C*********y
发帖数: 1424 | 1 The Seven Habits - An Overview
Our character is a collection of our habits, and habits have a powerful role
in our lives. Habits consist of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge
allows us to know what to do, skill gives us the ability to know how to do
it, and desire is the motivation to do it.
The Seven Habits move us through the following stages:
1. Dependence: the paradigm under which we are born, relying upon others
to take care of us.
2. Independence: the paradigm under which we can | C*********y
发帖数: 1424 | 2 The Seven Habits - An Overview
Our character is a collection of our habits, and habits have a powerful role
in our lives. Habits consist of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge
allows us to know what to do, skill gives us the ability to know how to do
it, and desire is the motivation to do it.
The Seven Habits move us through the following stages:
1. Dependence: the paradigm under which we are born, relying upon others
to take care of us.
2. Independence: the paradigm under which we can make our own decisions
and take care of ourselves.
3. Interdependence: the paradigm under which we cooperate to achieve
something that cannot be achieved independently.
Much of the success literature today tends to value independence,
encouraging people to become liberated and do their own thing. The reality
is that we are interdependent, and the independent model is not optimal for
use in an interdependent environment that requires leaders and team players.
To make the choice to become interdependent, one first must be independent,
since dependent people have not yet developed the character for
interdependence. Therefore, the first three habits focus on self-mastery,
that is, achieving the private victories required to move from dependence to
independence. The first three habits are:
* Habit 1: Be Proactive
* Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
* Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habits 4, 5, and 6 then address interdependence:
* Habit 4: Think Win/Win
* Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
* Habit 6: Synergize
Finally, the seventh habit is one of renewal and continual improvement, that
is, of building one's personal production capability. To be effective, one
must find the proper balance between actually producing and improving one's
capability to produce. Covey illustrates this point with the fable of the
goose and the golden egg.
In the fable, a poor farmer's goose began laying a solid gold egg every day,
and the farmer soon became rich. He also became greedy and figured that the
goose must have many golden eggs within her. In order to obtain all of the
eggs immediately, he killed the goose. Upon cutting it open he discovered
that it was not full of golden eggs. The lesson is that if one attempts to
maximize immediate production with no regard to the production capability,
the capability will be lost. Effectiveness is a function of both production
and the capacity to produce.
The need for balance between production and production capability applies to
physical, financial, and human assets. For example, in an organization the
person in charge of a particular machine may increase the machine's
immediate production by postponing scheduled maintenance. As a result of the
increased output, this person may be rewarded with a promotion. However,
the increased immediate output comes at the expense of future production
since more maintenance will have to be performed on the machine later. The
person who inherits the mess may even be blamed for the inevitable downtime
and high maintenance expense.
Customer loyalty also is an asset to which the production and production
capability balance applies. A restaurant may have a reputation for serving
great food, but the owner may decide to cut costs and lower the quality of
the food. Immediately, profits will soar, but soon the restaurant's
reputation will be tarnished, the customer's trust will be lost, and profits
will decline.
This does not mean that only production capacity is important. If one builds
capacity but never uses it, there will be no production. There is a balance
between building production capacity and actually producing. Finding the
right tradeoff is central to one's effectiveness.
The above has been an introduction and overview of the 7 Habits. The
following introduces the first habit in Covey's framework.
FROM DEPENDENCE TO INDEPENDENCE
Habit 1: Be Proactive
A unique ability that sets humans apart from animals is self-awareness and
the ability to choose how we respond to any stimulus. While conditioning can
have a strong impact on our lives, we are not determined by it. There are
three widely accepted theories of determinism: genetic, psychic, and
environmental. Genetic determinism says that our nature is coded into our
DNA, and that our personality traits are inherited from our grandparents.
Psychic determinism says that our upbringing determines our personal
tendencies, and that emotional pain that we felt at a young age is
remembered and affects the way we behave today. Environmental determinism
states that factors in our present environment are responsible for our
situation, such as relatives, the national economy, etc. These theories of
determinism each assume a model in which the stimulus determines the
response.
Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the death camps of Nazi
Germany. While in the death camps, Frankl realized that he alone had the
power to determine his response to the horror of the situation. He exercised
the only freedom he had in that environment by envisioning himself teaching
students after his release. He became an inspiration for others around him.
He realized that in the middle of the stimulus-response model, humans have
the freedom to choose.
Animals do not have this independent will. They respond to a stimulus like a
computer responds to its program. They are not aware of their programming
and do not have the ability to change it. The model of determinism was
developed based on experiments with animals and neurotic people. Such a
model neglects our ability to choose how we will respond to stimuli.
We can choose to be reactive to our environment. For example, if the weather
is good, we will be happy. If the weather is bad, we will be unhappy. If
people treat us well, we will feel well; if they don't, we will feel bad and
become defensive. We also can choose to be proactive and not let our
situation determine how we will feel. Reactive behavior can be a self-
fulfilling prophecy. By accepting that there is nothing we can do about our
situation, we in fact become passive and do nothing.
The first habit of highly effective people is proactivity. Proactive people
are driven by values that are independent of the weather or how people treat
them. Gandhi said, "They cannot take away our self respect if we do not
give it to them." Our response to what happened to us affects us more than
what actually happened. We can choose to use difficult situations to build
our character and develop the ability to better handle such situations in
the future.
Proactive people use their resourcefulness and initiative to find solutions
rather than just reporting problems and waiting for other people to solve
them.
Being proactive means assessing the situation and developing a positive
response for it. Organizations can be proactive rather than be at the mercy
of their environment. For example, a company operating in an industry that
is experiencing a downturn can develop a plan to cut costs and actually use
the downturn to increase market share.
Once we decide to be proactive, exactly where we focus our efforts becomes
important. There are many concerns in our lives, but we do not always have
control over them. One can draw a circle that represents areas of concern,
and a smaller circle within the first that represents areas of control.
Proactive people focus their efforts on the things over which they have
influence, and in the process often expand their area of influence. Reactive
people often focus their efforts on areas of concern over which they have
no control. Their complaining and negative energy tend to shrink their
circle of influence.
In our area of concern, we may have direct control, indirect control, or no
control at all. We have direct control over problems caused by our own
behavior. We can solve these problems by changing our habits. We have
indirect control over problems related to other people's behavior. We can
solve these problems by using various methods of human influence, such as
empathy, confrontation, example, and persuasion. Many people have only a few
basic methods such as fight or flight. For problems over which we have no
control, first we must recognize that we have no control, and then
gracefully accept that fact and make the best of the situation.
SUMMARY OF THE SEVEN HABITS
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Change starts from within, and highly effective people make the decision to
improve their lives through the things that they can influence rather than
by simply reacting to external forces.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Develop a principle-centered personal mission statement. Extend the mission
statement into long-term goals based on personal principles.
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Spend time doing what fits into your personal mission, observing the proper
balance between production and building production capacity. Identify the
key roles that you take on in life, and make time for each of them.
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Seek agreements and relationships that are mutually beneficial. In cases
where a "win/win" deal cannot be achieved, accept the fact that agreeing to
make "no deal" may be the best alternative. In developing an organizational
culture, be sure to reward win/win behavior among employees and avoid
inadvertantly rewarding win/lose behavior.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
First seek to understand the other person, and only then try to be
understood. Stephen Covey presents this habit as the most important
principle of interpersonal relations. Effective listening is not simply
echoing what the other person has said through the lens of one's own
experience. Rather, it is putting oneself in the perspective of the other
person, listening empathically for both feeling and meaning.
Habit 6: Synergize
Through trustful communication, find ways to leverage individual differences
to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Through mutual
trust and understanding, one often can solve conflicts and find a better
solution than would have been obtained through either person's own solution.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Take time out from production to build production capacity through personal
renewal of the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions.
Maintain a balance among these dimensions. |
|
