other people. These intangibles are assets because we can’t produce results without them. That is why effective people pay attention to them and why this definition of effectiveness has an extra dimension that deals with them.

PART I

Production (P) and production Production (P) and production Capability (PC)Capability (PC)The point is that consistent effectiveness always

comes from a balance - a balance between results and the assets that produce results.

We call the results Production, which we abbreviate with the letter P. We call the assets Production Capability, which we abbreviate PC.

Effectiveness then, is a balance between Production and Production Capability, or P and PC.

Our Production Capability comes from three kinds of assets: physical, financial, and human.To most people, assets mean the sort of things that we list on a balance sheet, mainly money and capital equipment. Most corporations, however, now recognize that people are assets as well. People are the “human resource,” and “human resource management” is becoming an increasingly important item on the corporate agenda.

Of course, human resources belong on our personal agenda as well. We are fully effective only when we attend to the human elements of our lives, beginning with ourselves. We are our most important “human resource,” followed closely by the relationship that we have with other people. Humana assets, added to the usual balance-sheet, make three asset categories: physical, financial, and human. Physical assets are office, car, tools, equipment, and so on. Financial assets are the various forms of money.

Human assets, added to the usual balance-sheet assets, make three asset categories: physical, financial, and human.

Physical assets are office, car, tools, equipment, and so on.

Financial assets are the various forms of money. Human assets are such things as health, talent,

education, and our relationships with other people.

The three kinds of assets form our Production Capability, that extra dimension that allows us to become truly effective.

Of the three kinds of assets, human assets are Of the three kinds of assets, human assets are the most important – and often the most the most important – and often the most neglected.neglected. On the whole, human assets are more important than

physical or financial assets because they determine how the other two assets are used. They become more important as organizations become more complex or more dependent on expensive and complicated technology.

Among the various human assets, relationships are particularly important. Weak relationships cause poor communication, tension, disagreements, jealousy, back-biting, and criticism-negative elements that are costly, both to the organization and to us as individuals. They drain time, energy, and resources that we might otherwise turn into corporate profit and personal fulfillment.

Human assets are often neglected, perhaps because they’re less tangible. It’s harder to know their condition and what to do affect them. In addition, when we act on physical and financial assets, we don’t have to consider how they feel, nor do we have to take into account how they might act back. But people – the reservoirs of human resources-have feelings and act back, so we have to deal, not just with action, but with interaction, which is both more subtle and more complicated. As a result, it’s easy to avoid dealing with human assets until they cause problems that can’t be ignored.

Part 2 Part 2 The Emotional Bank AccountThe Emotional Bank Account

– A metaphor about relationship. The Emotional Bank Account represents the amount of trust that has been built up in the relationship.

– We build or deplete our Emotional Bank Account balance with other people just as we do an ordinary bank account balance: by making deposits and withdrawals. Deposits increase the balance; withdrawals reduce it.

– We build strong and productive relationships by making deposits in an Emotional Bank Account.

Deposits are things we do that increase trust in the relationship: small kindnesses and courtesies, keeping promises, clarifying and honoring expectations, integrity, loyalty, apologies, and so on. Withdrawals are acts that decrease trust: unkindness, criticism, breaking promises, disloyalty, and so on.

The idea behind the metaphor is this: by making deposits, we build a reservoir of goodwill and trust that enables us to communicate more effectively with others. On the other hand, when we take withdrawals, we separate ourselves from other people and lose whatever benefits our relationship with them might have brought us.

Deposits work only when they Deposits work only when they are sincere.are sincere.On the surface, the idea of making Emotional Bank

Account deposits seems straightforward, as does the idea that they can work to our advantage; however, there’s a subtle trap hidden there that we need to be aware of.

The trap is this: Emotional Bank Account deposits work to our advantage only if that’s not what we have in mind when we do them. In other words, if we make deposits with the idea of taking advantage of others, they can turn into withdrawals because they’re insincere.

When we make obvious withdrawals, people at least have the advantage of knowing where we stand. But when we’re insincere, they’re likely to sense it without understanding it, and they won’t know what’s going on. That uncertainty can destroy trust as quickly and as surely as the obvious withdrawals.

