Contents
Seven Habits Tools
User's Guide Contents

 Trademark and Copyright Notices	 Training

 Free Screen Saver

Overviews

 Using the Seven Habits Tools in Schedule+

 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

 The Six Step Process

Using the Seven Habits Tools

 Mission Tab

 Roles Tab

 Goals Tab

 Wisdom Tab

  Printing

More Information About

 Additional Products and Programs

 Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

 Wisdom Literature

For Help on Help, Press F1


Contents
Seven Habits Tools
User's Guide Contents

 Trademark and Copyright Notices	 Training

 Free Screen Saver

Overviews

  Using the Seven Habits Tools in Schedule+

 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

 The Seven Habits, Overview

 Habit 1: Be Proactive

 Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

 Habit 3: Put First Things First

 Habit 4: Think Win-Win

 Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

 Habit 6: Synergize

 Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

 The Six Step Process

 Six Step Process, Overview

 Urgency vs. Importance

 The Two Sides of Success

 Step 1: Connect to Mission

 Step 2: Review Roles

 Step 3: Identify Goals

 Step 4: Organize Weekly

 Step 5: Exercise Integrity

 Step 6: Evaluate

Using the Seven Habits Tools

 Mission Tab

 Mission Tab

 Roles Tab

 Roles Tab

 Adding Roles

 Editing Roles

 Removing Roles

 Why Only Seven Roles?

 Sharpen the Saw

 Goals Tab

 Goals Tab

 Goal, Perhaps, and To Do

 Adding Goals

 Editing Goals

 Removing Goals

 Big Rocks

 Wisdom Tab

 Wisdom Tab

 Browsing for Wisdom Literature

 Printing

More Information About:

 Additional Products and Programs

 Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

 Wisdom Literature

For Help on Help, Press F1


Mission Tab

 See Also

To help keep your mind focused on the most important things in your life, it is helpful to create a personal mission statement and to review it often, particularly when you are planning for the upcoming week.  This is Step One of the Six Step Process: Connect to Mission.

The Mission Tab is where you record your mission statement and where you review and edit it during the upcoming weeks.

Leading Questions

Take some time each week to evaluate the effectiveness of your mission statement in light of one or more of these questions.

Arrow Buttons

These buttons let you flip through the leading questions.

Mission Text Box

This is where you enter and edit your personal mission statement.

If you already have a mission statement, enter it in the mission text box.  If your mission statement is stored elsewhere on your computer, you can copy and paste it into this box.

If you do not have a mission statement, take a few minutes and work through the Connect to Mission Wizard.  (You can start the wizard by clicking on the Wizard button to the right of the Mission Tab.  Select Step 1: Connect to Mission, and press Next to begin.)  When you are finished, the wizard automatically creates a mission statement based on your responses and inserts it into the mission text box.

The mission statement that the wizard creates is only a first draft. You should continue to refine your mission statement in the upcoming weeks and months.

HINT  Do not feel constrained by the size of the mission text box.  A mission statement may consist of a few words or an entire page.  If your mission statement has too many lines to display at once, the scroll bar on the side of the mission text box allows you to move to other areas of your mission statement.


Roles Tab

 How To 	 See Also

As part of the weekly planning process, take time to review the important roles in your life.  This gives you the opportunity to touch base with all the important aspects of your life and to ensure that none of your roles are consistently overlooked.  This is Step Two of the Six Step Process Review Roles.

The Roles Tab contains tools to help you add, edit, and delete roles.  Your roles also appear on the Roles Button Bar in the Goals Tab.

Role Buttons

Each active role appears as a button at the top of the screen.  When you click on a role button, it displays the role's color and changes the information displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Sharpen the Saw

The first role is called Sharpen the Saw.  Because Sharpen the Saw is so important, it is always active, always appears at the top of the role list, and is always the first role button.

Note: Sharpen the Saw cannot be deactivated, moved, or deleted.

Name

The Name Box is where you add new role names or change the names of existing roles.

Role List

This is a list of all existing roles, both active and inactive.  If a role is active, it also appears as a button on the role button bar.

Add/Done

The Add button creates new roles.  Clicking this button adds the new role to the button bar and causes the Name box to clear so you can enter a new role name.

When you are editing a role, the Add button becomes Done.  Clicking this button causes the Name box to clear so you can add a new role name.

Delete

The Delete button removes the selected role from the role list and the role button bar.  Deleting a role removes all associated role information.

Move Up & Move Down

When you click the Move Up and Move Down buttons, the selected role shifts up or down one position in the role list and on the role button bar.

Role is Active

This check box determines whether or not the selected role is active.  If it is active, it appears on the role button bar.  If a role is not active, it appears in the role list but not as a button.  Only seven roles (plus Sharpen the Saw) can be active at a time.

Color Bar

The color bar indicates the color assigned to the selected role.  When a role button is selected, it displays the role's color.  The colors help distinguish your roles in the Goals Tab.

Long Term Goals

This is a text box where you can enter your Long Term Goals or plans for each role.

If you have already gone through the process of identifying and defining your roles, enter them in the Roles Tab.

If you have never thought about your life in terms of roles, take a few minutes and work through the Review Roles Wizard. (You can start the wizard by clicking on the Wizard button to the right of the Roles Tab.  Select Step 2: Review Roles, and press Next to begin.)  When you are finished, the wizard inserts the information you provide into the Seven Habits Tools to give you a starting place for working with both Roles and Goals.


Goals Tab

 How To 	 See Also

One of the best ways to ensure that first things stay first in your life is to plan activities that focus on what is most important for the upcoming week and then to make sure these activities get scheduled before your week fills up with less important things.  This is Step Three of the Six Step Process: Identify Goals.

At the start of each week, take some time to consider "What is the most important thing I could do this week to have the greatest positive impact?"  Think about each of your roles.  The Goals Tab is where you capture ideas for role-related activities you want to accomplish.

Role Buttons

All active roles appear as buttons at the top of the screen.  Clicking a role button changes the information displayed in This Week's Goals and the Perhaps List. You can select multiple roles by shift-clicking on the role buttons.  However, you can add new goals only when one role button is selected.

Note:  The Role Buttons are created in the Roles Tab.

Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Sawbehaves differently than the other roles.  When you click the Sharpen the Saw button, four items appear in This Week's Goals list.  These items: Physical, Social/Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual, are four areas of development that impact your ability (or capacity) to produce results in all other areas of your life.

New Item/Edit Item Box

This is where you enter or edit things you want to do—Goals for the upcoming week (or Big Rocks), ideas you Perhaps want to do in the future, or other things that you need To Do.

This Week's Goals

This is a list of goals (or Big Rocks) for the upcoming week. If a single role button is selected, this list displays the goals you have set for that role.  If the Select All button is depressed, it displays all your goals in all your roles.

Perhaps List

The Perhaps List is a list you create of goal ideas you may want to consider in the future.  This list also includes goals you have set in the past—because perhaps you will want to do them again.

Goal

The Goal button is used to assign the text in the New Item/Edit Item box as a goal for the upcoming week.  When a goal is created, it is added to This Week's Goals, and a Big Rock drops into your jar.

Perhaps

The Perhaps button is used to assign the text in the New Item/Edit Item box to your Perhaps List for future consideration.

To Do

This button is used to assign the text in the New Item/Edit Item box as a task in your Schedule.  When you click the To Do button, the item is automatically stored in your Schedule+ To Do list.

Show All

This button is used to display all your goals, for all your roles, at the same time.  When you click Show All, This Week's Goals displays all the goals you have set for the upcoming week.

Delete

Clicking the Delete button removes the selected goal from This Week's Goals or the Perhaps List.

Big Rocks Jar

This is a visual indication of your week.  The computer checks your Schedule + schedule to determine how full your week is and represents this as sand and gravel at the bottom of the jar.  As you add weekly goals (Big Rocks), they drop into your jar.  When the jar is full, additional goals simply fall out.

If this is your first time setting weekly goals, you may want to work through the Identify Goals Wizard. (You can start the wizard by clicking on the Wizard button to the right of the Goals Tab.  Select Step 3: Identify Goals, and press Next to begin.)  When you are finished, you have selected goals for the upcoming week and the wizard plugs those goals into Schedule+ where you can schedule them in to your week.

HINTS  We suggest that you choose no more than one weekly goal for each role. You can set less.  In fact, some weeks you may chose to not set any goals for a particular role.  Remember, the goals you set are Big Rocks—the most important things you can do with your week.

Whenever appropriate, choose goals that address the needs of more than one role.  For example, you may find that going for a walk with a son or daughter is a good way to Sharpen the Saw physically while spending quality time with someone who is important to you in your role as parent.

Caution:  Don't force unnatural combinations just to be more "efficient."  An over-focus on efficiency may significantly diminish your effectiveness.


Wisdom Tab

 How To 	 See Also

Wisdom Literature is that portion of the classic, philosophical, proverbial, and religious literature that deals with the art of living.  Passed from one generation to another through oral tradition, proverbs, symbolic art, and writings, wisdom literature represents a database of human experience.  By studying the patterns and themes, as well as the differences that emerge in the wisdom literature from various cultures and times, we have the opportunity to educate our conscience and our minds and to increase our ability to respond with courage and integrity to the situations that arise in our own lives.

First Things First, page 342

The Wisdom Tab is a multimedia reader designed to aid you in your study of wisdom literature.  The Seven Habits Tools are shipped with one wisdom literature file that includes several topics.  Each topic contains enough information for approximately 10 to 15 minutes worth of study.  You may want to devote at least this much time daily to the study of wisdom literature.

To aid you in your study of wisdom literature, the Wisdom Tab contains the following items:

Title

The title of the current wisdom literature topic is displayed at the top of the screen.

Text/Pictures/Video

The main portion of this tab contains the wisdom literature materials.  This may consist of text, pictures, or video clips.

Info Buttons

On the left side of this tab is a button bar.  Click these buttons to access various types of additional information.

Go Back/New Topic

At the bottom of each wisdom literature page is a button that allows you to quickly return to the previous page in the topic (if you clicked one of the Info Buttons to get additional information) or to select a new topic from a list of topics included in the current wisdom literature file.

Arrows

The arrow buttons on either side of the New Topic button allow you to move sequentially through the topics in the current wisdom literature file.  Use the down arrow to pick a new topic each day.

NOTES  Other wisdom literature files are available from Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

A list of books containing wisdom literature is included in the Wisdom Literature Bibliography.


Printing

 Free Sample Paper

Anything you see in the Seven Habits Tools or in the Seven Habits Tab can be printed by selecting the File menu, Print in Schedule+.  Select the Covey Paper Format you wish to use and then specify what information you want printed.  Schedule+ prints to all four of Covey Leadership Center’s planner sizes.

Note  The Seven Habits Tools Add-On includes an advanced print utility makes it even easier to specify what prints where so that your schedule can fit into your organizer binder.  You simply place “pages” in a binder where you want them to appear and the utility takes care of making sure they print where they should on the paper so that you can easily use both sides of your paper and get the results you expect.

If you are interested in receiving more information about the Seven Habits Tools Add-On, call Covey Leadership Center at 1-800-304-9799.


Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
The Two Sides of Success
Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

 See Also 	 Story

Aesop's fable of the Goose and the Golden Egg is the story of a poor farmer who one day discovers in the nest of his pet goose a glittering golden egg.  At first, he thinks it must be some kind of trick.  But as he starts to throw the egg aside, he has second thoughts and takes it in to be appraised instead.

The egg is pure gold! The farmer can't believe his good fortune.  He becomes even more incredulous the following day when the experience is repeated.  Day after day, he awakens to rush to the nest and find another golden egg.  He becomes fabulously wealthy; it all seems too good to be true.

But with his increasing wealth comes greed and impatience.  Unable to wait day after day for the golden eggs, the farmer decides he will kill the goose and get them all at once.  But when he opens the goose, he finds it empty.  There are no golden eggs — and now there is no way to get any more.  The farmer has destroyed the goose that produced them.

I suggest that within this fable is a natural law, a principle — the basic definition of effectiveness.  Most people see effectiveness from the golden egg paradigm: the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are.

But as the story shows, true effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced (the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose).

If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be without the asset that produces golden eggs.  On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won't have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose.

Effectiveness lies in the balance — what I call the P/PC Balance.  P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs.  PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 53-54

People have begun to realize that "efficient" scheduling and control of time are often counterproductive.  The efficiency focus creates expectations that clash with the opportunities to develop rich relationships, to meet human needs, and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis.

Rather than focusing on things and time, effectiveness focuses on preserving and enhancing relationships and accomplishing results.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 150

Efficiency is "getting more done in less time." It makes good sense. We get more done. We reduce or even eliminate waste. We're streamlined. We're faster. We're leveraged. The increase in productivity is incredible. But the underlying assumption is that "more" and "faster" are better. Is that necessarily true? There's a vital difference between efficiency and effectiveness. You may be driving down the highway, enjoying great traveling weather and getting terrific mileage. You may be very efficient. But if you're headed south down the California coast on Highway 101 and your destination is New York City—some three thousand miles to the east—you're not being very effective.

First Things First, page 26

The Seven Habits are habits of effectiveness.  Because they are based on principles, they bring the maximum long-term beneficial results possible.  They become the basis of a person's character, creating an empowering center of correct maps from which an individual can effectively solve problems, maximize opportunities, and continually learn and integrate other principles in an upward spiral of growth.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 53-54

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


The Six Step Process

 See Also 	 Free Seven Habits Application Workbook
 Additional Tools Supporting the Six Step Process

What's so different about the Six Step Organizing Process?

Quadrant II organizing, or the Six Step Process, is not a tool; it's a way of thinking, and the greatest value of the process is not what it does to your schedule, but what it does to your head.  As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently.  You become empowered to put first things first in your life in a significant way.  The shift is from doing more things in less time to doing first things in an effective, balanced, and synergistic way.

If you are like most of the people we've had the opportunity to work with, you'll probably see some immediate benefits from this Quadrant II organizing process—the shift from urgency to importance thinking, the greater perspective of the week, increased flexibility, getting the "big rocks" in first—all have the ability to impact your quality of life dramatically.

Below is a brief introduction to each of the six steps.  As we present the steps in the process, we suggest that you consider them carefully. The more involved you are, the more significant your learning will be.

NOTE  Each step is discussed in further detail in its own topic.

 Step 1: Connect to Mission

As you begin to organize for the coming week, the first step is to connect with what's most important in your life as a whole.  Context gives meaning.  Consider the big picture—what you care about, what makes the moments of your life meaningful.  Many people capture their answers to such questions in a written personal creed or mission statement.  Use this each week to refocus your attention on what's most important.

 Step 2: Review Roles

The second step is to identify and review the roles in your life.  Identifying roles gives a sense of the wholeness of quality life—that life is more than just a job, or a family, or a particular relationship.  It's all of these together.  Identifying roles may also highlight "important, but not urgent" areas that are currently being neglected.

 Step 3: Identify Goals

Step three invites you to consider your week within the framework of your roles and to ask yourself:  What is the most important thing I could do in each role this week to have the greatest positive impact?  What do I feel would make a significant difference in each role?  The answer to these questions is the basis of your weekly goals.  You are probably aware of several goals you could set in each role.  But for now, limit yourself to the one goal in each role that is most important.

