The 7 habits of highly effective people summary
Part 1: PARADIGMS and PRINCIPLES
a) Inside-out
We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change ourselves. And to change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.
THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER ETHICS
The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective Living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character.
But shortly after World War 1 the basic view of success shifted from the Character Ethic to what we might call the Personality Ethic. Success became more a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and behaviours, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction.
I am not suggesting that elements of the Personality Ethic—personality growth, communication skill training, and education in the field of influence strategies and positive thinking—are not beneficial, in fact sometimes essential for success. I believe they are. But these are secondary, not primary traits.
THE POWER OF A PARADIGM
Before we can really understand these Seven Habits, we need to understand our own “paradigms” and how to make a “paradigm shift.”
Both the Character Ethic and the Personality Ethic are examples of social paradigms .In the more general sense, it’s the way we “see” the world—not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, interpreting.
For our purposes, a simple way to understand paradigms is to see them as maps. We all know that “the map is not the territory.” A map is simply an explanation of certain aspects of the territory. That’s exactly what a paradigm is .Suppose you wanted to arrive at a specific location in central Chicago. But suppose you were given the wrong map. Through a printing error, the map labeled “Chicago” was actually a map of Detroit. Can you imagine the frustration, the ineffectiveness of trying to reach your destination?
You might work on your behavior—you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.
You might work on your attitude—you could think more positively. You still wouldn’t get to the right place, but perhaps you wouldn’t care. Your attitude would be so positive, you’d be happy wherever you were.
The point is, you’d still be lost. The fundamental problem has nothing to do with your behavior or your attitude. It has everything to do with having a wrong map.
If you have the right map of Chicago, then diligence becomes important, and when you encounter frustrating obstacles along the way, then attitude can make a real difference. But the first and most important requirement is the accuracy of the map.It shows, first of all, how powerfully conditioning affects our perceptions, our paradigms. If ten seconds can have that kind of impact on the way we see things, what about the conditioning of a lifetime? The influences in our lives—family, school, church, work environment, friends, associates, and current social paradigms such as the Personality Ethic—all have made their silent unconscious impact on us and help shape our frame of reference, our paradigms, our maps.It also shows that these paradigms are the source of our attitudes and behaviours.
Both the Character Ethic and the Personality Ethic are examples of social paradigms .In the more general sense, it’s the way we “see” the world—not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, interpreting.
For our purposes, a simple way to understand paradigms is to see them as maps. We all know that “the map is not the territory.” A map is simply an explanation of certain aspects of the territory. That’s exactly what a paradigm is .Suppose you wanted to arrive at a specific location in central Chicago. But suppose you were given the wrong map. Through a printing error, the map labeled “Chicago” was actually a map of Detroit. Can you imagine the frustration, the ineffectiveness of trying to reach your destination?
You might work on your behavior—you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.
You might work on your attitude—you could think more positively. You still wouldn’t get to the right place, but perhaps you wouldn’t care. Your attitude would be so positive, you’d be happy wherever you were.
The point is, you’d still be lost. The fundamental problem has nothing to do with your behavior or your attitude. It has everything to do with having a wrong map.
If you have the right map of Chicago, then diligence becomes important, and when you encounter frustrating obstacles along the way, then attitude can make a real difference. But the first and most important requirement is the accuracy of the map.It shows, first of all, how powerfully conditioning affects our perceptions, our paradigms. If ten seconds can have that kind of impact on the way we see things, what about the conditioning of a lifetime? The influences in our lives—family, school, church, work environment, friends, associates, and current social paradigms such as the Personality Ethic—all have made their silent unconscious impact on us and help shape our frame of reference, our paradigms, our maps.It also shows that these paradigms are the source of our attitudes and behaviours.
Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it. When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them. But, as the demonstration shows, sincere, clearheaded people see things differently, each looking through the unique lens of experience.
THE POWER OF A PARADIGM SHIFT
The term paradigm shift shows how almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavour is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms. Not all paradigm shifts are in positive directions. As we have observed, the shift from the Character Ethic to the Personality Ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.
