The determination of the exact habits that make a person effective and successful is a challenging activity. This is because the most effective people in world have different character formations and personalities. However, there are common habits that are identifiable with each and every effective person in the world. This is the main focus of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. Covey further explores the abilities that all effective people have in the world, and how other people can emulate them. By analyzing this Covey’s book, the discussion will illustrate the concepts brought about by the book and how they develop the main arguments.
Summary of the Book
The book presents the habits of the highly effective people in a manner that seeks to influence the reader to not only change his perspective but also his paradigm. The biggest chunk of changing the paradigm is changing the concept of success and understanding it from a different perspective. Covey prepares the reader to embrace the habits discussed in the book by defining and comprehensively explaining the concept of paradigm shift. According to Covey (2013), paradigm shift of the ability of changing a person’s perspectives in line with the best view of life. To further prepare the reader for the seven habits, Covey explains the importance of embracing the principles of paradigm shift. He explains that a people can be different, yet they have the same perspectives about life.
Having prepared the reader to embrace new perspective, Covey explores the seven habits that he recommends to be the key habits employed by the successful people. He dedicates each of the chapters to discuss one habit that leads to success, and that successful people do. While he separates them, he creates clear perspectives of the seven habits into three categories; independence, dependence and continuous improvement. The first three habits involve the aspect of creating independence. The second two habits are aimed at helping a person be interdependent with other people. The third category is continuous improvement, which is covered by the seventh habit.
The first habit is being proactive. According to Covey (2013), the most effective people are ready to do and adopt a can-do attitude in their life. The second habit is the beginning with the end in mind. According to Covey (2013), a successful person begins by envisioning the future goal in the resent, and plans with the end results in the mind. The third habit is putting first things first. According to Covey (2013), a successful person manages his own self through the concept of prioritization. By prioritizing things according to their importance, a person is able to use habit one to implement the ideas envisioned in habit two (Covey, 2013). These first three habits create the concept of independence to a successful person.
Interdependence is created by the fourth fifth and sixth habits. The fourth habit is to think win-win. According to Covey (2013), a successful person should embrace mutuality as a principle by employing genuine feeling when thinking about mutual benefits. The principles guiding this idea are integrity, maturity and abundant mentality. The fifth habit is to understand before being understood. According to Covey (2013), a successful person should seek to understand first before being understood. The sixth habit is the synergy. According to Covey (2013), a successful person should seek to combine the abilities of others to common achieve goals that individuals cannot achieve alone. The seventh habit is sharpening the saw. This habit covers continuous improvement of a person by recommending re-energizing personal health, renewing resources, new ideas and improving personal health.
Concepts of independence and Interdependence
Independence and Interdependence are the two main concepts that Covey explores in the book, and carries the biggest chunk of the book. The concept of independence is dear to the author because he wants the reader to discover himself, recognize his potential and set goals. To explore this concept, Covey (2013) recommends the use of activity and being in the readiness to act. Instead of being reactive, Covey (2013) argues that an independent person should act before an event befalls on him, rather than acting in reaction to the events. The use of vision and goal setting also plays a critical role in explaining the concept of independence.
Covey (2013) explores the habit of setting goals and envisioning the future as a big step towards gaining independence and creating a path towards success. This is because envisioning of a goal gives a person the end that he will be working towards. As a result, he creates a path for himself, which guides his decision making. What stands out from the explanation of the concept is that the independence of decision making involves the future goals more than the current state of a person.
After creating a clear understanding of the concept of independence through the three habits, Covey presents the second concept of interdependence. Through the explanation of the fourth, the fifth and the sixth habits, Covey explores the actions that change a person’s character towards working with others. Covey (2013) argues that integrity is a key principle that should guide the concept of interdependence, especially when practicing the win-win habit of thinking. He describes the ability to understand other people and standing in their shoes as the other key habit that nurtures the culture of integrity in dealing with others. Through successful interdependence, more results is achieved because synergy is created as a person achieves what he could not make alone.
Part 3: Exploring inter-dependence
The concept of interdependence is more pronounced in the book, not because it takes three central habits, but because all other sections of the book point right to it. Almost the entire book explains minor concepts and principles that all culminate into building interdependence as the key aspect of personality. According to Covey (2013), interdependence is built by embracing the contribution of others to personal achievements. This is consistent with the management principles of division of labor and the management function of organizing. Organizing involves creating an environment for dividing work and specialization, which promote synergy (rrr mgt). This encourages the appreciation of other people’s contribution to organizational goals.
At the same time, the habits that create independence tend to focus on interdependence because they prepare a person to deal with others. According to (rrr lead), a person is only able to effectively influence other people after he has discovered his own potential and purpose by envisioning a future. In this regard, the idea of being proactive is not only important for personal change but also relevant in successful management and leadership practices. This is consistent with the recommendations by the management and leadership principles that require a person to act before a circumstance, and not being reactive (rrr lead).
In addition, the creation of vision helps a person to change towards the future that he seeks to achieve, thereby attracting the attention of others. This does not only help the person grow his personality, but also influences others around him. This is consistent with the goal setting principles of leadership. This way, a leader is sold out to the vision and creates the same influence on others, thereby influencing their behavior towards the desired vision (rrr lead).
Both rrr lead and rrr mgt agree with Covey (2013) about personal preparation through personal development in building the potential of a person to deal with others. Managers and leaders alike must develop themselves and create decision making processes before influencing others (rrr). In personal development, the ability to deal with people is considered one of the strongest aspects of personal character and personality.
However, the three authors differ in relation to the perspective of writing about the success habits. While rrrld explores the same habits from the leadership perspective, Covey (2013) explores the seven habits as they relate to all people, whether leaders or not. On the other hand, rrrmgt looks at the same concepts from the principles of management and handling people. While they all take different perspective, they agree on the concept of interdependence as the key principle that drives successful personalities.
Part 4: Critique
In the book, Covey (2013) successfully explains the main arguments that he seeks to communicate through the use of the seven habits. In his description of the habits that make people effective and successful, Covey (2013) achieves the mission by dividing them into seven. While they are distinct seven habits, Covey (2013) classifies them into three categories. By doing this, Covey (2013) successfully creates a simple perspective of understanding not only the seven habits but his intention for the book.
In addition, Covey (2013) successfully communicates his intention for the book. From the reading of the three categories of habits, the main intention of Covey (2013) was to describe the habits of successful people and change the reader’s mind into embracing them. Covey does this by first preparing the readers into understanding the need to embrace other perspectives to life, other than what they know by changing their paradigm.
In this book, Covey is appealing because he invokes the core aspects of the reader to think not only about his life but his association with the others. In addition, the style of having seven habits classified into three categories is interesting. The author’s style and manner makes the book unique in explaining the success concepts. What makes the book a unique writing is how Covey introduces and recommends the use of paradigm shift for people to embrace the habits of effective people.
Conclusion
In the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey explores the seven main habits that he considers to be the practice of the highly effective people. Covey describes the habits into three concepts of independence, interdependence and continuous personal improvement. Covey explores these habits with a view of challenging the readers to change their paradigm to allow them embrace the habits. These habits relate to the accepted management and leadership principles as they are consistent with success practices. By presenting the habits in this manner, Covey presents the concepts that people should embrace to attain effectiveness and personal change.