 Step 4: Organize Weekly

Step four is where you translate your high-leverage Quadrant II goals into an action plan and create a framework for effective decision making throughout the week.  Most people are constantly trying to find time for the "important" activities in their already overflowing Quadrant I/III schedules.  They move things around, delegate them, cancel them, postpone them—all in the hope of finding time for these important things.  The key, however, is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.  And in this process, you do your organizing on a weekly, rather than a daily, basis.

 Step 5: Exercise Integrity in the Moment of Choice

With your important Quadrant II goals in place for the week, the daily task is to keep first things first while navigating through the unexpected opportunities and challenges of the day.  When you organize weekly all kinds of things will come up you can't anticipate at all. You'll have to make changes and adaptations, not just on a daily basis, but even on an hourly basis, on a moment-by-moment basis. Exercising integrity means translating your mission to the moment with peace and confidence—knowing whether putting first things first means carrying out your plan or creating conscience-directed change.

 Step 6: Evaluate

The Quadrant II process would be incomplete without closing the loop—without turning the experience of one week into the foundation for increased effectiveness of the next.  Unless we learn from living, how are we going to keep from doing the same things—making the same mistakes, struggling with the same problems—week after week?  Step Six takes place at the end of the week—before you review your mission statement to begin organizing the next week.  You look back and learn.  Pause to ask yourself questions such as:  What goals did I achieve?  What challenges did I encounter?  What decisions did I make?  In making decisions, did I keep first things first?

First Things First, pages 79-102

Stephen R. Covey:

Don't worry if your approach isn't necessarily like other people's approaches—and don't worry if you don't sense the impact immediately.  I'll guarantee you within a matter of two or three weeks, you'll start to sense the impact not just in terms of prioritization, but in terms of balance and the peace of mind that comes from attending to all of the key relationships of your life.

From my experience you're going to start to sense, almost immediately, what this process is doing to your life in the most exciting, and the most energizing, and positive way.  Right from the very beginning you'll start to sense things happening.

Now, this weekly organizing process takes people different amounts of time.  Perhaps the average is about 30 minutes. I spend a longer period of time, even up to a full hour once a week. Other people have really been able to do it in 15 - 20 minutes. But I want to say this—this activity has such high leverage and is so vital that it impacts every hour of that entire week. That's why it must be attended to with real, sincere, earnest effort—because it pays such tremendous dividends.

Organizer Implementation Audio Manuscript

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Quadrant II Organizing
Quadrant II Organizing: Importance vs. Urgency

Many important things that contribute to our overall objectives and give richness and meaning to life don't tend to act upon us or press us. Because they're not "urgent," they are the things which we must act upon.

In order to focus on the issues of urgency and importance more effectively, look at the Time Management Matrix below.  It categorizes our activities into four quadrants.  We spend time in one of these four ways:

This embedded picture is too large for the Microsoft Help Compiler.  See Converting Pictures into Help Graphics in the ROBOHELP documentation.

Quadrant I represents things that are both "urgent" and "important." Here's where we handle an irate client, meet a deadline, repair a broken-down machine, undergo heart surgery, or help a crying child who has been hurt. We need to spend time in Quadrant I. This is where we manage, where we produce, where we bring our experience and judgment to bear in responding to many needs and challenges. If we ignore it, we become buried alive. But we also need to realize that many important activities become urgent through procrastination, or because we don't do enough prevention and planning.

Quadrant II includes activities that are "important, but not urgent." This is the quadrant of quality. Here's where we do our long-range planning, anticipate and prevent problems, empower others, broaden our minds and increase our skills through reading and continuous professional development, envision how we're going to help a struggling son or daughter, prepare for important meetings and presentations, or invest in relationships through deep, honest listening. Increasing time spent in this quadrant increases our ability to do. Ignoring this quadrant feeds and enlarges Quadrant I, creating stress, burnout, and deeper crises for the person consumed by it. On the other hand, investing in this quadrant shrinks Quadrant I. Planning, preparation, and prevention keep many things from becoming urgent. Quadrant II does not act on us; we must act on it. This is the quadrant of personal leadership.

Quadrant III is almost the phantom of Quadrant I. It includes things that are "urgent, but not important." This is the quadrant of deception. The noise of urgency creates the illusion of importance. But the actual activities, if they're important at all, are only important to someone else. Many phone calls, meetings, and drop-in visitors fall into this category. We spend a lot of time in Quadrant III meeting other people's priorities and expectations, thinking we're really in Quadrant I.

Quadrant IV is reserved for those activities that are "not urgent and not important." This is the quadrant of waste. Of course, we really shouldn't be there at all. But we get so battle-scarred from being tossed around in Quadrants I and III that we often "escape" to Quadrant IV for survival. What kinds of things are in Quadrant IV? Not necessarily recreational things, because recreation in the true sense of re-creation is a valuable Quadrant II activity. But reading addictive light novels, habitually watching "mindless" television shows, or gossiping around the water fountain at the office would qualify as Quadrant IV time wasters. Quadrant IV is not survival; it's deterioration. It may have an initial cotton candy feel, but we quickly find there's nothing there.

We'd like to suggest now that you look at the Time Management Matrix and think back over the past week of your life. If you were to place each of your last week's activities in one of these quadrants, where would you say you spent the majority of your time?

Think carefully as you consider Quadrants I and III. It's easy to think because something is urgent, it's important. A quick way to differentiate between these two quadrants is to ask yourself if the urgent activity contributed to an important objective. If not, it probably belongs in Quadrant III.

If you're like most of the people we work with, there's a good chance you spent the majority of your time in Quadrants I and III. And what's the cost? If urgency is driving you, what important things—maybe even "first things"—are not receiving your time and attention?

THE IMPORTANCE PARADIGM

Clearly, we deal with both factors—urgency and importance—in our lives. But in our day-to-day decision making, one of these factors tends to dominate. The problem comes when we operate primarily from a paradigm of urgency rather than a paradigm of importance.

When we operate out of the importance paradigm, we live in Quadrants I and II. We're out of III and IV, and as we spend more time in preparation, prevention, planning, and empowerment, we decrease the amount of time we spend putting out fires in Quadrant I. Even the nature of Quadrant I changes. Most of the time, we're there by choice rather than default. We may even choose to make something urgent or timely because it's important.

First Things First, pages 36-40

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Mission Statements
Connect to Mission / Mission Statements

 See Also 	 Story

As you begin to organize for the coming week, the first step is to connect with what's most important in your life as a whole.  Context gives meaning.  Consider the big picture—what you care about, what makes the moments in your life meaningful.  Ask yourself questions such as:

•	What's most important?

•	What gives my life meaning?

•	What do I want to be and to do in my life?

Many people capture their answers to such questions in a mission statement. Such statements capture what you want to be and what you want to do in your life and the principles upon which being and doing are based. Clarity on these issues is critical because it affects everything else—the goals you set, the decisions you make, the paradigms you have, the way you spend your time.

First Things First, page 79

A mission statement often answers another important question: What do I believe in? For example, John D. Rockefeller operated from a list of 10 statements, all of them beginning with the words, "I believe." He believed, for example, in the value of service, that a man's word should be as good as his bond, and that thrift is essential to a well-ordered life. We would presume, then, that he strove to act in ways that were consistent with his beliefs and that his commitment to those beliefs helped him become successful.

Seven Habits Video Manual, page 89

The process of writing a mission statement helps us apply Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind in our personal lives. It helps us avoid reaching the top of the ladder of success, only to find it is leaning against the wrong wall. It is a wonderful asset in helping us cultivate a powerful, personal source of continual wisdom and guidance in our significant decisions.

Seven Habits Participant Manual, page 11

Even with a powerful written document, it's vital to realize that it's impossible to translate the mission to the moment in our lives without weekly cultivation—pondering over it, memorizing it, writing it in our heart and in our mind, reviewing it, and using it as the basis for weekly organizing.  You may also find it helpful to go on a personal retreat—perhaps yearly—to evaluate and update it.

First Things First, page 113-14

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Review Roles

 See Also 	 Stories

We live our lives in terms of roles—not in the sense of role playing, but in the sense of authentic parts we've chosen to fill. We may have important roles at work, in the family, in the community, or in other areas of life. Roles represent responsibilities, relationships, and areas of contribution.

Much of our pain in life comes from the sense that we're succeeding in one role at the expense of other, possibly even more important roles.  We may be doing great as vice-president of the company, but not doing well at all as a parent or spouse.  We may be succeeding in meeting the needs of our clients, but failing to meet our own need for personal development and growth.

A clear set of roles provides a natural framework to create order and balance. If you have a mission statement, your roles will grow out of it.  Balance among roles does not simply mean that you're spending time in each role, but that these roles work together for the accomplishment of your mission.

First Things First, page 82

Taking time to review our roles each week keeps them in our awareness and helps us pay attention to all the important dimensions of our life. But that does not necessarily mean that we set a goal in every role every week.  Nor does it mean that our roles are necessarily the same each week, or that we address all roles every week.  The balance of nature itself teaches us the principle of times and seasons. There are times in our lives when imbalance is balance, when a short-term focus contributes to our overall mission in life.

As we review our roles, we see them as the avenues through which we can accomplish our mission. We see their social, mental, and spiritual as well as their physical dimensions.

First Things First, pages 126, 132

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Sharpen the Saw

 See Also 	 Story

Note:  Sharpen the Saw is Habit 7 of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It is also the first role on the roles bar in the Seven Habits Tools.

In addition to the roles you've identified, we'd like to suggest a separate and foundational role called "Sharpen the Saw."  We treat this as a separate role for two reasons: 1) it's a role that everyone has, and 2) it's foundational for success in every other role.

The term Sharpen the Saw is a metaphor that describes the energy we invest in increasing our personal capacity in the four fundamental areas—physical, social, mental, and spiritual. We often get so busy "sawing" (producing results) that we forget to "sharpen our saw" (maintain or increase our capacity to produce results in the future). We may neglect to exercise (physical area), or fail to develop key relationships (social/emotional area). We may not keep current in our field (mental area). We may not be clear about what's important and meaningful to us (spiritual area). If we fail to build our personal capacity in these areas, we quickly become "dulled," and worn out from the imbalance. We're unable to move forward as effectively in the other roles of our lives.

The important thing is that none of the four areas are neglected.

First Things First, pages 84-85

Sharpen the Saw 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.

There's no other way you could spend an hour that would begin to compare with the Daily Private Victory in terms of value and results. It will affect every decision, every relationship. It will greatly improved the quality, the effectiveness, of every other hour of the day, including the depth and restfulness of your sleep. It will build the long-term physical, spiritual, and mental strength to enable you to handle difficult challenges in life.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 296

There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. If these basic needs aren't met, we feel empty, incomplete. We may try to fill the void through urgency addiction. Or we may become complacent, temporarily satisfied with partial fulfillment.

These needs have been recognized in the wisdom literature throughout time as vital areas of human fulfillment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase, "To Live, To Love, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy." The need to live is our physical need for such things as food, clothing, shelter, economic well-being, health. The need to love is our social need to relate to other people, to belong, to love, to be loved. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow. And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence and contribution.

First Things First, pages 44-45

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.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 289

The social and the emotional dimensions of our lives are tied together because our emotional life is primarily, but not exclusively, developed out of and manifested in our relationships with others.

Renewing our social/emotional dimension does not take time in the same sense that renewing the other dimensions does. We can do it in our normal everyday interactions with other people. But it definitely requires exercise. We may have to push ourselves because many of us have not achieved the level of Private Victory and the skills of Public Victory necessary for Habits 4, 5, and 6 to come naturally to us in all our interactions.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 297

Education—continuing education, continually honing and expanding the mind—is vital mental renewal. Sometimes that involves the external discipline of the classroom or systematized study programs; more often it does not. Proactive people can figure out many, many ways to educate themselves.

There's no better way to inform and expand your mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.  You can get into the best minds that are now or that have ever been in the world. I highly recommend starting with a goal of a book a month then a book every two weeks, then a book a week. "The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't read."

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 294-95

Renewing the spiritual dimension provides leadership to your life. It's highly related to Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind.
The spiritual dimension is your core, your center, your commitment to your value system. It's a very private area of life and a supremely important one. It draws upon the sources that inspire and uplift you and tie you to the timeless truths of all humanity.

I find renewal in daily prayerful meditation on the scriptures because they represent my value system. As I read and meditate, I feel renewed, strengthened, centered, and recommitted to serve.  Immersion in great literature or great music can provide a similar renewal of the spirit for some. There are others who find it in the way they communicate with nature.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 292

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Identify Goals

 See Also 	 Story

As we set our weekly goals, we look at each role, and then we pause to ask:  What is the most important thing I could do in each role this week to have the greatest positive impact?

The answer to this question may be in a feeling or impression that comes as we review our mission and roles.

First Things First, page  149

As you pause to consider this question, consult the wisdom of your heart as well as your mind. What do you feel would make a significant difference in each role? What about your role as a spouse? As a friend? As a parent? As an employee? As you pause to consider the most important activities in each role, begin to use your compass instead of the clock. Listen to your conscience. Focus on importance rather than urgency.

If you are a parent, your goal might be to spend some one-on-one time with your child. If you're married, it might be to go on a date with your husband or wife. Job-related goals could include setting aside time for some long-range planning, coaching a peer or subordinate, visiting customers, or working on shared expectations with your boss.

In the "Sharpen the Saw" area, physical goals might include regular exercise or proper diet. In the spiritual area, you might choose meditation, prayer, or the study of inspiring literature. In the mental area you might set a goal to attend a class or pursue your own reading program. For social development, you might work on principles of effective interdependence such as empathic listening, honesty, or unconditional love. The key is to consistently do whatever builds your strength in these areas. An hour a day spent on Sharpen the Saw creates the Private Victory that makes Public Victory possible.

Most people find it helpful to connect weekly goals with the context provided by their mission statement through the use of long-term and mid-range goals.

First Things First, page 147

You'll probably be aware of several goals you could set in each role. But for now, limit yourself to the one or two goals each week that are most important. You may even feel, based on your inner compass, that you should not set goals in every role this week. The Quadrant II process allows for that flexibility and encourages you to use your compass in determining what's most important for you to do.

First Things First, page 86-87

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Organize Weekly

 See Also

Now look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.  For example, if your goal is to produce the first draft of your personal mission statement, you may want to set aside a two-hour block of time on Sunday to work on it.

If you set a goal to become physically fit through exercise, you may want to set aside an hour three or four days during the week, or possibly every day during the week, to accomplish that goal.  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?

Having identified roles and set goals, you can translate each goal to a specific day of the week, either as a priority item or, even better, as a specific appointment.  You can also check your annual or monthly calendar for any appointments you may have previously made and evaluate their importance in the context of your goals, transferring those you decide to keep to your schedule and making plans to reschedule or cancel others.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 163-65

To schedule your Quadrant II goals, either set a specific time during the day to work on the goal, or list it as a priority for the day.  Usually, the specific appointment is the most effective. You may feel your most important goals for the week include doing some long-range planning, exercising, and preparing a major project proposal. Make specific appointments with yourself to work on these goals, and treat an appointment with yourself as you'd treat an appointment with anybody else. Plan around it. Channel other activities and requests to different time blocks. If that appointment has to be changed, reschedule it immediately. Give yourself the same consideration you would give anyone else.