The term paradigm shift shows how almost every significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavour is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms. Not all paradigm shifts are in positive directions. As we have observed, the shift from the Character Ethic to the Personality Ethic has drawn us away from the very roots that nourish true success and happiness.
For example, One day when I am at subway car, suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?” The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.” I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”
Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behaviour; my heart was filled with the man’s pain.Many people experience a similar fundamental shift in thinking when they face a life-threatening crisis and suddenly see their priorities in a different light, or when they suddenly step into a new role, such as that of husband or wife, parent or grandparent, manager or leader.
We could spend weeks, months, even years labouring with the Personality Ethic trying to change our attitudes and behaviours and not even begin to approach the phenomenon of change that occurs spontaneously when we see things differently. It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviours. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
We could spend weeks, months, even years labouring with the Personality Ethic trying to change our attitudes and behaviours and not even begin to approach the phenomenon of change that occurs spontaneously when we see things differently. It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviours. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength. Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understand—highly developed qualities of character. It’s so much easier to operate from a low emotional level and to give high-level advice.
A NEW LEVEL OF THINKING
Albert Einstein observed, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”This new level of thinking is what Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is about. It’s a principle-centered, character-based, “inside-out” approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.
“Inside-out” means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self—with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. I have never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success, that came from the outside in.
What I have seen result from the outside-in paradigm is unhappy people who feel victimized and immobilized, who focus on the weaknesses of other people and the circumstances they feel are responsible for their own stagnant situation.Inside-out is a dramatic paradigm shift for most people, largely because of the powerful impact of conditioning and the current social paradigm of the Personality Ethic.
Albert Einstein observed, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”This new level of thinking is what Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is about. It’s a principle-centered, character-based, “inside-out” approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.
“Inside-out” means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self—with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. I have never seen lasting solutions to problems, lasting happiness and success, that came from the outside in.
What I have seen result from the outside-in paradigm is unhappy people who feel victimized and immobilized, who focus on the weaknesses of other people and the circumstances they feel are responsible for their own stagnant situation.Inside-out is a dramatic paradigm shift for most people, largely because of the powerful impact of conditioning and the current social paradigm of the Personality Ethic.
b)A seven habit overview
we will define a habit as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire.
Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
THE MATURITY CONTINUUM
moves us progressively on a Maturity Continuum from dependence (you)to independence(I) to interdependence(we).
Habits 1, 2, and 3 in the following chapters deal with self-mastery. They move a person from dependence to independence. They are the “Private Victories,” the essence of character growth. Private victories precede public victories. You have the character base from which you can effectively work on the more personality-oriented “Public Victories” of teamwork, cooperation, and communication in Habits 4, 5, and 6. Habit 7 is the habit of renewal—a regular, balanced renewal of the four basic dimensions of life.
Effectiveness lies in the balance—what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs(task like cleaning room). PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs(for example our children who clean room).
self-awareness or the ability to think about your very thought process. In addition to self-awareness, we have imagination—the ability to create in our minds beyond our present reality. We have conscience—a deep inner awareness of right and wrong, of the principles that govern our behaviour, and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with independent will—the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences.
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. what matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life.
moves us progressively on a Maturity Continuum from dependence (you)to independence(I) to interdependence(we).
Habits 1, 2, and 3 in the following chapters deal with self-mastery. They move a person from dependence to independence. They are the “Private Victories,” the essence of character growth. Private victories precede public victories. You have the character base from which you can effectively work on the more personality-oriented “Public Victories” of teamwork, cooperation, and communication in Habits 4, 5, and 6. Habit 7 is the habit of renewal—a regular, balanced renewal of the four basic dimensions of life.
Effectiveness lies in the balance—what I call the P/PC Balance. P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs(task like cleaning room). PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs(for example our children who clean room).
self-awareness or the ability to think about your very thought process. In addition to self-awareness, we have imagination—the ability to create in our minds beyond our present reality. We have conscience—a deep inner awareness of right and wrong, of the principles that govern our behaviour, and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with independent will—the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences.