The antidote to insincere deposits is “unconditional love.” Unconditional love means exactly that: love given without conditions, love given with nothing expected in return. We can express unconditional love only by making unconditional deposits, meaning deposits that we make for their own sake, not because we expect to get anything from them.

Our most constant relationships Our most constant relationships require us to make the most require us to make the most constant deposits.constant deposits.We may think that the people we’re close

to regularly don’t need deposits. But the opposite is true. When we’re apart from people, they can understand our lack of deposits, and they may even forget our withdrawals. But when we’re with someone, that same lack of deposits can become a withdrawal because it shows a lack of care and concern.

In this respect, Emotional Bank Account differ from regular bank accounts. We can leave money in a regular bank account, do nothing with it, and have it grow anyway, or at least stay steady. Emotional bank accounts don’t work that way. If we don’t tend to them through regular deposits, they lose value. As Thoreau put it, “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another very tenderly.”

Building and repairing Building and repairing relationships take patience.relationships take patience.When relationships aren’t going well, we

want to repair them quickly. But we can’t fix in a day something that we’ve created over months or years of withdrawals. As Stephen puts it, we can’t talk ourselves our of problems that we behaved ourselves into.

Building and repairing Building and repairing relationships take patience.relationships take patience. In addition, relationships are so important to

us that we’re almost always interested in their status, It’s easy to get anxious to know how things stand. But if we try to find out too soon, we risk making a withdrawal. Testing a relationship too soon is like pulling up a young plant to see if it’s taken root. As we mentioned above, deposits should be made for their own sake, as an expression of love, not measured for their effect. The effect will come, but only if we have patience to allow it to take its natural course.

When we live the primary laws When we live the primary laws of love, we encourage people of love, we encourage people to live the primary laws of life.to live the primary laws of life.Primary Laws are fundamental and

timeless principles that express the orderly and lawful nature of life. We become effective by following these primary laws.

When we live the primary laws When we live the primary laws of love, we encourage people of love, we encourage people to live the primary laws of life.to live the primary laws of life.

There is, for example, a “Primary Law of Love.” It is that love must be unconditional.

There are also “Primary Laws of Life,” laws that express the value of such principles as integrity, creativity, self-discipline, and appreciation.

When we live the primary laws When we live the primary laws of love, we encourage people of love, we encourage people to live the primary laws of life.to live the primary laws of life.The nature of these primary laws is such

that learning to live any one law helps us live them all. As we become more able to express unconditional love, for example, we also become more able to live with integrity, creativity, self-discipline, and appreciation.

When we live the primary laws When we live the primary laws of love, we encourage people of love, we encourage people to live the primary laws of life.to live the primary laws of life.This interconnection among the primary

laws is also a factor in our relationships with other people. When we love people unconditionally, for example, we also encourage them to live with integrity, creativity, self-discipline, and appreciation.

Our own deposits and withdrawals Our own deposits and withdrawals are the only thing that we can are the only thing that we can control in a relationship.control in a relationship.Often in our relationships we want to control

other people. At the same time, we resist their attempts to control us, scarcely remembering that if we resist control, they no doubt resist it as well.

The fact is, neither we, nor they, can be controlled by anyone else. We are each responsible for our own control.

We can be influenced, however, and we can influence others. Influence comes from a Latin word meaning “to flow,” which suggests how influence and control are different. Control is based on force and creates resistance. Influence is based on those primary laws of life and love that we talked about and allows people, of their own free will, to flow in a direction that leads them to cooperate with us.

When we make sincere deposits in a relationship, we set up conditions that allow us to have influence. But we don’t gain control of the other person, because those same conditions also allow us to be influenced. This mutual influence is what makes relationships effective, and it comes from making a relationship effective, and it comes from making deposits rather than from taking withdrawals. We can control nothing in a relationship but our deposits or withdrawals, but that’s all that we need to control.

End of Part 2End of Part 2Next Presentation:View “To Be Successful 2nd”

The P/PC Balance in OrganizationThe P/PC Balance in Organization

Till then…Till then…