In some cases, it may be more effective not to schedule a goal at a particular hour of the day, but to list it as a priority instead. For example, if your goal is to improve your relationship with your teenage daughter, it's important to realize that the opportunity may not surface at a predictable time. Rather than planning a specific activity together during the week, you may find it more effective to simply put her name at the top of your list of "other priorities" and watch for an opportunity. If you do this on Monday and nothing develops, draw an arrow on that line across to Tuesday. If nothing happens on Tuesday, draw it on across to Wednesday. This way, the priority is on your mind. You're looking for the right occasion. And you can see what's happening in your week with regard to it.  Then, on Wednesday evening, when you're reading the paper and she comes in and wants to talk, you have the motivation to push your paper—not your daughter—aside.

First Things First, page 89-90

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Exercise Integrity

 See Also

As you go through your week, there will undoubtedly be times when your integrity will be placed on the line.  The popularity of reacting to the urgent but unimportant priorities of other people in Quadrant III or the pleasure of escaping to Quadrant IV will threaten to overpower the important Quadrant II activities you have planned.  Your principle center, your self-awareness, and your conscience can provide a high degree of intrinsic security, guidance, and wisdom to empower you to use your independent will and maintain integrity to the truly important.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 169

As powerful as Quadrant II organizing is, neither it nor any other planning process can empower us to know everything that's going to happen in advance or to control it. If our idea of effective time management is to bulldoze our way through a list of scheduled appointments and tasks, no matter what, we're setting ourselves up for almost inevitable frustration. The nature of most days will violate that expectation, in addition to which we'll miss some of the richest, most meaningful dimensions of living. And chances are very good that, a significant part of the time, we won't be putting first things first.

First Things First,  page 168

Quadrant II organizing empowers you to look at the best use of your time through the paradigm of importance rather than urgency. As situations change, you can pause and connect with your inner compass to determine the "best" use of your time and energy. When the unexpected is less important than what you had planned, Quadrant II organizing gives you perspective and the power to keep on track. When the unexpected is more important, it empowers you to adapt and change with confidence, knowing that you're acting on the truly important and not just reacting to the urgent.

First Things First, page 100

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Wisdom Literature

 See Also

It is extremely valuable to train the mind to stand apart and examine its own program. That, to me, is the definition of a liberal education—the ability to examine the programs of life against larger questions and purposes and other  paradigms. Training, without such education, narrows and closes the mind so that the assumptions underlying the training are never examined. That's why it is so valuable to read broadly and to expose yourself to great minds.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 295

We define "wisdom literature" as that portion of the classic, philosophical, and religious literature that deals specifically with the art of living. Some of the literature available now predates formal science and philosophy and was originally passed from one generation to another through oral traditions, proverbs, and symbolic art, as well as through the written word.

First Things First, page 342

As we connect with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart, we become less a function of the social mirror and more a person of character and conscience. Our security doesn't come from the way people treat us or in comparing ourselves to others. It comes from our basic integrity.

First Things First, page 68

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Why Evaluate?

 Story 	 Additional Tools for Evaluation

The Quadrant II process would be incomplete without closing the loop— without turning the experience of one week into the foundation for the increased effectiveness of the next. Unless we learn from living, how are we going to keep from doing the same things—making the same mistakes, struggling with the same problems—week after week?

At the end of the week—before you review your mission statement to begin organizing the next week—pause to ask questions such as:

•	What goals did I achieve?

•	What challenges did I encounter?

•	What decisions did I make?

•	In making decisions, did I keep first things first?

First Things First, page 100-101

The value of any week is not limited to what we do in it; it's also in what we learn from it and become as a result of it. For this reason, no week's experience would be complete without some kind of evaluation that enables us to process it.

Evaluation is the final step—and the first step—in a living and learning cycle that creates an upward spiral of growth. It takes us back to the beginning of the process again, but with greater capacity. As we learn from living, we're better prepared to review our mission and roles, set goals, create a framework for a new week and act with greater integrity in the moment of choice. As we organize, act, evaluate...organize, act, evaluate...and organize, act, and evaluate again, our weeks become repeating cycles of learning and growth.

First Things First, page 189

As you evaluate yourself each week, it's important to use your compass—to be deeply honest and self-aware, to connect with conscience, to use independent will and creative imagination to consider possibilities and commit to positive change.

It's also helpful to see each week as it connects to every other week.  Ask yourself questions such as these:

•	What patterns of success or failure do I see in setting and achieving goals?

•	Am I setting goals that are realistic but challenging?

•	What keeps getting in the way of accomplishing my goals?

•	What patterns or processes can be improved?

•	Am I creating unrealistic expectations? How can I modify them?

First Things First, page 191

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.

There are many ways to evaluate your life.  The Seven Habits Tools—Add On provides three ways of assessing your progress.

The Journal Tab contains tools to help you record thoughts and feelings about your life and the experiences you have had.  If you spend some time each week working in this tab, over time you will develop a history of yourself, the significant events in your life, and what you have learned.

The 7 Habits Tab contains tools to help you increase your understanding of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and to allow you to track your progress in practicing these habits.  It also allows you to set Focus Habits for the upcoming week, helping you to emphasize specific habits in your life. (Each time you open Schedule+, a quote or a thought regarding your Focus Habit(s) appears on your screen.)

The Evaluate Tab contains tools to help quantify your success in achieving goals and in spending your time on what is most important.  Working within this tab, you can statistically chart your progress in setting and achieving goals over time.


The Seven Habits

 See Also 	 Free Seven Habits Screen Saver

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People provide a holistic, integrated approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Habits are patterns of behavior that involve three overlapping components: knowledge, attitude, and skill. These three components are learned rather than inherited. We are not our current habits. We can make or break our habits.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer

The Seven Habits are habits of effectiveness. Because they are based on principles, they bring the maximum long-term beneficial results possible. They become the basis of a person's character, creating an empowering center of correct maps from which an individual can effectively solve problems, maximize opportunities, and continually learn and integrate other principles in an upward spiral of growth.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 52

The Seven Habits are an orderly sequence of growth, moving from Private to Public Victory.

Habits 1, 2, and 3 lead to Private Victories—the victories that allow us to achieve self-mastery and dominion over self.

•	In Habit 1: Be Proactive, we recognize that we are free to choose.

•	In Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, we identify our personal mission and goals.

•	In Habit 3: Put First Things First, we act on our priorities.

Habits 4, 5, and 6 lead to Public Victories—the victories that allow us to achieve success with other people.

•	In Habit 4: Think Win-Win, we look for alternatives that allow everyone to win.

•	Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood is both an attitude and a skill of listening deeply for complete understanding.

•	In Habit 6: Synergize, we discover a creativity that people can experience when they explore their differences together.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw is the habit that calls the others forth. It is comprised of simple daily activities that implant the principles of effectiveness in our minds.

The habits form a continuum because the Private Victory must come before the Public Victory. Until we have developed self-mastery, it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve success with other people. Taken together, the Seven Habits cultivate personal character, which is the foundation of effectiveness.

Seven Habits Video Manual, page 51

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Habit 1:  Be Proactive
Principles of Personal Vision

 See Also 	 Stories

The first and most basic habit of a highly effective person in any environment is the habit of proactivity.  Being proactive means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.  We can subordinate feelings to values.  We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Look the word responsibility—response-ability—the ability to choose your responses. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

The opposite of proactive is reactive, The spirit of reactive people is the transfer of responsibility. Their language absolves them of responsibility.

"That's me. That's just the way I am." I am determined. There's nothing I can do about it.

"He makes me so mad!" I'm not responsible. My emotional life is governed by something outside of my control.

Many behavioral scientists have built reactive, deterministic, stimulus-response models of human behavior. The basic idea is that we are conditioned to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus. In contrast, the proactive model states that between stimulus and response lies our freedom to choose our response.

Proactive people focus their time and energy on their Circle of Influence (things they can control) in lieu of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control (Circle of Concern). In so doing, proactive people use positive energy to influence conditions and increase their Circle of Influence.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer


Habit 2:  Begin with the End in Mind
Principles of Personal Leadership

 See Also 	 Story

To begin with the end in mind means to begin each day with a clear understanding of your desired direction and destination. By keeping that end in mind you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover, upon reaching the top rung, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy, very busy, without being very effective.

People often find themselves achieving victories that are empty, successes that have come at the expense of things they suddenly realize were far more valuable to them. If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

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.  The second, or physical creation, follows from the first, just as a building follows from a blueprint. In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances to shape our lives by default.

Habit 2 is based on imagination—the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see with our eyes; and conscience—the ability to detect our own uniqueness and the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which we can most happily fulfill it.

Leadership is the first creation. Management is the second creation. Management is a bottom line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish? In the words of both Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, "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.

The most effective way we know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement, 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. Because each person is unique, a personal mission statement will reflect that uniqueness, both in content and form.

A personal mission statement based upon principles becomes a standard for an individual. It becomes a personal constitution, the basis for making major, life-directing decisions, the basis for making daily decisions in the midst of change.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer


Habit 3:  Put First Things First
Principles of Personal Management

 See Also	 Story

What are first things? First things are those things that you, personally, find most worth doing. They move you in the right direction and help you achieve the purpose expressed in your mission statement.

Put First Things First involves organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities established in Habit 2 (Begin with the End in Mind). Habit 2 is the first or mental creation. Habit 3, then, is the second, or physical creation.  It's the day-in, day-out, moment by moment doing it.

E.M. Gray spent his life searching for the one denominator that all successful people share. The one factor that seemed to transcend all the rest embodies the essence of Habit 3—putting first things first. In his essay, The Common Denominator of Success, he writes: "The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

Basically, we spend our time in one of four ways, as illustrated in the time management matrix.  This matrix defines activities as "urgent" or "not urgent" and "important" or "not important." With careful analysis, most people discover that they spend far too much time responding to the urgent crisis of Quadrants I and III, escaping occasionally for survival to the non-urgent, unimportant time wasters of Quadrant IV.

Most of the activities essential to the development of the Seven Habits—creating a personal mission statement, identifying long range goals, nurturing relationships, and obtaining regular physical, spiritual, mental, and social-emotional renewal—are all Quadrant II activities. They are "important"—vitally important—but because they aren't "urgent," they often don't get done. We must be proactive rather than reactive to do the important but not urgent things. Only by saying no to the unimportant can we say yes to the important (Quadrant II).

Habit 3 involves a six step process that can help you act on the basis of importance and close the gap between what matters most to you and what you actually spend your time doing.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer


Habit 4:  Think Win-Win
Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

 See Also 	 Story

In relationships and businesses, effectiveness is largely achieved through the cooperative efforts of two or more people. Marriages and other partnerships are interdependent realities, and yet people often approach these relationships with an independent mentality, which is like trying to play golf with a tennis racket—the tool isn't suited to the sport.

Most of us learn to base our self-worth on comparisons and competition. We think about succeeding in terms of someone else failing.  That is, if I win, you lose. Or if you win, I lose. There is only so much pie and if you get a big piece there is less for me. People with this type of Scarcity Mentality find it difficult to share recognition and power, and to be happy for the successes of others, especially those closest to them.

Win-Win, on the other hand, 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. Win-Win sees life as a cooperative, not a competitive arena. Win-Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.  Win-Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.

Character is the foundation of Win-Win, and everything else builds on that foundation. There are three character traits essential to the win-win paradigm.

•	Integrity—integrity is the value we place on ourselves, being true to our values and commitments.

•	Abundance Mentality—people with an abundance mentality believe there is plenty for everyone.

•	Maturity—a mature person can express his feelings and convictions with courage balanced with consideration for the feelings and convictions of others.

Win-Win Agreements are effective tools for establishing the Win-Win foundations necessary for long term effectiveness and may be created between employers and employees, between teams, between companies and suppliers, between any two or more people who need to interact to accomplish. In the Win-Win agreement, the following five elements are made explicit.

•	Desired results (not methods) identify what is to be done and when.

•	Guidelines specify the parameters (principles, policies, etc.) within which results are to be accomplished

•	Resources identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational support available to help accomplish the results.

•	Accountability sets up the standards of performance and the time of evaluation

•	Consequences specify—good and bad, natural and logical—what does and what will happen as a result of achieving or not achieving desired results

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer


Habit 5:  Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Habit 5:  Seek First to Understand...
Principles of Empathic Communication

 See Also 	 Story

Communication is the most important skill in life. We spend most of our waking hours communicating. But consider this: You've spent years learning how to read and write. Years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human being from that individuals' own frame of reference?

Seeking first to understand, or diagnosing before you prescribe, is a correct principle manifest in many areas of life. A wise doctor will diagnose before writing a prescription. A good engineer will understand the forces, the stresses at work, before designing the bridge. An effective salesperson first seeks to understand the needs of the customer before offering a product. Similarly, an effective communicator will first seek to understand another's views before seeking to be understood. Until people feel properly diagnosed they will not be open to prescriptions.

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.

"Oh, I know exactly how you feel."

"I went through the very same thing. Let me tell you about my experience."

They're constantly projecting their own home movies onto other's behavior.

In contrast, 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 it, you understand how they feel. This does not mean that you agree necessarily, simply that you understand their point of view.

Empathic listening is, in and of itself, a tremendous deposit in the Emotional Bank Account of another. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival, to be affirmed, to be appreciated, to be understood. When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air.

Empathic listening is also risky. It takes a great deal of security to go into a deep listening experience because you open yourself up to be influenced. You become vulnerable. It's a paradox, in a sense, because in order to have influence, you have to be influenced. You have to really understand.

Once we understand, we can proceed with the second step of the interaction: seeking to be understood. Because the other person's need to be understood has been satisfied, we are much more likely to have influence and to be understood ourselves.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer


Habit 6:  Synergize
Principles of Creative Cooperation

 See Also 	 Stories

Synergy is everywhere in nature. The intermingled roots of two plants growing closely together improve the quality of the soil. Two pieces of wood bonded together hold much more than the total of the weight held by each separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more.

The principle of synergy also holds true in social interactions. Two people, creatively cooperating, will be able to produce far better results than either one could alone. Synergy lets us discover jointly things that we are much less likely to discover by ourselves.  It occurs when minds stimulate each other and ideas call forth ideas. I say something that stimulates your mind; you respond with an idea that stimulates mine. I share that new idea with you, and the process repeats itself and even builds.

Synergy works. It is the crowning achievement of all the previous habits. It is effectiveness in an interdependent reality—it is teamwork, team building, the development of unity and creativity with other human beings.

Valuing the differences is the essence of synergy—the mental, the emotional, the physiological differences between people. And the key to valuing those differences is to realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are. When we value differences and bring different perspectives together in the spirit of mutual respect, people then feel free to seek the best possible alternative, often the Third Alternative, one that is substantially better than either of the original proposals. Finding a third alternative is not compromise, but represents a Win-win solution for both parties.

The person who is truly effective has the humility and reverence to recognize his own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings. 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.

Insecure people, in contrast, tend to make others in their own image and surround themselves with people who think similarly. They mistake uniformity for unity, sameness with oneness. Real oneness means complementariness. The chance for synergy is greater when two people tend not to see things in the same way. Differences, therefore, become an opportunity. If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer


Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

 See Also 	 Stories

Note:  Sharpen the Saw is Habit 7 of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It is also the first role on the roles bar in the Seven Habits Tools.

Habit 7 is the habit that makes all the others possible. Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you. It means having a balanced, systematic program for self-renewal in the four areas of our lives: physical, mental, emotional-social, and spiritual. Without this discipline, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish.