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. what matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life.
PART TWO-PRIVATE VICTORY
HABIT 1- Be proactive
Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. One way to determine which circle our concern is in is to distinguish between the have’s and the be’s. The Circle of Concern is filled with the have’s: “I’ll be happy when I have my house paid off.”
“If only I had a boss who wasn’t such a dictator….”“If I had more obedient kids….”
The Circle of Influence is filled with the be’s—I can be more patient, be wise, be loving. It’s the character focus. Before we totally shift our life focus to our Circle of Influence, we need to consider two things in our Circle of Concern that merit deeper thought—consequences and mistakes.
While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things. Chasing after the poisonous snake that bites us will only drive the poison through our entire system. It is far better to take measures immediately to get the poison out.
Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power.
Security represents your sense of worth, your identity, your emotional anchorage, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.age, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.
Guidance means your source of direction in life. Encompassed by your map, your internal frame of reference that interprets for you what is happening out there, are standards or principles or implicit criteria that govern moment by moment decision-making and doing.
Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, an integrated wholeness.
Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.
These four factors—security, guidance, wisdom, and power—are interdependent. Security and clear guidance bring true wisdom, and wisdom becomes the spark or catalyst to release and direct power. When these four factors are present together, harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create the great force of a noble personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual.
Remember that your paradigm is the source from which your attitudes and behaviors flow. A paradigm is like a pair of glasses; it affects the way you see everything in your life. If you look at things through the paradigm of correct principles, what you see in life is dramatically different from what you see through any other centered paradigm.
As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole—the work needs, the family needs, other needs that may be involved and the possible implications of the various alternative decisions—you’ll try to come up with the best solution, taking all factors into consideration.
As proactive people, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in our lives. We can write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution.
As proactive people, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in our lives. We can write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution.
A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it’s personal, it’s positive, it’s present tense, it’s visual, and it’s emotional. So I might write something like this: “It is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.” Affirmation and visualization are forms of programming, and we must be certain that we do not submit ourselves to any programming that is not in harmony with our basic center or that comes from sources centered on money-making, self interest, or anything other than correct principles.
IDENTIFYING ROLES AND GOALS
We each have a number of different roles in our lives—different areas or capacities in which we have responsibility. I may, for example, have a role as an individual, a husband, a father, a teacher, a church member, and a businessman. And each of these roles is important.
if you don’t yet have a personal mission statement, it’s a good place to begin. Just identifying the various areas of your life and the two or three important results you feel you should accomplish in each area to move ahead gives you an overall perspective of your life and a sense of direction.
Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. One way to determine which circle our concern is in is to distinguish between the have’s and the be’s. The Circle of Concern is filled with the have’s: “I’ll be happy when I have my house paid off.”
“If only I had a boss who wasn’t such a dictator….”“If I had more obedient kids….”
The Circle of Influence is filled with the be’s—I can be more patient, be wise, be loving. It’s the character focus. Before we totally shift our life focus to our Circle of Influence, we need to consider two things in our Circle of Concern that merit deeper thought—consequences and mistakes.
While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things. Chasing after the poisonous snake that bites us will only drive the poison through our entire system. It is far better to take measures immediately to get the poison out.
HABIT 2- BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
Habit 2 applies to many different circumstances and levels of life, the most fundamental application of “begin with the end in mind” is to begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined.“Begin with the end in mind” is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.Put another way, Habit 1 says, “You are the creator.” Habit 2 is the first creation.Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.Effectiveness—often even survival—does not depend solely on how much effort we expend, but on whether or not the effort we expend is in the right jungle. And the metamorphosis taking place in most every industry and profession demands leadership first and management second.The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based. It becomes a personal constitution, the basis for making major, life-directing decisions, the basis for making daily decisions in the midst of the circumstances and emotions that affect our lives. It empowers individuals with the same timeless strength in the midst of changeWhatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power.
Security represents your sense of worth, your identity, your emotional anchorage, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.age, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.