The physical self is the body. We build its strength through nutrition, exercise, and rest.

We exercise our mental self through learning—through reading, writing, challenging, and taking time to think.

We exercise our spiritual self through reading literature that inspires us, through meditation or prayer, and through spending time with nature.

We exercise our social-emotional self by making consistent daily deposits into the Emotional Bank Accounts of our key relationships.

This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life—investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. Yet when people get busy producing, or sawing, they seldom take time to Sharpen the Saw because maintenance seldom pays dramatic, immediate dividends.

This daily Private Victory is the key to the development of the Seven Habits, and it's completely within our control. Renewal is the principle and the process that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.

Seven Habits Overview / Seven Habits Organizer

Things you do to Sharpen the Saw in any one dimension have a positive impact in other dimensions because they are so highly interrelated.  Your physical health affects your mental health; your spiritual strength affections your social/emotional strength.  As you improve in one dimension, you increase your ability in other dimensions as well.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People create optimum synergy among these dimensions.  Renewal in any dimension increases your ability to live at least one of the Seven Habits.  And although the habits are sequential, improvements in one habit synergetically increases your ability to live the rest.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 303

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Writing a Mission Statement

A mission statement is not exactly a piece of creative writing. We write what we sense to be true about ourselves, although it often seems more like we are writing what we would like to be true.

Writing what is true about ourselves isn't as easy as it may seem. We sometimes don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. We perhaps believe things because we are expected to believe them. We feel inclined to pursue a certain path because it is socially approved. We may fear other people's criticism if we do what we feel is right for us.

Writing a mission statement is really an adventure in self-discovery. We are working to uncover our talents, our interests, and our deepest desires for life. Writing a mission statement can be a tool for clarifying things we otherwise might not know.  Most people, at some point in their lives, long for a sense of meaning and purpose. They sense that they have talents and contributions to offer, but are not sure what their talents are. The mission statement is a way of discovering that sense of purpose by coming to know ourselves better.

Seven Habits Video Manual, page 90


Organizational Mission Statements

 See Also 	 Story

Stephen R. Covey:

Mission statements are vital to successful organizations. One of the most important thrusts of my work with organizations is to assist them in developing effective mission statements. And to be effective, that statement has to come from within the bowels of the organization. Everyone should participate in a meaningful way—not just the top strategy planners, but everyone.  The involvement process is as important as the written product and is the key to its use.

The most effective way I know to Begin with the End in Mind is to develop a 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.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 106

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Defining Your Roles

Don't be overly concerned about getting your roles "right" the first time.  It may take several weeks before you feel they capture the various facets of your life in a way that works for you.  There's no set way to do it—another person doing almost the same things you do might define the roles differently.

For example, you may define your family role as simply "family member." Or, you may choose to divide it into two roles, "husband" and "father," "wife" and "mother," "daughter" and "sister." Some areas of your life, such as your job, may involve several roles. You may have one role in administration, one in marketing, one in personnel, and one in long-range planning.

First Things First,  page 83

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Why Only Seven Roles?

Since studies show that it's less effective to attempt to mentally manage more than seven categories, we recommend that you try to combine functions, such as administration/finance or personnel/team building to keep your total number of roles to seven. This will support mental organization around these role areas. On the other hand, don't feel that you have to come up with seven roles. If you only identify five or six roles, that's fine. The number seven simply represents an upper limit to comfortable mental processing.

Identifying roles gives a sense of the wholeness of quality life—that life is more than just a job, or a family, or a particular relationship.  It's all of these together.  Identifying roles may also highlight "important, but not urgent" areas that are currently being neglected.

First Things First,  page 84

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Long Term Goals

 Stories

One of the best ways to set long term goals is to ask three vital questions: what? why? and how?

What?

What do I desire to accomplish? What is the contribution I want to make? What is the end I have in mind?

A principle-based "what" focuses on growth and contribution. It isn't just setting and achieving goals that creates quality of life. Hitler set and met goals. So did Gandhi. The difference is what they chose to focus on. What we seek, we generally find. When we set goals that are in harmony with conscience and the principles that create quality of life, we seek—and find—the best.

Why?

Why do I want to do it? Does my goal grow out of mission, needs, and principles? Does it empower me to contribute through my roles?

Without this deep connection, we go through life feeling duty-bound to develop sufficient self-control to achieve our goals, to endure to the end, to crawl battered and bruised over the finish line, if it's the last thing we do. There's no connection to our deep energy sources, our convictions, our experiences. We're working against ourselves, not sure why (or even if) we want to accomplish a particular goal. The commitments we make in a moment of enthusiasm don't have the sustaining power to carry us all the way to successful achievement of our goals.

The key to motivation is motive. It's the "why." It's what gives us the energy to stay strong in hard moments. It gives us the strength to say "no" because we connect with a deeper "yes" burning inside.

If a goal isn't connected to a deep "why," it may be good, but it usually isn't best. We need to question the goal. The stronger the connection, the stronger and more sustained the motivation.

How?

How am I going to do it? What are the key principles that will empower me to achieve my purpose? What strategies can I use to implement these principles?

Once we create alignment between the "what" and the "why," we're ready to look at the "how." The choice of how often boils down to a choice between "control" and "release" styles of thinking and managing. If our paradigm is one of control, we assume that people have to be tightly supervised if they're going to produce or perform well. If our paradigm is one of release, our assumption is that, given the freedom, opportunity, and support, people will bring out the highest and best within them and accomplish great things.

The way we see others in terms of control or release generally reflects the way we see ourselves. If we have a control perspective, we assume we have to exercise strict control over ourselves if we want to accomplish anything. If we have a release perspective, we see our primary leadership task as creating optimal conditions for releasing inner capacities. If our focus in goal setting is on the endowment of independent will—gut it out, discipline ourselves, do it no matter what—that's a good indication that our basic paradigm is one of control.

First Things First, pages 141-143

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Perhaps List

The Perhaps List is a list of goal ideas you may want to consider in the future. Whenever an idea occurs to you of something you really want to do, but that you are not ready to set as a goal, record it in your Perhaps List. These are not goals and are not a commitment on your part—perhaps you'll do them; perhaps you won't.  This is just an area to capture ideas.

Goals you have set in the past are automatically stored in your Perhaps List—because perhaps you will want to do them again in the future.  Other ideas can be recorded in the Perhaps List by selecting a role, entering a description, and clicking the Perhaps button.  Items can be removed from the Perhaps List by selecting them and clicking the Delete button.

During weekly organizing, you can look over the list, translate any item you wish to a goal for the week, keep it on the list for future reconsideration, or discard it as not really that important.

HINT  You may want to put asterisks (or some other character) in front of items you have not already set as goals.  This will help you keep new ideas separated from previous goals.


Synergy Among Roles/Goals

 Story

The same person who gets up, showers, and eats breakfast in the morning is also the person who interacts with clients at the office, makes presentations to the board, coaches the Little League team, cleans out the garage, and goes to church. Whatever we are we bring to every role in our life.

And what's true of character is also true, to a large extent, of competence. Although there are certain specific competencies attached to each role, True North principles empower us with competencies basic to every role, creating a powerful synergy among roles.

Inter-role synergy saves incredible problem-solving time and energy, but be sure that this synergy does not degenerate to "stuffing more in."  What you are seeking here is natural synergy—activities that are better together.

We can think in terms of fulfilling a personal development goal to exercise and a parenting goal to build a relationship with a teenage daughter by taking that daughter out for a game of tennis. If we need to inspect a factory and train a new assistant, we can see inspecting the factory together as a way to train that assistant.

When we see our roles as segmented parts of life, we develop a Scarcity Mentality. There's only so much time. Spending it in one role means we can't spend it in another. It's win-lose—one role wins, the other roles lose. We're in competition with ourselves.

But principles empower us with an Abundance Mentality. There's more of everything. We can Think Win-Win with all the roles in our lives, to see them as parts of a highly interrelated whole.

First Things First, pages 122-124

The objective is not to cram as many activities as possible into our schedule or to try to do everything at once.  We're not trying to be Superman or Superwoman.  The objective is to use our creative imagination to come up with synergistic, principle-based ways to accomplish goals that create even greater results than would be achieved if the goals were accomplished separately.

A good test is to see how you feel inside as you make the connections.  If it feels forced or contrived, you may be violating a principle—perhaps spreading yourself to thin—and the activities would be better approached separately.  When activities naturally go together, you'll feel a sense of peace and increased capacity, because you're operating in harmony with principles.  Instead of conflicting and competing, the parts of your life are working together in beauty and harmony.

First Things First, page 159

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Concentrations versus Determinations
Concentrations vs. Determinations

 See Also

You may find it helpful to distinguish between determinations—things you're determined to do, no matter what—and concentrations, areas of pursuit you focus your efforts around. When you set a determination, you put your integrity on the line. This is when it's vital to follow through, to keep your commitment, to do what you said you were going to do. The only valid reason for not sticking to a determination would be if you became thoroughly convinced—through conscience and deep self-awareness—that the "best" goal you set had for some reason become only "good." Then, and only then, could you change with integrity.

When you set a concentration, you identify an area where you desire to focus time and energy. You seek opportunities to do it. You move toward it. But you don't risk your integrity. If you don't do it, you lose the benefit of the time and energy you invested, but you don't make withdrawals from your Personal Integrity Account.

Remember, you don't have to put your integrity on the line every time you set a weekly goal. In fact, it's important to manage your actual commitments with great care, being sensitive and wise in building the balance in your Personal Integrity Account. But your caution should not keep you from moving forward with purpose.

First Things First, pages 151-52

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Daily Planning

The problem with focusing on daily planning is that it's like trying to walk down the street while looking through the telephoto lens of a camera. It keeps us focused on what's right in front of us—what's pressing, proximate, and urgent. So we're essentially into prioritizing crises. While the objective of most daily planning approaches is to help us put first things first, the reality is that daily planning keeps us focused on doing urgent things first. The perspective is insufficient to accomplish the result.

Of course, we can't just be focused on the big picture either. If we don't translate vision into action, we lose touch with reality, become idealistic dreamers, and lose credibility with ourselves and with others.

The perspective of the week links the big picture to the day in a balanced, realistic way.  Because it creates these vital connections, the week becomes the "normal lens" that gives the most accurate perspective for creating a balanced quality life.

With Quadrant II weekly organizing, daily planning becomes more a function of daily adapting, or prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated events, relationships, and experiences in a meaningful way.

Taking a few minutes each morning to review your schedule can put you in touch with the value-based decisions you made as you organized the week as well as unanticipated factors that may have come up.  As you overview the day, you can see that your roles and goals provide a natural prioritization that grows out of your innate sense of balance.

You may still find that the third-generation A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 prioritization gives needed order to daily activities.  It would be a false dichotomy to say that activities are either important or they aren't.  They are obviously on a continuum, and some important activities are more important than others.  In the context of weekly organizing, third-generation prioritization gives order to daily focus.

But trying to prioritize activities before you even know how they relate to your sense of personal mission and how they fit into the balance of your life is not effective.  You may be prioritizing and accomplishing things you don't want or need to be doing at all.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 165-68

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


The Space Between Stimulus and Response

 Story

While the word proactivity is now fairly common in management literature, it is a word you won't find in most dictionaries. It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Look at the word responsibility—"response-ability"—the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

Because we are by nature proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have by conscious decision or by default chosen to empower those things to control us.

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn't a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not.

Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the "social weather." When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don't, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social, or psychological. But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.

As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, "No one can hurt you without your consent." In the words of Gandhi, "They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them." It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place.

I admit this is very hard to accept emotionally, especially if we have had years and years of explaining our misery in the name of circumstance or someone else's behavior. But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise."

It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 70-74

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Four Human Endowments

As human beings, we have unique endowments that distinguish us from the animal world. These endowments reside in that space between stimulus and response, between those things that happen to us and our response to them.

Stephen: Years ago, as I was wandering between the stacks of books at a university library, I chanced to open a book in which I encountered one of the most powerful, significant ideas I've ever come across. The essence of it was this:

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

That idea hit me with incredible force. In the following days, I reflected on it again and again. It had a powerful effect on my paradigm of life. I began to discover in that space my own ability to make a consciously chosen response.

The endowments that reside in this space —self-awareness, conscience, creative imagination, and independent will—create our ultimate human freedom: the power to choose, to respond, to change. They create the compass that empowers us to align our lives with true north.

•	Self-awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies. It enables us to take off our "glasses" and look at them as well as through them. It makes it possible for us to become aware of the social and psychic history of the programs that are in us and to enlarge the separation between stimulus and response.

•	Conscience connects us with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart. It's our internal guidance system, which allows us to sense when we act or even contemplate acting in a way that's contrary to principle. It also gives us a sense of our unique gifts and mission.

•	Independent will is our capacity to act. It gives us the power to transcend our paradigms, to swim upstream, to rewrite our scripts, to act based on principle rather than reacting based on emotion or circumstance. While environmental or genetic influences may be very powerful, they do not control us. We're not victims. We're not the product of our past. We are the product of our choices. We are "response-able"—able to respond, to choose beyond our moods and tendencies. We have will power to act on self-awareness, conscience and vision.

•	Creative imagination is the power to envision a future state, to create something in our mind, and to solve problems synergistically. It's the endowment that enables us to see ourselves and others differently and better that we are now. It enables us to write a personal mission statement, set a goal, or plan a meeting. It also empowers us to visualize ourselves living our mission statement even in the most challenging circumstances, and to apply principles in effective ways in new situations.

First Things First, pages 58-60

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


The Moment of Choice

A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence. Consider some of the factors acting on us in the moment of choice during the week:

•	urgency (things that are pressing and proximate)

•	the social mirror (things that are pleasing and popular)

•	our own expectations

•	the expectations of others

•	our deep values (what we feel is important in the long run)

•	our operational values (what we want in the short run)

•	our scripting

•	our self-awareness

•	our conscience

•	our fundamental needs

•	our wants

With all these factors acting on us, it's important to remember that a moment of choice is just that—a moment of choice. Whether we react automatically to one or more of these influences, empower circumstances or other people to control us, or use our human endowments to make a conscious, conscience-directed decision—it's our choice.

As Viktor Frankl discovered in the death camps of Nazi Germany:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance...

We may find it convenient to live with the illusion that circumstances or other people are responsible for the quality of our lives, but  the reality is that we are responsible—response-able—for our choices. And while some of these choices may seem small and insignificant at the time, like tiny mountain rivulets that come together to create a mighty river, these decisions join together to move us with increasing force toward our final destiny. Over time, our choices become habits of the heart. And, more than any other factor, these habits of the heart affect our time and the quality of our lives.

First Things First, page 169-70

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Educating Your Conscience

 See Also

Conscience connects us with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart. It's our internal guidance system, which allows us to sense when we act or even contemplate acting in a way that's contrary to principle. It also gives us a sense of our unique gifts and mission.

First Things First, page 59-60

Educate The Conscience By Learning, Listening, And Responding

The existence of conscience is one of the most widely validated concepts in psychological, sociological, religious, and philosophical literature throughout time. From the wisdom literature's "inner voice" to psychology's "collective unconscious"—even to Walt Disney's "Jiminy Cricket"—this human capacity has been recognized and addressed as a major part of human being.   Nevertheless, most of us work and live in environments that don't nurture the development of the conscience. To hear conscience clearly often requires us to be "still" or "reflective" or "meditative"—a condition we rarely choose or find. We're inundated by activity, noise, social and cultural conditioning, media messages, and flawed paradigms that dull our sensitivity to that quiet inner voice that would teach us of True North principles and our own degree of congruency with them.

But if we stop and search deeply with an honest heart, we can tap into that inner wellspring of wisdom.

First Things First, page 65

We can educate our conscience by:

•	reading and pondering over the wisdom literature of the ages to broaden our awareness of the True North principles that run as common themes throughout time.

•	standing apart from and learning from our own experience.

•	carefully observing the experience of others.

•	taking time to be still and listen to that deep inner voice.

•	responding to that voice.

First Things First, page 67

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Circle of Influence

 Story

An excellent way to become more self-aware regarding our own degree of proactivity is to look at where we focus our time and energy. We each have a wide range of concerns—our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement by creating a "Circle of Concern."

As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them within a smaller Circle of Influence.

It is inspiring to realize that in choosing our response to circumstance, we powerfully affect our circumstance. When we change one part of the chemical formula, we change the nature of the results.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 81- 86

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Themes in Wisdom Literature

We recognize there are cautions in drawing too many conclusions from such a vast array of material with deep difference in philosophy, core paradigms, and language. But even with these differences, we feel there is significant benefit to be gained by looking for the most general themes, as well as learning to appreciate the differences.

From our own study and from our efforts to learn from scholars who have devoted tremendous time and effort to this area, we would suggest that the following are some of the most common themes:

Choice

In our hands is the power to choose. Some choices produces better results than others. There is a "cause and effect" relationship between choices and consequences. This relationship is sometimes referred to as "the Law of the Harvest," or what we have called the Law of the Farm.

Reflectiveness

By taking time to reflect on life instead of spending all our time just living, we can become aware of the consequences of our choices and learn from living.

Value of Choices

The value of one choice over another is not always completely rational or easily defensible, but is discernible. With some form of intuition, people know the "right thing to do," and life is better to the degree to which one learns to follow this "guide."

Truth

There are "truths"—fundamental laws of life that operate with unerring consistency—and we are better off to the degree to which we learn and live according to them.

Basic Needs

There are universal human needs, and nothing works well very long in the human experience that ignores them.

Nature

People are part of the bigger ecological whole.  Living in harmony with nature is a vital part of quality of life.

Relationships

The law that governs quality in our relationships with others is the Law of Reciprocity, or the Golden Rule. Life is better when we treat others as we would be treated.

Contribution

The great apparent dichotomy is that the more we give, the more we get.

Perspective

There is more to life than "me" and "now." The bigger picture produces better-quality decisions.

What is remarkable about "wisdom literature" is that, to the degree we find patterns , consistencies, and themes, it represents the most validated database in all human experience. To ignore it—to not try to learn from it—would seem an absurd disregard of resource. Certainly regular immersion in the great database of living is a powerful course in conscience education.

First Things First, pages 342-343

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Wisdom Literature Bibliography

 See Also

This bibliography is in no way comprehensive.  The listing is designed to give you a feeling for the variety and scope of wisdom literature, to illustrate some of the general themes we've suggested, and to provide a useful starting place for those who are interested in using this vast body of human experience as a resource in educating the conscience.

We are currently in the process of compiling a more comprehensive list of wisdom literature titles, and we welcome suggestions of works that could be included.  If you are interested in helping with this project, please write Covey Leadership Center, Inc., 3507 N. University Avenue, Suite 100, Provo, Utah 84604, or FAX 801-342-6236.  We will send you a response form to submit your suggestion, along with why you feel it should be included and ways in which it has impacted your life.

We've divided the list into "basic works" and "collections" and alphabetized them by title.

NOTE  For the purpose of this bibliography, "collections" are essentially quote books.

First Things First, pages 342-343


Wisdom Literature: Basic Works

The Analects of Confucius. Translated by Arthur Waley. Vintage, 1938.

The Art of Virtue.  Benjamin Franklin. Acorn, 1986.

As A Man Thinketh. James Allen. Running Press, 1989.

As A Man Thinketh, Volume 2.  James Allen. MindArt, 1988.

The Bhagavad Gita.  Translated by Eknath Easwaran. Nilgiri Press, 1985.

Book of the Hopi.  Frank Waters.  Ballantine Books, 1963.

The Book of Mormon. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1986.

The Collective Dialoges of Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns . Princeton University Press, 1961.

The Dhammapada. Translated by Eknath Easwaran. Nilgiri Press, 1985.

The Essential Gandhi. Edited by Louis Rischer. Vintage, 1962.

The Holy Bible

The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni:  The Oldest Books in the World.  Translated by Battiscombe Gunn.  London:  John Murray, 1912.

The Lessons of History.  Will and Ariel Durrant. Simon & Schuster, 1968.

The Meaning of the Glorius Koran: An Explanatory Translation. Translated by  Mohamad Marmaduke Pickehall. Mentor Books, n.d.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.  Translated by George Long. Avon Books, 1993.

The Nicomachean Ethics.  Aristotle. Oxford University Press, 1991.

The Opening of the Wisdom-Eye.  H.H. Gyatso, the Dalai Lama Tenzin.  Quest Books, 1966.

Ramayana.  R.K. Narayan. Penguin, 1972.

The Sayings of Confucius. Translated by Lionel Giles. London: Charles E. Tuttle, 1993.

The Sayings of Mencius.  James R. Ware.  Mentor Books, 1960.

Siddhartha. Hermann Hesse. New Directions, 1951.

Sufism, The Alchemy of the Heart. Labyrinth Publishing, 1993.

Tao, To Know and Not Be Knowing. Labyrinth Publishing, 1993.

Tao Te Ching.  Lao Tzu.  Penguin, 1963.

The Torah.  Translated by W. Gunther Plaute.  Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1981.

The Upanishads. Translated by Eknath Easwaran. Nilgiri Press, 1987.

Walden, Or, Life in the Woods. Henry David Thoreau.  Shambhala, 1992.

The Way of Chuang Tzu.  Thomas Merton.  Shambhala, 1965

The Wisdom of Confucius.  Peter Pauper Press, 1963.

Wisdomkeepers: Meetings with Native American Spiritual Elders.  Steve Wall and Harvey Arden.  Beyond Words Publishing, 1990.

The Wisdom of the Vedas.   J. C. Chatterji. Quest Books, 1992.

World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. International Religious Foundation. Paragon House, 1991.

Zen, The Reason of Unreason. Labyrinth Publishing, 1993.


Wisdom Literature: Collections

The Art of Peace. Morihei Ueshiba.  Translated by John Stevens.  Shambhala, 1992.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom.   Balthasar Gracian.  Translated by Joseph Jacobs. Shambhala, 1993.

The Book of Virtues. William J. Bennet.  Simon & Schuster, 1993.

Words of Wisdom. Ariel Books, 1992.

The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry. Edited by Stephen Mitchell. HarperCollins, 1989.

The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose. Edited by Stephen Mitchell. HarperCollins, 1991.

Light From Many Lamps.  Edited by Lillian Eichler Watson.  Fireside Books, 1979.

Native American Wisdom. Running Press, 1993.

Oneness.  Jeffrey Moses. Fawcett Columbine, 1989.

The Pocket Aquinas. Edited by Vernon J. Bourke. Pocket, 1960.

Prayer of the Heart, Writings from the Philokalia.  Translated G. E. H. Palmer,  Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. Shambhala, 1993.

The Sayings of Muhammad. Allama Sir Abdullah Al-Mamun Al-Suhrawardy.

Charles E. Tuttle, 1992.

Spiritual Illuminations.  Edited by Peg Streep.  Viking Studio Books, 1992.

Thoughts in Solitude. Thomas Merton.  Shambhala, 1993.

Wisdom: Conversations with the Elder Wise Men of Our Day. James Nelson.

Norton, 1958.

Wisdom is One.  B. W. Huntsman.  Charles E. Tuttle, 1985.

Words of Wisdom.  Thomas C. Jones. Chicago: J.G. Ferguson,  1966.

A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom.  Reynold Feldman and Cynthia A. Voelke.

HarperCollins, 1992.

Proverbial Philosophy:  A Book of Thoughts and Arguments.  Martin FarquharTupper. E. H. Butler, Philadelphia, 1892.

Ways of Wisdom. Edited by  Steve Smith.  University Press, 1983.

Wisdom. Edited by Robert J. Sternberg.  Cambridge University Press, 1990.


Emotional Bank Accounts

Relationships with people should be effective, not efficient.  With each new relationship, we open what could be termed an "Emotional Bank Account."  Much like a financial bank account, deposits are made in and withdrawals are taken from an Emotional Bank Account.  When withdrawals exceed deposits, the account is overdrawn.  One difference between the two kinds of accounts is that the Emotional Bank Account requires continual small deposits in order to maintain its balance.

Deposits are made in the form of courtesy, respect, kindness, patience, service, and honesty.  Withdrawals come in the form of overreactions, ego trips, an absence of apologies for mistakes, and neglect of the human relationship.  Our motives for making deposits should be sincere, or others will feel manipulated and grow cynical and distrustful.  By maintaining a large Emotional Bank Account, we will operate from a high level of trust with our family, friends, and associates.

Seven Habits Application Workbook


Story: Mission Statement

Management is a bottom line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish? In the words of both Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, "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.

You can quickly grasp the important difference between the two if you envision a group of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes.  They're the producers, the problem solvers.  They're cutting through the undergrowth, clearing it out.

The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies, and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders.

The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, "Wrong jungle!"

But how do the busy, efficient producers and managers often respond?  "Shut up! We're making progress."

As individuals, groups, and businesses, we're often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don't even realize we're in the wrong jungle.  And the rapidly changing environment in which we live makes effective leadership more critical than it has ever been—in every aspect of independent and interdependent life.

We are more in need of a vision or designation and a compass (a set of principles or directions) and less in need of a road map.  We often don't know what the terrain ahead will be like or what we will need to go through it; much will depend on our judgment at the time.  But an inner compass will always give us direction.

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 metamorphos is taking place in almost every industry and profession demands leadership first and management second.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 101

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Roles

As one busy executive expressed:

In the last 17 years of being a business executive, I've taken a lot of people out to lunch. But as I wrote out my roles and came to "husband," I realized that I hadn't been taking my own wife out for lunch. And my relationship with her is one of the most important relationships in my life.

So, as a result of weekly organizing, we started doing that, and it's brought us much closer. Our communication has increased, which has led me to discover other ways I can be a better husband. As I review my role as a husband each week, I believe I'm doing a much better job.

First Things First, page 126

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story: Sharpen the Saw

Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

"Can't you see?" comes the impatient reply.  "I'm sawing down this tree."

"You look exhausted!" you exclaim.  "How long have you been at it?"

"Over five hours," he returns, "and I'm beat!  This is hard work."

"Well, why don't you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?" you inquire.  "I'm sure it would go a lot faster."

"I don't have time to sharpen the saw," the man says emphatically.  "I'm too busy sawing."

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 287

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Big Rocks

One of our associates shared this experience:

I attended a seminar once where the instructor was lecturing on time.  At one point, he said, "Okay, it's time for a quiz." He reached under the table and pulled out a wide mouth gallon jar. He set it on the table next to a platter with some fist-sized rocks on it. "How many of these rocks do you think we can get in the jar?" he asked.

After we made our guess, he said, "Okay. Let's find out." He set one rock in the jar... then another... then another. I don't remember how many he got in, but he got the jar full. Then he asked, "Is that jar full?"

Everybody looked at the rocks and said, "Yes."

Then he said, "Ahhh." He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar and the gravel went in all the little spaces left by the big rocks. Then he grinned and said once more, "Is the jar full?"

By this time we were on to him. "Probably not," we said.

"Good!" he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went in all the little spaces left by the rocks in the gravel. Once more he looked at us and said, "Is the jar full?"

"No!" we all roared.

He said, "Good!" and he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in. He got something like a quart of water in that jar. Then he said, "Well, what's the point?"

Somebody said, "Well, there are gaps, and if you really work at it, you can always fit more into your life."

"No," he said, "that's not the point. The point it this: if you hadn't put these big rocks in first, would you ever have gotten any of them in?"

With the "more is better" paradigm, we're always trying to fit more activities into the time we have. But what does it matter how much we do if what we're doing isn't what matters most?

Our Quadrant II goals are like the "big rocks." If we put other activities—the water, sand and gravel—in first, and then try to fit the big rocks in, not only will they not fit, we'll end up making a pretty big mess in the process.

But if we know what the big rocks are and put them in first, it's amazing how many of them we can put in—and how much of the sand, gravel and water in fits in between the spaces. Regardless of what else actually does fit in, the key point is that the big rocks—our Quadrant II goals—are in first.

First Things First, page 88-89

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story: Why Evaluate

Roger Merrill:

In consulting with a large corporation several years ago, I had the opportunity to work and become friends with a psychologist who was raised in New York. As we frequently presented to the same group on the same day, I often heard him tell the story of how he and his professional peers would work with rats in mazes. They put the rat at one end of the maze and a piece of food at the other end, and watched the rat as he bumped around until he eventually found the food. The next time they put him in, he bumped a little less and got to the food a little faster. After a while, he got to where he would zip through the maze and have that tidbit in his teeth within a few seconds.

Then they took the food away. For a little while, each time he was put in, the rat kept making a beeline for the end of the maze. But it wasn't too long before he figured out the food wasn't going to be there and so he stopped going.

"That's the difference between rats and people," my friend would say. "The rats stop!"

First Things First, page 188

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Stories: Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 1 Stories: Be Proactive

Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish prisoner held in a concentration camp during World War II, learned about the reality of proactivity as the "last of the human freedoms."

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked throughout the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

Gandhi

Look at Gandhi.  While his accusers were in the legislative chambers criticizing him because he wouldn't join in their Circle of Concern rhetoric condemning the British Empire for their subjugation of the Indian people, Gandhi was out in the rice paddies, quietly, slowly, imperceptibly expanding his Circle of Influence with the field laborers.  A ground swell of support, of trust, of confidence, followed him through the countryside.  Though he held no office or political position, through compassion, courage, fasting, and moral persuasion he eventually brought England to its knees, breaking political domination of three hundred million people with the power of his greatly expanded Circle of Influence.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 88

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Habit 2: Be Proactive
Habit 2 Story: Begin with the End in Mind

"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.

Take construction of a home, for example. You create it in every detail before you ever hammer the first nail into place. You try to get a very clear sense of what kind of house you want. If you want a family-centered home, you plan a family room where it would be a natural gathering place. You plan sliding doors and a patio for children to play outside. You work with ideas. You work with your mind until you get a clear image of what you want to build.

Then you reduce it to blueprint and develop construction plans. All of this is done before the earth is touched. If not, then in the second creation, the physical creation, you will have to make expensive changes that may double the cost of your home.

The carpenter's rule is "measure twice, cut once." You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you've thought everything thorough. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You Begin with the End in Mind.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 99

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 3 Story: Put First Things First

"When I was director of university relations at a large university, I hired a very talented, proactive, creative writer. One day, after he had been on the job for a few months, I went into his office and asked him to work on some urgent matters that were pressing on me.

"Then he took me over to his wallboard, where he had listed over two dozen projects he was working on, together with performance criteria and deadline dates that had been clearly negotiated before. He was highly disciplined, which is why I went to see him in the first place. 'If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man.'