Guidance means your source of direction in life. Encompassed by your map, your internal frame of reference that interprets for you what is happening out there, are standards or principles or implicit criteria that govern moment by moment decision-making and doing.
Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, an integrated wholeness.
Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones.
These four factors—security, guidance, wisdom, and power—are interdependent. Security and clear guidance bring true wisdom, and wisdom becomes the spark or catalyst to release and direct power. When these four factors are present together, harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create the great force of a noble personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual.
Remember that your paradigm is the source from which your attitudes and behaviors flow. A paradigm is like a pair of glasses; it affects the way you see everything in your life. If you look at things through the paradigm of correct principles, what you see in life is dramatically different from what you see through any other centered paradigm.
As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole—the work needs, the family needs, other needs that may be involved and the possible implications of the various alternative decisions—you’ll try to come up with the best solution, taking all factors into consideration.
As proactive people, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in our lives. We can write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution.
As proactive people, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in our lives. We can write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution.
A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it’s personal, it’s positive, it’s present tense, it’s visual, and it’s emotional. So I might write something like this: “It is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.” Affirmation and visualization are forms of programming, and we must be certain that we do not submit ourselves to any programming that is not in harmony with our basic center or that comes from sources centered on money-making, self interest, or anything other than correct principles.
IDENTIFYING ROLES AND GOALS
We each have a number of different roles in our lives—different areas or capacities in which we have responsibility. I may, for example, have a role as an individual, a husband, a father, a teacher, a church member, and a businessman. And each of these roles is important.
if you don’t yet have a personal mission statement, it’s a good place to begin. Just identifying the various areas of your life and the two or three important results you feel you should accomplish in each area to move ahead gives you an overall perspective of your life and a sense of direction.
HABIT 3-PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST
Habit 3, then, is the second creation, the physical creation. It’s the fulfillment, the actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2. It’s the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered. It’s the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment doing it.
THE TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX
THE TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX
Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising, maintenance, preparation—all those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they aren’t urgent.Now look again at the nature of those questions: What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life? Quadrant II activities have that kind of impact. Our effectiveness takes quantum leaps when we do them. There are many people who recognize the value of Quadrant II activities in their lives, whether they identify them as such or not. And they attempt to give priority to those activities and integrate them into their lives through self-discipline alone. But without a principle center and a personal mission statement, they don’t have the necessary foundation to sustain their efforts. They’re working on the leaves, on the attitudes and the behaviors of discipline, without even thinking to examine the roots, the basic paradigms from which their natural attitudes and behaviors flow.
Quadrant II organizing involves four key activities.
a)IDENTIFYING ROLES. b)SELECTING GOALS- The next step is to think of one or two important results you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next seven days. There are some goals that you may only be able to accomplish during business hours, or some that you can only do on Saturday when your children are home. Can you begin to see some of the advantages of organizing the week instead of the day?
c)DAILY ADAPTING. d)LIVING IT: you simply can’t think efficiency with people. You think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things. I’ve tried to be “efficient” with a disagreeing or disagreeable person and it simply doesn’t work. I’ve tried to give ten minutes of “quality time” to a child or an employee to solve a problem, only to discover such “efficiency” creates new problems and seldom resolves the deepest concern.
DELEGATION: INCREASING P AND PC
We accomplish all that we do through delegation—either to time or to other people. If we delegate to time, we think efficiency. If we delegate to other people, we think effectiveness.
Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations. The late J. C. Penney was quoted as saying that the wisest decision he ever made was to “let go” after realizing that he couldn’t do it all by himself any longer.
Because delegation involves other people, it is a Public Victory and could well be included in Habit 4.
here are basically two kinds of delegation: “gofer delegation” and “stewardship delegation.” Gofer delegation means “Go for this, go for that, do this, do that, and tell me when it’s done.” Most people who are producers have a gofer delegation paradigm.
Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice of method and makes them responsible for results. It takes more time in the beginning, but it’s time well invested. Stewardship delegation involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas.