"Then he said, 'Stephen, to do the jobs that you want done right would take several days. Which of these projects would you like me to delay or cancel to satisfy your request?'

"Well, I didn't want to take the responsibility for that. I didn't want to create an obstacle for the most productive people on the staff just because I happened to be managing by crisis at the time. The jobs I wanted done were urgent, but not important. So I went and found another crisis manager and gave the job to him."

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 157.

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 4 Story: Think Win-Win

A 19-year-old woman was watching television one night when a local newscaster announced a celebration to be held in Reno's San Raphael Park. It was to be a homecoming celebration for all the soldiers returning from Desert Storm. About 40,000 people were anticipated.

The announcement sent a shock running through Melissa; her wedding was scheduled for the same day and at the same park as the celebration. She'd scheduled it six months in advance, and the more she thought about the situation, the more her shock turned to frustration.

After a restless night, she got up in the morning and called the individual with whom she had made the park reservation, and asked, "How could you do this?"

The person responsible for scheduling said, "Well, they haven't really okayed it with us—the public awareness is such that we're under pressure to do it."

Melissa ended the conversation feeling more frustrated than ever. She began thinking about the principle of win-win, which she had learned about in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People class, and she decided this situation would provide a good opportunity for win-win.

She then decided to call a member of the Desert Storm homecoming committee. The committee member explained that neither she nor the rest of the committee was adamant about holding the event at San Raphael Park, but after a brainstorming session, someone had leaked the idea for that location to the press—and now that the announcement had hit the public, the committee member said she didn't have a response for Melissa.

Melissa began to picture her wedding with the pastor speaking through a bullhorn in order to compete with the noise of 40,000 people, jets flying overhead, troops in formation, etc. And she just knew it wouldn't work. So, she began thinking of other places the committee could hold the event. She remembered the Fourth of July event held annually at Mackey Stadium, and she wondered, "Why couldn't the two be combined?"

That's when Melissa, a college student with no substantial "connections" with community decision makers, called the head of the Fourth of July committee with an interest in mind and desire to find a solution for both parties.

She called and asked, "What would you think about combining this homecoming ceremony for the troops with your Skyfire celebration?" To her amazement (and relief) the committee agreed to the idea, and when Melissa went back to the homecoming committee with the new option, they also accepted the idea—and invited her to join the committee. Her idea really added to the impact of the community event, and salvaged her wedding location as well.

Seven Habits Participant Manual


Story: Habit 5: Seek First to Understand
Habit 5 Story: Seek First to Understand...

A father once told me, "I can't understand my kid. He just won't listen to me at all."

"Let me restate what you just said," I replied. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"

"That's right," he replied.

"Let me try again," I said. "You don't understand your son because he won't listen to you?"

"That's what I said," he impatiently replied.

"I thought that to understand another person, you needed to listen to him," I suggested.

"Oh!" he said. There was a long pause. "Oh!" he said again, as the light began to dawn. "Oh, yeah! But I do understand him. I know what he's going through. I went through the same thing myself. I guess what I don't understand is why he won't listen to me."

This man didn't have the vaguest idea of what was really going on inside his boy's head.  He looked into his own head and thought he saw the world, including his boy.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 239

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Habit 6:  Synergize
Habit 6 Story: Synergy at the University

Stephen R. Covey:

I'll never forget a university class I taught in leadership philosophy and style. We were about three weeks into a semester when, in the middle of a presentation, one person started to relate some very powerful personal experiences which were both emotional and insightful. A spirit of humility and reverence fell upon the class—reverence toward this individual and appreciation for his courage.

This spirit became fertile soil for a synergistic and creative endeavor. Others began to pick up on it, sharing some of their experiences and insights and even some of their self-doubts. The spirit of trust and safety prompted many to become extremely open. Rather than present what they prepared, they fed on each other's insights and ideas and started to create a whole new scenario as to what that class could mean.

I was deeply involved in the process. In fact, I was almost mesmerized by it because it seemed so magical and creative. And I found myself gradually loosening up my commitment to the structure of the class and sensing entirely new possibilities. It wasn't just a flight of fancy; there was a sense of maturity and stability and substance which transcended by far the old structure and plan.

We abandoned the old syllabus, the purchased textbooks, and all the presentation plans, and we set up new purposes and projects and assignments. We became so excited about what was happening that in about three more weeks, we all sensed an overwhelming desire to share what was happening with others.

We decided to write a book containing our learnings and insights on the subject of our study—principles of leadership. Assignments were changed, new projects undertaken, new teams formed. People worked much harder than they ever would have in the original class structure, and for an entirely different set of reasons.

Out of this experience emerged an extremely unique, cohesive, and synergistic culture that did not end with the semester. For years, alumni meetings were held among members of that class. Even today, many years later, when we see each other, we talk about it and often attempt to describe what happened and why.

One of the interesting things to me was how little time had transpired before there was sufficient trust to create such synergy. I think it was largely because the people were relatively mature. They were in the final semester of their senior year, and I think they wanted more than just another good classroom experience. They were hungry for something new and exciting, something that they could create that was truly meaningful. It was "an idea whose time had come" for them.

In addition, the chemistry was right. I felt that experiencing synergy was more powerful than talking about it, that producing something new was more meaningful than simply reading something old.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 265-267

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Family Vacation
Habit 6 Story: Synergy in the Family

Envision the following scenario:

It's vacation time, and a husband wants to take his family out to the lake country to enjoy camping and fishing. This is important to him; he's been planning it all year. He's made reservations at a cottage on the lake and arranged to rent a boat, and his sons are really excited about going.

His wife, however, wants to use the vacation time to visit her ailing mother some 250 miles away. She doesn't have the opportunity to see her very often, and this is important to her.

Their differences could be the cause of a major negative experience.

"The plans are set. The boys are excited. We should go on the fishing trip," he says.

"But we don't know how much longer my mother will be around, and I want to be by her," she replies. "This is our only opportunity to have enough time to do that."

"All year long we've looked forward to this one-week vacation. The boys would be miserable sitting around grandmother's house for a week. They'd drive everybody crazy. Besides, your mother's not that sick. And she has your sister less than a mile away to take care of her."

"She's my mother, too. I want to be with her."

"You could phone her every night. And we're planning to spend time with her at the Christmas family reunion. Remember?"

"That's not for five more months. We don't even know if she'll still be here by then. Besides, she needs me, and she wants me."

"She's being well taken care of. Besides, the boys and I need you, too."

"My mother is more important than fishing."

"Your husband and sons are more important than your mother."

As they disagree, back and forth, they finally may come up with some kind of compromise. They may decide to split up—he takes the boys fishing at the lake while she visits her mother. And they both feel guilty and unhappy. The boys sense it, and it affects their enjoyment of the vacation.

The husband may give in to his wife, but he does it grudgingly. And consciously or unconsciously, he produces evidence to fulfill his prophecy of how miserable the week will be for everyone.

The wife may give in to her husband, but she's withdrawn and overreactive to any new developments in her mother's health situation. If her mother were to become seriously ill and die, the husband could never forgive himself, and she couldn't forgive him either.

Whatever compromise they finally agree on, it could be rehearsed over the years as evidence of insensitivity, neglect, or a bad priority decision on either part. It could be a source of contention for years and could even polarize the family. Many marriages that once were beautiful and soft and spontaneous and loving have deteriorated to the level of a hostility through a series of incidents just like this.

The husband and wife see the situation differently. And that difference can polarize them, separate them, create wedges in the relationship. Or it can bring them closer together on a higher level. If they have cultivated the habits of effective interdependence, they approach their differences from an entirely different paradigm. Their communication is on a higher level.

In searching for the "middle" or higher way, this husband and wife realize that their love, their relationship, is part of their synergy.

As they communicate, the husband really, deeply feels his wife's desire, her need to be with her mother. He understands how she wants to relieve her sister, who has had the primary responsibility for their mother's care. He understands that they really don't know how long she will be with them, and that she certainly is more important than fishing.

And the wife deeply understands her husband's desire to have the family together and to provide a great experience for the boys. She realizes the investment that has been made in lessons and equipment to prepare for this fishing vacation, and she feels the importance of creating good memories with them.

So they pool those desires. And they're not on opposite sides of the problem. They're together on one side, looking at the problem, understanding the needs, and working to create a Third Alternative that will meet them.

"Maybe we could arrange another time within the month for you to visit with your mother," he suggests. "I could take over the home responsibilities for the weekend and arrange for some help at the first of the week so that you could go. I know it's important to you to have that time.

"Or maybe we could locate a place to camp and fish that would be close to your mother. The area wouldn't be as nice, but we could still be outdoors and meet other needs as well. And the boys wouldn't be climbing the walls. We could even plan some recreational activities with the cousins, aunts, and uncles, which would be an added benefit."

They synergize. They communicate back and forth until they come up with a solution they both feel good about. It's better than the solutions either of them originally proposed. It's better than compromise. It's a synergistic solution that builds P and PC.

Instead of a transaction, it's a transformation. They get what they both really want and build their relationship in the process.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 271-274

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Husband / Wife
Habit 6 Story: Synergy Between Husband and Wife

Stephen R. Covey:

One day I was presenting a seminar which I titled, "Manage from the Left, Lead from the Right" to a company in Orlando, Florida. during the break, the president of the company came up to me and said, "Stephen, this is intriguing. But I have been thinking about this material more in terms of its application to my marriage than to my business. My wife and I have a real communication problem. I wonder if you would have lunch with the two of us and just kind of watch how we talk to each other."

"Let's do it," I replied.

As we sat down together, we exchanged a few pleasantries. Then this man turned to his wife and said, "Now, honey, I've invited Stephen to have lunch with us to see if he could help us in our communication with each other. I know you feel I should be a more sensitive, considerate husband. Could you give me something specific you think I ought to do?" His dominant left brain wanted facts, figures, specifics, parts.

"Well, as I've told you before, it's nothing specific. It's more of a general sense I have about priorities." Her dominant right brain was dealing with sensing and with the gestalt, the whole, the relationship between the parts.

"What do you mean, 'a general feeling about priorities'? What is it you want me to do? Give me something specific I can get a handle on."

"Well, it's just a feeling." Her right brain was dealing in images, intuitive feelings. "I just don't think our marriage is as important to you as you tell me it is."

"Well, what can I do to make it more important? Give me something concrete and specific to go on."

"It's hard to put into words."

At that point, he just rolled his eyes and looked at me as if to say, "Stephen, could you endure this kind of dumbness in your marriage?"

"It's just a feeling," she said, "a very strong feeling."

"Honey," he said to her, "that's your problem. And that's the problem with your mother. In fact, it's the problem with every woman I know."

Then he began to interrogate her as though it were some kind of legal deposition.

"Do you live where you want to live?"

"That's not it," she sighed. "That's not it at all."

"I know," he replied with a forced patience. "But since you won't tell me exactly what it is, I figure the best way to find out what it is, is to find out what it is not. Do you live where you want to live?"

"I guess."

"Honey, Stephen's here for just a few minutes to try to help us. Just give me a quick 'yes' or 'no' answer. Do you live where you want to live?"

"Yes."

"Okay. That's settled. Do you have the things you want to have?"

"Yes."

"All right. Do you do the things you want to do?"

This went on for a little while, and I could see I wasn't helping at all. So I intervened and said, "Is this kind of how it goes in your relationship?"

"Every day, Stephen," he replied.

"It's the story of our marriage," she sighed.

I looked at the two of them and the thought crossed my mind that they were two half-brained people living together. "Do you have any children?" I asked.

"Yes, two."

"Really?" I asked incredulously. "How did you do it?"

"What do you mean how did we do it?"

"You were synergistic!" I said. "One plus one usually equals two. But you made one plus one equal four. Now that's synergy. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. So how did you do it?"

"You know how we did it," he replied.

"You must have valued the differences!" I exclaimed.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 275-277

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: The Physical Dimension
Habit 7 Story: Sharpen the Saw, 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.

Most of us think we don't have enough time to exercise. What a distorted paradigm! We don't have time no to. We're talking about three to six hours a week—or a minimum of 30 minutes a day, every other day. That hardly seems an inordinate amount of time considering the tremendous benefits in terms of the impact on the other 162-165 hours of the week.

I was in a gym one time with a friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in exercise physiology. He was focusing on building strength. He asked me to "spot" him while he did some bench presses and told me at a certain point he'd ask me to take the weight. "But don't take it until I tell you," he said firmly.

So I watched and waited and prepared to take the weight. The weight went up and down, up and down. And I could see it begin to get harder. But he kept going. He would start to push it up and I'd think, "There's no way he's going to make it." But he'd make it. Then he'd slowly bring it back down and start back up again. Up and down, up and down.

Finally, as I looked at his face, straining with the effort, his blood vessels practically jumping out of his skin, I thought, "This is going to fall and collapse his chest. Maybe I should take the weight. Maybe he's lost control and he doesn't even know what he's doing." But he'd get it safely down. Then he'd start back up again. I couldn't believe it.

When he finally told me to take the weight, I said, "Why did you wait so long?"

"Almost all the benefit of the exercise comes at the very end, Stephen," he replied. "I'm trying to build strength. And that doesn't happen until the muscle fiber ruptures and the nerve fiber registers the pain. Then nature overcompensates and within 48 hours, the fiber is made stronger."

I could see his point. It's the same principle that works with emotional muscles as well, such as patience. When you exercise your patience beyond your past limits, the emotional fiber is broken, nature overcompensates, and next time the fiber is stronger.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 289-291

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: The Spiritual Dimension
Habit 7 Story: Sharpen the Saw, the Spiritual Dimension

The spiritual dimension is your core, your center, your commitment to your value system. It's a very private area of life and a supremely important one. It draws upon the sources that inspire and uplift you and tie you to the timeless truths of all humanity. And people do it very, very differently.

Arthur Gordon shares a wonderful, intimate story of his own spiritual renewal in a little story called "The Turn of the Tide." It tells of a time in his life when he began to feel that everything was stale and flat. His enthusiasm waned; his writing efforts were fruitless. And the situation was growing worse day by day.

Finally, he determined to get help from a medical doctor. Observing nothing physically wrong, the doctor asked him if he would be able to follow his instructions for one day.

When Gordon replied that he could, the doctor told him to spend the following day in the place where he was happiest as a child. He could take food, but he was not to talk to anyone or to read or write or listen to the radio. He then wrote out four prescriptions and told him to open one at nine, twelve, three, and six o'clock.

"Are you serious?" Gordon asked him.

"You won't think I'm joking when you get my bill!" was the reply.

So the next morning, Gordon went to the beach. As he opened the first prescription, he read "Listen carefully." He thought the doctor was insane. How could he listen for three hours? But he had agreed to follow the doctor's orders, so he listened. He heard the usual sounds of the sea and the birds. After a while, he could hear the other sounds that weren't so apparent at first. As he listened, he began to think of lessons the sea had taught him as a child—patience, respect, an awareness of the interdependence of things. He began to listen to the sounds—and the silence—and to feel a growing peace.

At noon, he opened the second slip of paper and read "Try reaching back." "Reaching back to what?" he wondered. Perhaps to childhood, perhaps to memories of happy times. He thought about his past, about the many little moments of joy. He tried to remember them with exactness. And in remembering, he found a growing warmth inside.

At three o'clock, he opened the third piece of paper. Until now, the prescriptions had been easy to take. But this one was different; it said "Examine your motives." At first he was defensive.  He thought about what he wanted—success, recognition, security, and he justified them all. But then the thought occurred to him that those motives weren't good enough, and that perhaps therein was the answer to his stagnant situation.

He considered his motives deeply. He thought about past happiness. And at last, the answer came to him.

"In a flash of certainty," he wrote, "I saw that if one's motives are wrong, nothing can be right. It makes no difference whether you are a mailman, a hairdresser, an insurance salesman, a housewife—whatever. As long as you feel you are serving others, you do the job well. When you are concerned only with helping yourself, you do it less well—a law as inexorable as gravity."

When six o'clock came, the final prescription didn't take long to fill. "Write your worries on the sand," it said. He knelt and wrote several words with a piece of broken shell; then he turned and walked away. He didn't look back; he knew the tide would come in.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 292-294

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: The Mental Dimension
Habit 7 Story: Sharpen the Saw, the Mental Dimension

Continuing surveys indicate that television is on in most homes some 35 to 45 hours a week. That's as much time as many people put into their jobs, more than most put into school. It's the most powerful socializing influence there is. And when we watch, we're subject to all the values that are being taught through it. That can powerfully influence us in very subtle and imperceptible ways.

In our family, we limit television watching to around seven hours a week, an average of about an hour a day. We had a family council at which we talked about it and looked at some of the data regarding what's happening in homes because of television. We found that by discussing it as a family when no one was defensive or argumentative, people started to realize the dependent sickness of becoming addicted to soap operas or to a steady diet of a particular program.

I'm grateful for television and for the many high quality educational and entertainment programs. They can enrich our lives and contribute meaningfully to our purposes and goals. But there are many programs that simply waste our time and minds and many that influence us in negative ways if we let them. Like the body, television is a good servant but a poor master. We need to practice Habit 3 and manage ourselves effectively to maximize the use of any resource in accomplishing our missions.

Education—continuing education, continually honing and expanding the mind—is vital mental renewal. sometimes that involves the external discipline of the classroom or systematized study programs; more often it does not. Proactive people can figure out many, many ways to educate themselves.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 295

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: The Social/Emotional Dimension
Habit 7 Story: Sharpen the Saw, the Social/Emotional Dimension

The social and the emotional dimensions of our lives are tied together because our emotional life is primarily, but not exclusively, developed out of and manifested in our relationships with others.

Perhaps you are familiar with the musical, Man of La Mancha. It's a beautiful story about a medieval knight who meets a woman of the street, a prostitute. She's being validated in her lifestyle by all of the people in her life.

But this poet knight sees something else in her, something beautiful and lovely. He also sees her virtue, and he affirms it, over and over again. He gives her a new name—Dulcinea—a new name associated with a new paradigm.

At first, she utterly denies it; her old scripts are overpowering. She writes him off as a wild-eyed fantasizer. But he is persistent. He makes continual deposits of unconditional love and gradually it penetrates her scripting. It goes down into her true nature, her potential, and she starts to respond. Little by little, she begins to change her life-style. She believes it and she acts from her new paradigm, to the initial dismay of everyone else in her life.

Later, when she begins to revert to her old paradigm, he calls her to his deathbed and sings that beautiful song, "The Impossible Dream," looks her in the eyes, and whispers, "Never forget, you're Dulcinea."

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 300

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Efficiency and People

At one point, one of my sons was deeply into scheduling and efficiency.  One day he had a very tight schedule, which included down-to-the-minute time allocations for every activity, including picking up some books, washing his car, and "dropping" Carol, his girlfriend, among other things.

Everything went according to schedule until it came to Carol.  They had been dating for a long period of time, and he had finally come to the conclusions that a continued relationships would not work out.  So, congruent with his efficiency mode, he had scheduled a ten- to fifteen-minute telephone call to tell her.

But the news was very traumatic to her.  One-and-a-half hours later, he was still deeply involved in a very intense conversation with her.  Even then, the one visit was not enough.  The situation was a very frustrating experience for them both.

Again, 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.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, page 170

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Organizational Mission

I was scheduled to train 175 shopping center managers at a particular hotel. I was amazed at the level of service there. It wasn't a cosmetic thing. It was evident at all levels, spontaneously, without supervision.

I arrived quite late, checked in, and asked if room service were available. The man at the desk said, "No, Mr. Covey, but if you're interested, I could go back and get a sandwich or a salad or whatever you'd like that we have in the kitchen." His attitude was one of total concern about my comfort and welfare. "Would you like to see your convention room?" he continued. "Do you have everything you need? What can I do for you? I'm here to serve you."

There was no supervisor there checking up. This man was sincere.

The next day I was in the middle of a presentation when I discovered that I didn't have all the colored markers I needed. So I went out into the hall during the brief break and found a bellboy running to another convention. "I've got a problem," I said. "I'm here training a group of managers and I only have a short break. I need some more colored pens."

He whipped around and almost came to attention. He glanced at my name tag and said, "Mr. Covey, I will solve your problem."

He didn't say, "I don't know where to go" or "well, go and check the front desk." He just took care of it. And he made me feel like it was his privilege to do so.

Later, I was in the side lobby, looking at some of the art objects. Someone from the hotel came up to me and said, "Mr. Covey, would you like to see a book that describes the art objects in this hotel?" How anticipatory! How service-oriented!

I next observed one of the employees high up on a ladder cleaning windows in the lobby. From his vantage point he saw a woman having a little difficulty in the garden with a walker. She hadn't really fallen, and she was with other people. But he climbed down that ladder, went outside, helped the woman into the lobby and saw that she was properly taken care of. Then he went back and finished cleaning the windows.

I wanted to find out how this organization had created a culture where people bought so deeply into the value of customer service. I interviewed housekeepers, waitresses, bellboys in that hotel and found that this attitude had impregnated the minds, hearts, and attitudes of every employee there.

I went through the back door into the kitchen, where I saw the central value: "Uncompromising personalized service." I finally went to the manager and said, "My business is helping organizations develop a powerful team character, a team culture. I am amazed at what you have here."

"Do you want to know the real key?" he inquired. He pulled out the mission statement for the hotel chain.

After reading it, I acknowledged, "That's an impressive statement. But I know many companies that have impressive mission statements."

"Do you want to see the one for this hotel?" he asked.

"Do you men you developed one just for this hotel?"

"Yes."

"Different from the one for the hotel chain?"

"Yes. It's in harmony with that statement, but this one pertains to our situation, our environment, our time." He handed me another paper.

"Who developed this mission statement?" I asked.

"Everybody," he replied.

"Everybody? Really, everybody?"

"Yes."

"Housekeepers?"

"Yes."

"Waitresses?"

"Yes."

"Desk clerks?"

"Yes. Do you want to see the mission statement written by the people who greeted you last night?" He pulled out a mission statement that they, themselves, had written that was interwoven with all the other mission statements. Everyone, at every level, was involved.

The mission statement for that hotel was the hub of a great wheel. It spawned the thoughtful, more specialized mission statements of particular groups of employees. It was used as the criterion for every decision that was made. It clarified what those people stood for—how they related to the customer, how they related to each other. It affected the style of the managers and the leaders. It affected the compensation system. It affected the kind of people they recruited and how they trained and developed them. Every aspect of that of that organization, essentially, was a function of that hub, that mission statement.

I later visited another hotel in the same chain, and the first thing I did when I checked in was to ask to see their mission statement, which they promptly gave me. At this hotel, I came to understand the motto "Uncompromising personalized service" a little more.

For a three-day period, I watched every conceivable situation where service was called for. I always found that service was delivered in a very impressive, excellent way. But it was always also very personalized. For instance, in the swimming area I asked the attendant where the drinking fountain was. He walked me to it.

But the thing that impressed me the very most was to see an employee, on his own, admit a mistake to his boss. We ordered room service, and were told when it would be delivered to the room. On the way to our room, the room service person spilled the hot chocolate, and it took a few extra minutes to go back and change the linen on the tray and replace the drink. So the room service was about 15 minutes late, which was really not that important to us.

Nevertheless, the next morning the room service manager phone us to apologize and invited us to have either the buffet breakfast or a room service breakfast, compliments of the hotel, to in some way compensate for the inconvenience.

What does it say about the culture of an organization when an employee admits his own mistake, unknown to anyone else, to the manager so that customer or guest is better taken care of!

As I told the manager of the first hotel I visited, I know a lot of companies with impressive mission statements. But there is a real difference, all the difference in the world, in the effectiveness of a mission statement created by everyone involved in the organization and one written by a few top executives behind a mahogany wall.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 139-142

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Imbalance Among Roles

Stephen R. Covey:

My daughter Maria, who recently had her third child, was talking with me one evening. She said, "I'm so frustrated, Dad! You know how much I love this baby, but she is literally taking all my time. I'm just not getting anything else done, including many things that only I can do."

I could understand how this was frustrating to her. Maria is bright and capable, and she's always been involved in many good things. She was feeling pulled by good things—projects she wanted to accomplish, contributions she wanted to make, things around the house that weren't getting done.

As we talked, we came to the realization that her frustration was essentially a result of her expectations. And for now, only one thing was needful—enjoying that baby.

"Just relax," I said. "Relax and enjoy the nature of this new experience. Let this infant feel your joy in the role of mother. No one else can love and nurture that child the way you can. All other interests pale in comparison for now."

Maria realized that, in the short run, her life was going to be imbalanced...and that it should be. "There is a time and a season for everything under the sun." She also realized that as the baby grew and entered a different phase in life, she would be able to reach her goals and contribute in other powerful ways.  Finally, I said, "Don't even keep a schedule. Forget your calendar. Stop using your planning tools if they only induce guilt. This baby is the first thing in your life right now. Just enjoy the baby and don't worry. Be governed by your internal compass, not by some clock on the wall."

First Things First, page 16

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story: Circle of Influence

I worked with one organization for several years that was headed by a very dynamic person. He could read trends. He was creative, talented, capable, and brilliant—and everyone knew it. But he had a very dictatorial style of management. He tended to treat people like "gofers," as if they didn't have any judgment. His manner of speaking to those who worked in the organization was, "Go for this... go for that... now do this... now do that—I'll make the decisions."

The net effect was that he alienated almost the entire executive team surrounding him. They would gather in the corridors and complain to each other about him. Their discussion was all very sophisticated, very articulate, as if they were trying to help the situation. But they did it endlessly, absolving themselves of responsibility in the name of the president's weaknesses.

"You can't imagine what's happened this time," someone would say. "The other day he went into my department. I had everything all laid out. But he came in and gave totally different signals. Everything I'd done for months was shot,  just like that. I don't know how I'm supposed to keep working for him. How long will it be until he retires?"

"He's only 59," someone else would respond. "Do you think you can survive for six more years?"

"I don't know. He's the kind of person they probably won't retire anyway."

But one of the executives was proactive. He was driven by values, not feelings. He took initiative—he anticipated, he empathized, he read the situation. He was not blind to the president's weaknesses; but instead of criticizing them, he would compensate for them. Where the president was weak in his style, he'd try to buffer his own people and make such weaknesses irrelevant. And he'd work with the president's strengths—his vision, talent, creativity.

This man focused on his Circle of Influence. He was treated like a gofer, also. But he would do more than what was expected. He anticipated the president's need. He read with the empathy the president's underlying concern, so when he presented information, he also gave his analysis and his recommendations based on that analysis.

As I sat one day with the president in an advisory capacity, he said, "Stephen, I just can't believe what this man has done. He's not only given me the information I requested, but he's provided additional information that's exactly what we needed. He even gave me his analysis of it in terms of my deepest concerns, and a list of his recommendations.

"The recommendations are consistent with the analysis, and the analysis is consistent with the data. He's remarkable! What a relief not to have to worry about this part of the business."

At the next meeting, it was "go for this" and "go for that" to all the executives . . . but one. To this man, it was "What's your opinion?" His Circle of Influence had grown.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 86- 87

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Story: Synergy Among Roles

Rebecca Merrill:

I remember when Roger was in graduate school and I was at home with small children. As we talked in the evenings about what he was working on in his classes, it became more and more apparent to us that the same principles that worked in a business setting could be applied in the leadership and management of a home. It was thrilling to discover that the principles of empowerment that developed responsible, competent employees could be translated to empower three- and four-year-old children to clean their rooms.

We also found that many of the principles that created strong, positive relationships in the family could be applied with significant results in a business setting. We realized that trust was the foundation for effective corporate synergy; integrity was essential to lasting corporate influence.

It seemed that once we focused on principles, our different roles were no longer compartments that segmented and separated our lives. They became avenues of application for universal principles. It became an exciting challenge to see how many ways we could apply the same principles in the different arenas of our lives.

First Things First, page 123

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story: Importance

An associate shared this experience:

Recently one of my friends was going through a crisis in her relationship. I was extremely busy with home and work, but was managing to keep on top of things and maintain my personal renewal time. One day in particular I was scheduled for three meetings, some car service, shopping, and an important lunch date when she called. I knew immediately that she was having a really rough day and quickly decided to shelve my other activities and make the hour's drive to her home. I knew that my next day would be heavy in Quadrant I activities because there were things I wasn't going to be able to do today in preparation. But this was important, very important. I chose to place myself in a position where I would have urgency, but it was a decision I could feel good about.

In our seminars, we often ask people to identify the feelings they associate with the different paradigms. When they talk about urgency, they typically use words such as "stressed out," "used up," "unfulfilled," and "worn out." But when they talk about importance they use words like "confident," "fulfilled," "on track," "meaningful," and "peaceful." You might try this exercise yourself. How do you feel when operating from one paradigm or the other? These feelings can tell you a lot about the source of the results you're getting in your life.

First Things First, pages 33-40

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story: Why?
Story: Long Term Goals, Why?

In the context of mission and vision, the "what" may be easier to identify than the "why" and "how."

Roger Merrill:

After speaking on the importance of mission and roles in a recent seminar, I asked one of the participants if he would be willing to go through the goal setting process with me in front of the group. He agreed.

I said, "Okay, choose a role—any role you'd like."

"Father."

"What do you feel is the most important goal you could work on in this role?"

"To improve my relationship with my fourteen-year-old son."

"Why?"

"Well, our relationship's not that good."

"So why do you want to improve it?"

"He's having a lot of challenges at school with friends and peer pressure. He's being pulled in directions that are not productive. I feel it's important to be close to him at this time in his life."

"Why?"

"So I can help him stay on the right path and be productive."

"Why?"

"Because he needs it."

"So why do you want to do it?

"To help him."

"Why?"

He was beginning to get a little flustered. "Because I'm his father! It's my responsibility!"

"So why do you want to do it?"

Frustration was evident on his face. "Well, because...because..."

There were two people at his table who absolutely could not sit still a minute longer. At the same instant, they both almost shouted, "Because you love him!"

It was written all over his face. It was reflected in his words. It was so evident that people around him could sense the deep love he had for his son. Maybe he couldn't say it because of the seminar environment, or maybe he hadn't made the connection with that fire within.

The moment these two people said the words, his face broke into a sheepish grin. "That's right!" he said. "I love him." Everyone could feel the strength and peace that flooded over him.

First Things First, pages 141-142

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story:  How
Story: Long Term Goals, How?

Roger Merrill:

I said, "Okay, how are you going to show your love?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll just look for opportunities."

"How else?"

"I'm going to invest the time."