DESIRED RESULTS. Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results, not methods. Spend time. Be patient. Visualize the desired result. Have the person see it, describe it, make out a quality statement of what the results will look like, and by when they will be accomplished.
GUIDELINES. Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate. If you know the failure paths of the job, identify them. Be honest and open—tell a person where the quicksand is and where the wild animals are. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel every day. Let people learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do but don’t tell them what to do.
We accomplish all that we do through delegation—either to time or to other people. If we delegate to time, we think efficiency. If we delegate to other people, we think effectiveness.
Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations. The late J. C. Penney was quoted as saying that the wisest decision he ever made was to “let go” after realizing that he couldn’t do it all by himself any longer.
Because delegation involves other people, it is a Public Victory and could well be included in Habit 4.
here are basically two kinds of delegation: “gofer delegation” and “stewardship delegation.” Gofer delegation means “Go for this, go for that, do this, do that, and tell me when it’s done.” Most people who are producers have a gofer delegation paradigm.
Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice of method and makes them responsible for results. It takes more time in the beginning, but it’s time well invested. Stewardship delegation involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas.
DESIRED RESULTS. Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results, not methods. Spend time. Be patient. Visualize the desired result. Have the person see it, describe it, make out a quality statement of what the results will look like, and by when they will be accomplished.
GUIDELINES. Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate. If you know the failure paths of the job, identify them. Be honest and open—tell a person where the quicksand is and where the wild animals are. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel every day. Let people learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do but don’t tell them what to do.
PART THREE- PUBLIC VICTORY
Paradigms of Interdependence
BEFORE MOVING INTO THE AREA OF PUBLIC VICTORY, we should remember that effective interdependence can only be built on a foundation of true independence. Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus.
Real self-respect comes from dominion over self, from true independence. And that’s the focus of Habits 1, 2, and 3. Independence is an achievement. Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.Unless we are willing to achieve real independence, it’s foolish to try to develop human relations skills.We might try. We might even have some degree of success when the sun is shining. But when the difficult times come—and they will—we won’t have the foundation to keep things together.
The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character. As we become independent—proactive, centered in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity—we then can choose to become interdependent—capable of building rich, enduring, highly productive relationships with other people.
THE EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT
We all know what a financial bank account is If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust toward me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. I can even make mistakes and that trust level, that emotional reserve, will compensate for it.But if I have a habit of showing discourtesy, disrespect, cutting you off, overreacting, ignoring you, becoming arbitrary, betraying your trust, threatening you, or playing little tin god in your life, eventually my Emotional Bank Account is overdrawn. The trust level gets very low.
Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.
Real self-respect comes from dominion over self, from true independence. And that’s the focus of Habits 1, 2, and 3. Independence is an achievement. Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.Unless we are willing to achieve real independence, it’s foolish to try to develop human relations skills.We might try. We might even have some degree of success when the sun is shining. But when the difficult times come—and they will—we won’t have the foundation to keep things together.
The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.So the place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our Circle of Influence, our own character. As we become independent—proactive, centered in correct principles, value driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity—we then can choose to become interdependent—capable of building rich, enduring, highly productive relationships with other people.
THE EMOTIONAL BANK ACCOUNT
We all know what a financial bank account is If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust toward me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. I can even make mistakes and that trust level, that emotional reserve, will compensate for it.But if I have a habit of showing discourtesy, disrespect, cutting you off, overreacting, ignoring you, becoming arbitrary, betraying your trust, threatening you, or playing little tin god in your life, eventually my Emotional Bank Account is overdrawn. The trust level gets very low.
Building and repairing relationships are long-term investments.
SIX MAJOR DEPOSITS
a)Understanding the Individual-To make a deposit, what is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you. You may be working on a high priority project when your six-year-old child interrupts with something that seems trivial to you, but it may be very important from his point of view. It takes Habit 2 to recognize and recommit yourself to the value of that person and Habit 3 to subordinate your schedule to that human priority.
b)Attending to the Little Things c)Keeping Commitments
d)Clarifying Expectations- The deposit is to make the expectations clear and explicit in the beginning. This takes a real investment of time and effort up front, but it saves great amounts of time and effort down the road. When expectations are not clear and shared, people begin to become emotionally involved and simple misunderstandings become compounded, turning into personality clashes and communication breakdowns.
e)Showing Personal Integrity-One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present. f)Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal- It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.
I suggest that in an interdependent situation, every P problem is a PC opportunity—a chance to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that significantly affect interdependent production.
we can see on an even deeper level that effective interdependence can only be achieved by truly independent people. It is impossible to achieve Public Victory with popular “Win/Win negotiation” techniques or “reflective listening” techniques or “creative problem-solving” techniques that focus on personality and truncate the vital character base.
we can see on an even deeper level that effective interdependence can only be achieved by truly independent people. It is impossible to achieve Public Victory with popular “Win/Win negotiation” techniques or “reflective listening” techniques or “creative problem-solving” techniques that focus on personality and truncate the vital character base.
HABIT 4-THINK WIN/WIN
SIX PARADIGMS OF HUMAN INTERACTION
Win/Win is not a technique; it’s a total philosophy of human interaction. In fact, it is one of six paradigms of interaction. The alternative paradigms are Win/Lose, Lose/Win, Lose/Lose, Win, and Win/Win or No Deal.Win/Win is based on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, that one person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others.
When two Win/Lose people get together—that is, when two determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals interact—the result will be Lose/Lose.
A person with the Win mentality thinks in terms of securing his own ends—and leaving it to others to secure theirs.
Win/Win or No Deal
If these individuals had not come up with a synergistic solution—one that was agreeable to both—they could have gone for an even higher expression of Win/Win—Win/Win or No Deal.No Deal basically means that if we can’t find a solution that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably—No Deal. When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. It would be better not to deal than to live with a decision that wasn’t right for us both. Then maybe another time we might be able to get together.”
So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.
When two Win/Lose people get together—that is, when two determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals interact—the result will be Lose/Lose.
A person with the Win mentality thinks in terms of securing his own ends—and leaving it to others to secure theirs.
Win/Win or No Deal
If these individuals had not come up with a synergistic solution—one that was agreeable to both—they could have gone for an even higher expression of Win/Win—Win/Win or No Deal.No Deal basically means that if we can’t find a solution that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree agreeably—No Deal. When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. It would be better not to deal than to live with a decision that wasn’t right for us both. Then maybe another time we might be able to get together.”
So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.
HABIT 5-SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD
You don’t have much confidence in someone who doesn’t diagnose before he or she prescribes.But how often do we diagnose before we prescribe in communication?
We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.
If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication. Reading and writing are both forms of communication. So are speaking and listening. In fact, those are the four basic types of communication.
EMPATHIC LISTENING
We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.We’re filled with our own rightness, our own autobiography.we never really understand what’s going on inside another human being.
we’re usually “listening” at one of four levels. We may be ignoring another person, not really listening at all. We may practice pretending. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.” We may practice selective listening, hearing only certain parts of the conversation. We often do this when we’re listening to the constant chatter of a preschool child. Or we may even practice attentive listening, paying attention and focusing energy on the words that are being said. But very few of us ever practice the fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening.Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.Communications experts estimate, in fact, that only 10 percent of our communication is represented by the words we say. Another 30 percent is represented by our sounds, and 60 percent by our body language. Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival—to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have to really understand. So before you judge before you take action before you contribute just listen so if your wife says I hate my job instead of providing advice or repeating what she said which is a typical response you rephrase the content and reflect the feeling and say something like you're not enjoying your job and you're feeling upset about it this gets you both on the same side of the table you're listening with the intent to understand intellectually and emotionally and then you can move forward to repair the situation the time to be understood is when the conversation leads to logic and advice is requested when you go down this path maybe she'll eventually respond with should I look for another job this is when you can seek to be understood this is when you can provide your advice but if it goes back to an emotional level then you listen again empathetically until logic is brought back this creates an atmosphere of caring habit six synergy
That’s why Habits 1, 2, and 3 are so foundational. They give you the changeless inner core, the principle center, from which you can handle the more outward vulnerability with peace and strength.
We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.
If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication. Reading and writing are both forms of communication. So are speaking and listening. In fact, those are the four basic types of communication.
EMPATHIC LISTENING
We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They’re either speaking or preparing to speak. They’re filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people’s lives.We’re filled with our own rightness, our own autobiography.we never really understand what’s going on inside another human being.
we’re usually “listening” at one of four levels. We may be ignoring another person, not really listening at all. We may practice pretending. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.” We may practice selective listening, hearing only certain parts of the conversation. We often do this when we’re listening to the constant chatter of a preschool child. Or we may even practice attentive listening, paying attention and focusing energy on the words that are being said. But very few of us ever practice the fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening.Empathic (from empathy) listening gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.Communications experts estimate, in fact, that only 10 percent of our communication is represented by the words we say. Another 30 percent is represented by our sounds, and 60 percent by our body language. Satisfied needs do not motivate. It’s only the unsatisfied need that motivates. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival—to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.It’s a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. That means you have to really understand. So before you judge before you take action before you contribute just listen so if your wife says I hate my job instead of providing advice or repeating what she said which is a typical response you rephrase the content and reflect the feeling and say something like you're not enjoying your job and you're feeling upset about it this gets you both on the same side of the table you're listening with the intent to understand intellectually and emotionally and then you can move forward to repair the situation the time to be understood is when the conversation leads to logic and advice is requested when you go down this path maybe she'll eventually respond with should I look for another job this is when you can seek to be understood this is when you can provide your advice but if it goes back to an emotional level then you listen again empathetically until logic is brought back this creates an atmosphere of caring habit six synergy
That’s why Habits 1, 2, and 3 are so foundational. They give you the changeless inner core, the principle center, from which you can handle the more outward vulnerability with peace and strength.
HABIT 6 SYNERGIZE
The highest forms of synergy focus the four unique human endowments, the motive of Win/Win, and the skills of empathic communication on the toughest challenges we face in life.What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its PARTS. The essence of synergy is to value differences—to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses.Sameness is not oneness; uniformity is not unity. Unity, or oneness, is complementariness, not sameness. Sameness is uncreative... and boring. The essence of synergy is to value the differences.I’ve come to believe that the key to interpersonal synergy is intrapersonal synergy, that is synergy within ourselves. The heart of intrapersonal synergy is embodied in the principles in the first three habits, which give the internal security sufficient to handle the risks of being open and vulnerable. By internalizing those principles, we develop the abundance mentality of Win/Win and the authenticity of Habit 5.
When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative, and visual right brain, and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then the whole brain is working. In other words, there is psychic synergy taking place in our own head. And this tool is best suited to the reality of what life is, because life is not just logical—it is also emotional.
. That person values the differences because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality. When we’re left to our own experiences, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data.Is it logical that two people can disagree and that both can be right? It’s not logical: it’s psychological. And it’s very real.
When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative, and visual right brain, and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then the whole brain is working. In other words, there is psychic synergy taking place in our own head. And this tool is best suited to the reality of what life is, because life is not just logical—it is also emotional.
. That person values the differences because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality. When we’re left to our own experiences, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data.Is it logical that two people can disagree and that both can be right? It’s not logical: it’s psychological. And it’s very real.
HABIT 7-SHARPEN THE SAW
Habit 7 is taking time to sharpen the saw. It surrounds the other habits on the Seven Habits paradigm because it is the habit that makes all the others possible.Habit 7 is personal PC. It’s preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you. It’s renewing the four dimensions of your nature—physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.
The Physical Dimension
The Physical Dimension
The physical dimension involves caring effectively for our physical body—eating the right kinds of foods, getting sufficient rest and relaxation, and exercising on a regular basis.Exercise is one of those Quadrant II, high-leverage activities that most of us don’t do consistently because it isn’t urgent. And because we don’t do it, sooner or later we find ourselves in Quadrant I, dealing with the health problems and crises that come as a natural result of our neglect.A good exercise program is one that build your body in three areas: endurance, flexibility, and strength.
Endurance comes from aerobic exercise, from cardiovascular efficiency—the ability of your heart to pump blood through your body.
Although the heart is a muscle, it cannot be exercised directly. It can only be exercised through the large muscle groups, particularly the leg muscles. Flexibility comes through stretching. Most experts recommend warming up before and cooling down/stretching after aerobic exercise.
Strength comes from muscle resistance exercises—like simple calisthenics, push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups, and from working with weights.
Sharpening the saw in the first three dimensions—the physical, the spiritual, and the mental—is a practice I call the “Daily Private Victory.” And I commend to you the simple practice of spending one hour a day every day doing it—one hour a day for the rest of your life.
The Social/Emotional Dimension
While the physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions are closely related to Habits 1, 2, and 3—centered on the principles of personal vision, leadership, and management—the social/emotional dimension focuses on Habits 4, 5, and 6—centered on the principles of interpersonal leadership, empathic communication, and creative cooperation.
I have found this to be true in organizations as well as in individual lives. In an organization, the physical dimension is expressed in economic terms. The mental or psychological dimension deals with the recognition, development, and use of talent. The social/emotional dimension has to do with human relations, with how people are treated. And the spiritual dimension deals with finding meaning through purpose or contribution and through organizational integrity.When an organization neglects any one or more of these areas, it negatively impacts the entire organization
Where does intrinsic security come from? It doesn’t come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn’t come from the scripts they’ve handed us. It doesn’t come from our circumstances or our position.
It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values.The more we can see people in terms of their unseen potential, the more we can use our imagination rather than our memory, with our spouse, our children, our coworkers or employees.Goethe taught, “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”
And although the habits are sequential, improvement in one habit synergetically increases your ability to live the rest.
The more proactive you are (Habit 1), the more effectively you can exercise personal leadership (Habit 2) and management (Habit 3) in your life. The more effectively you manage your life (Habit 3), the more Quadrant II renewing activities you can do (Habit 7). The more you seek first to understand (Habit 5), the more effectively you can go for synergetic Win/Win solutions (Habits 4 and 6). The more you improve in any of the habits that lead to independence (Habits 1, 2, and 3), the more effective you will be in interdependent situations (Habits 4, 5, and 6). And renewal (Habit 7) is the process of renewing all the habits
Change—real change—comes from the inside out. It doesn’t come from hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior with quick fix personality ethic techniques. It comes from striking at the root—the fabric of our thought, the fundamental, essential paradigms, which give definition to our character and create the lens through which we see the world.
Again, I quote Emerson: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier—not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.”
By centering our lives on correct principles and creating a balanced focus between doing and increasing our ability to do, we become empowered in the task of creating effective, useful, and peaceful lives... for ourselves, and for our posterity.
Personal note
I personally struggle with much of what I have shared in this book. But the struggle is worthwhile and fulfilling. It gives meaning to my life and enables me to love, to serve, and to try again.
Why seven? Why not six or eight or ten or fifteen? What is so sacred about seven?
Nothing is sacred about seven, it just so happens that the three private victory habits (freedom to choose, choice, action) precede the three public victory habits (respect, understanding, creation) and then there is one to renew the rest and that equals seven.if there were some other desirable characteristic you would like make into a habit, you would simply put that under Habit 2 as one of the values you are trying to live by.
Download audio and epub of 7 habit of highly effective people
Youtube video
Why seven? Why not six or eight or ten or fifteen? What is so sacred about seven?
Nothing is sacred about seven, it just so happens that the three private victory habits (freedom to choose, choice, action) precede the three public victory habits (respect, understanding, creation) and then there is one to renew the rest and that equals seven.if there were some other desirable characteristic you would like make into a habit, you would simply put that under Habit 2 as one of the values you are trying to live by.
Download audio and epub of 7 habit of highly effective people
Youtube video
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