"How else?"

He sighed. "I don't know. To tell you the truth, I'm scared. I've tried before, and it hasn't worked. Sometimes it seems like the harder I try, the worse it gets."

We then began to talk about some of the principles that could be applied in his relationship with his son. We talked about trustworthiness—if you want to build a trusting relationship, be trustworthy. Make and keep commitments. Be loyal to those not present. We talked about empathy—Seek First to Understand. Give respect.

He began to realize that, no matter how desperately he wanted to help his son, his efforts would never be effective as long as he was building the relationship on the illusion that he could control him with good intent—not on the reality that he could release him with Principle-Centered Leadership and love.

First Things First, pages 141-143

Covey, Stephen R., A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.  First Things First.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Copyright © 1994 by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill.


Story: Stimulus/Response

Once in Sacramento when I was speaking on the subject of proactivity, a woman in the audience stood up in the middle of my presentation and started talking excitedly. It was a large audience, and as a number of people turned to look at her, she suddenly became aware of what she was doing, grew embarrassed and sat back down. But she seemed to find it difficult to restrain herself and started talking to the people around her. She seemed so happy.  I could hardly wait for a break to find out what had happened. When it finally came, I immediately went to her and asked if she would be willing to share her experience.

"You just can't imagine what's happened to me!" she exclaimed.

"I'm a full-time nurse to the most miserable, ungrateful man you can possibly imagine. Nothing I do is good enough for him. He never expresses appreciation; he hardly even acknowledges me. He constantly harps at me and finds fault with everything I do. This man has made my life miserable and I often take my frustration out on my family. The other nurses feel the same way. We almost pray for his demise.

"And for you to have the gall to stand up there and suggest that nothing can hurt me, that no one can hurt me without my consent, and that I have chosen my own emotional life of being miserable—well, there was just no way I could buy into that.

"But I kept thinking about it. I really went inside myself and began to ask, 'Do I have the power to choose my response?'

"When I finally realized that I do have that power, when I swallowed that bitter pill and realized that I had chosen to be miserable, I also realized that I could choose not to be miserable.

"At that moment I stood up. I felt as thought I was being let out of San Quentin. I wanted to yell to the whole world, 'I am free! I am let out of prison! No longer am I going to be controlled by the treatment of some person.'"

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, pages 72-73

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Copyright © 1989 by Stephen R. Covey.


Adding and Editing Roles
Adding Roles

Your roles (and the buttons that appear on the Roles and Goals Tab) are created and edited in the Roles Tab.

To add a new role:

1.	Type a role name in the Name box.

TIP  Your role buttons will look better if you keep the names short enough that they fit on one line.

2.	Specify the role's color by clicking on a color in the color bar.

3.	Enter a description of your longer term goals in the Long Term Goals box.

NOTE  Long Term Goals may:

- be time related (6 months, 1 year, 5 years, etc.)
- involve relationships (repairing a broken relationship or strengthening a marriage, etc.)
- be "seasonal" (focusing on education, nurturing children, planning for retirement, etc.)

If you haven't set a long term goal for the role yet, this step can wait.

4.	Click Add.

5.	If you want to change the role's position on the role bar, click the Move Up or Move Down button.

NOTE  You can have a total of seven roles (plus Sharpen the Saw) at a time.  You do not have to have seven roles, however.  If you have less that is fine.


Editing Roles

To edit an existing role:

1.	Click a role button or select a role name from the role list below the Name box.

To change the role's name, type in the Name box.

To change the role's color, click on a new color in the color bar.

To change the role's position on the role bar, click the Move Up or Move Down button.

To change the role's long term goals, simply type in the Long Term Goal box.

2.	When you are finished, click on another role or click the Done button.


Removing Roles

To remove a role:

1.	Click on a role button or select a role name from the role list.

2.	Click the Delete button.

NOTE  Deleting a role removes all associated role information.  If you want to remove a role from the role button bar, but do not want to lose the associated role information, uncheck the Role is Active box.


Goals, Perhaps, To Do's
Goal, Perhaps, and To Do

Before setting goals, it is important to understand the relationship between Goal, Perhaps, and To Do.

Goals are your Big Rocks—the most important things you can do with your week.  Goals center around specific roles and typically involve relationships with other people.  Goals are often the week to week steps you use to move towards the ideals of your mission statement.

Perhaps items are ideas for goals you may want to set in the future.  You aren't committing to do them this week, but you want to remember what they are so you can reconsider them in the future.

A To Do is something you need to get done that doesn't qualify as a Big Rock.  It is unrealistic to assume that everything you need to do during a week is a Big Rock.  These are "other things," your day-to-day, need-to-get-done activities.


Adding and Editing Goals
Adding Goals

To add a new goal:

1.	Select a role button for the goal.

2.	Type a description of the new goal in the New Item box.

3.	Click the Goal button.

A Big Rock drops into your jar and the goal is added to This Week's Goal list.

A Perhaps or a To Do can be added the same way, by clicking the appropriate button.  When you make a New Item a To Do, it disappears from the Goal Tab and is automatically added to your schedule.

NOTE  The Goal and Perhaps buttons are only available if a single role button is selected.  If no role buttons are selected, To Do is the only option available.


Editing Goals

To edit a Goal or Perhaps:

1.	Select a role button.

2.	Click on the desired Goal (in either This Week's Goals or the Perhaps List).

3.	Edit the text.

4.	Reassign the Goal by clicking the appropriate button.

NOTE  You can turn a Goal into a Perhaps or a To Do, by just clicking on a different button.  The Goal is removed from the Big Rocks Jar and This Week's Goals and automatically moved to the new location.  Items in your Perhaps List can be turned into Goals or tasks in the same manner.


Removing Goals

To remove a Goal:

A Goal can be removed from This Week's Goals (and the Big Rocks Jar) by selecting the Goal and clicking the Perhaps, To Do, or Delete button.


Big Rocks Jar

 See Also 	 Story

Near the bottom of the Goals Tab is a Big Rocks Jar.  This is a visual indication of how full your week is.  When you first select the Goals Tab, the computer checks your Schedule + schedule to determine how full your week is already.  This is represented as sand and gravel at the bottom of the jar.  The level of the gravel indicates what percentage of your week is already taken with scheduled activities.

As you add weekly goals (Big Rocks), they drop into your Big Rocks Jar.  When the jar is full, additional goals simply fall out of the jar.  If this happens, you should carefully consider if you are trying to accomplish too much.

You will notice that the rocks representing Sharpen the Saw increase the size of your jar.  This indicates your increased capacity—your ability to do more—that comes with taking time each week to Sharpen the Saw.

To remove rocks from your Big Rocks Jar (to make room for other Big Rocks), select a goal from This Week's Goals and click Perhaps (if you want to reassign the goal to your Perhaps List for future consideration), To Do (if you want to reassign the goal as a To Do and put it in your Schedule+ To Do List), or Delete. You can also remove the sand and gravel from your jar by going to your schedule and deleting pre-scheduled activities.

HINT  To ensure that your jar is always as empty as possible when you do your weekly planning, be careful about filling your schedule with appointments more than a week in advance. This allows you to take a fresh look at each week and determine which activities are the most important things you can do.  Once the most important things are in place, schedule other activities around them.  For example, knowing that you need to review your assistant's work sometime during the upcoming week, you might hold off on setting a firm time until after you have scheduled your important goals.


Browsing for Wisdom Literature

If you purchase additional wisdom literature from Covey Leadership Center,Inc.,  these files (as well as the topics that were shipped with the Seven Habits Tools) can be accessed through the Wisdom Tab.

To browse for a different subject or for a specific topic, click the Browse button.  A dialog box appears that allows you to search your drives and directories for additional wisdom literature files.  Once you locate the file you want to study next, click OK to load it into the Wisdom Tab (to access the topics in order each day), or double click on a specific topic to load it immediately.


Info Buttons

The following buttons may be available in a Wisdom Literature topic:

 TV

Allows you to view a video file.

 Picture

Allows you to look at a still picture.

 Sound

Allows you to listen to a sound clip.

 Book

Additional reading material related to the text.

 Background

Background information relating to this text.

 Culture

Information regarding the time, area, or people for which this text was written.

 Magnifier

Provides definitions for the words included on this line of text.


Role is Active

Only seven roles (plus Sharpen the Saw) can be active at any given time.  If a role is active, it appears on the role button bar.  If it is not active, it appears in the role list but not as a button.  Roles can be activated and deactivated using the Role is Active checkbox in the Roles Tab.

You can have as many inactive roles as you want.

If you have roles that come and go in your life, consider deactivating those roles rather than deleting them.  For example, if you are a Little League coach in the spring but don't worry about that role other than for those two or three months, you can deactivate the role, then reactivate it again next year.


Sharpen the Saw--Goals
Sharpen the Saw—Goals

Sharpen the Saw behaves differently than any of the other roles.  When you click the Sharpen the Saw button, four items appear in This Week's Goals list.  These items,  Physical, Social/Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual, are four areas of development that impact your ability (or capacity) to produce results in all other areas of your life.

As you set goals each week, carefully consider all four areas of the Sharpen the Saw role.  There will never be a week in which you will not benefit from taking some time to Sharpen the Saw in each of these four areas.  This is the key to success in all other roles.

Click on Physical, Social/Emotional, Mental, or Spiritual to enter a description of the goal you plan to accomplish this week.  If you choose to not assign a goal for one of the areas this week, select the word and click Delete.

As you set goals to Sharpen the Saw, notice that the rocks representing Sharpen the Saw goals increase the size of your Big Rocks Jar.  This indicates your increased capacity—your ability to do more—that comes with taking some time each week to Sharpen the Saw.

Note  Sharpen the Saw is Habit 7 of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  It is also the first role on the roles bar in the Seven Habits Tools.


Status Bar

The Status Bar displays a limited amount of information regarding items on the screen.  The status bar is activated by clicking the mouse on an item.


OK

The OK button returns you to the main Schedule+ window, automatically saving any changes you made in the Seven Habits Tools and updating your schedule.


Cancel

The Cancel button returns you to the main Schedule+ window without saving any of the changes you made in the Seven Habits Tools.

NOTE  Any changes you made will be lost.


Wizards

The Wizard button access the Seven Habits Wizards.  The Wizards outline the Six Step Process and can help you begin to implement the steps in your life.


Covey Leadership Center
About Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

Covey Leadership Center, Inc. specializes in leadership development worldwide, serving over half of the Fortune 500 companies as well as thousands of midsize and small companies, educational institutions, and all levels of government.

For more than a decade Covey Leadership Center has been recognized as one of the world's premier leadership development authorities helping thousands of individuals and organizations solve personal, professional and organizational problems through Principle-Centered Leadership. We at Covey Leadership Center focus on principles rooted in the unchanging natural laws that govern human and organizational effectiveness—laws that are timeless, universal, and intercultural.

Our more than 700 associates worldwide are committed to empowering people and organizations to significantly increase their performance capability by building high-trust, high-performance cultures.

Our vision is to teach people and organizations to teach themselves and become independent of CLC.  To the timeless adage by Lao Tzu: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;  teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"  we add "Develop teachers of fishermen and you lift all society."

This empowerment process is carried out through programs conducted at the Covey Leadership Center's facilities in the Rocky Mountains of Utah, custom corporate on-site programs, consulting, and facilitator certification, as well as public programs in over 75 cities in North America and over 40 countries worldwide.

Our unique contextual approach to building high-trust cultures by addressing all four leadership levels—personal, interpersonal, managerial and organizational—has proven to have a sustainable long term effect on an individuals' or organizations' capability to thrive in a changing environment.

Covey Leadership Center's products and programs provide a wide range of resources for individuals, families, and business, government, nonprofit and educational organizations.

Covey Leadership Center, Inc. can be reached by phone at 1-800-304-9799 or FAX at 1-801-304-9798.  If you are located outside of the continental United States, please use the following phone numbers: Call 1-801-229-1333 or FAX 1-801-229-1233.  Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

If you prefer to write, please address your correspondence to:

Covey Leadership Center, Inc.
Attn: Customer Service Department
3507 North University, Suite 100
Provo, UT  84604	USA


 Trademark and Copyright Notices

© 1986 - 1995 Covey Leadership Center, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this product or help system may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or use of any information storage or retrieval system, for any purpose without the express written permission of Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

Abundance Mentality; Be Proactive; Begin with the End in Mind; Circle of Concern; Circle of Influence; Covey Leadership Center; Emotional Bank Account; Empathic Listening; Executive Excellence; First Things First; Goose and the Golden Egg; Inside-Out; Living the Seven Habits: Applications and Insights; Maturity Continuum; P/PC Balance; Paradigm Shift; Performance Cycle; Principle-Centered Leadership; Principle-Centered Living; Private Victory; Public Victory; Put First Things First; Quadrant II Time Management and logo; Roles and Goals; Scarcity Mentality; Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood; Seven Habits; Seven Habits Tools; Sharpen the Saw; Stakeholder Information System (SIS); Synergize; The Fire Within; The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People; The Seven Habits Organizer; The Seven Habits; Think Win-Win; Third Alternative; Three-Person Teaching; To Live, To Love, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy; True North; and Win-Win Agreements are the registered and/or pending trademarks of Covey Leadership Center, Inc., in the United States and foreign countries.


Products & Programs Available from Covey Leadership Center
Products & Programs from Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

 Free Screen Saver 	 Other Free Offers

The information provided in this help system and the Seven Habits Wizards is an overview of the material taught by Covey Leadership Center, Inc.  It will help you understand your tools and begin using them in your life.  But this is only the start...

If you are interested in the ideas presented in the Seven Habits Tools, the following items may also be of interest to you.

 Books

 Audio Tapes

 Video Products

 Electronic Products

 Seminars and Programs

 Feedback

 Subscriptions

 Seven Habits Organizer, Paper, Binders, and Kits

A catalog of Covey Leadership Center's products and programs is also available in paper or electronically on CD-ROM.

To order products, enroll in programs, or receive more information about any of the items listed above, please call 1-800-304-9799 or FAX us at 1-800-304-9798.  Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Prices are subject to change without notice.

If you prefer to inquire by mail, please send correspondence to:

Covey Leadership Center, Inc.
Attn: Customer Service Department
3507 North University, Suite 100
Provo, UT  84604	USA

If you are located outside of the continental United States, please use the following phone numbers: CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.


Related Products

 Books

 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

 Principle-Centered Leadership

 First Things First

 Quotes and Quips

 In Search of Quality

 Daily Reflections

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Prices are subject to change without notice.


Related Products

 Audio Tapes

 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Audio Learning System

 Living the Seven Habits: Applications and Insights

 Principle-Centered Leadership Audio Learning System

 First Things First Audio Learning System

 Daily Reflections Audio Tape

 Executive Excellence Audio Tapes

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Prices are subject to change without notice.


Related Products

 Video Products

 The American Family: A Challenged Tradition

 Principle-Centered Living

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Prices are subject to change without notice.


Related Products

 Electronic Products

 Seven Habits Tools, Add On

 Seven Habits Screen Saver

 Reference CD-ROMs

 Executive Excellence CD-ROM—10 Years of Excellence

 Multimedia Wisdom Literature on CD ROM

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Prices are subject to change without notice.


Related Products

 Subscriptions

 Seven Habits Magazine

 Executive Excellence

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Prices are subject to change without notice.


Related Products

 Seminars and Programs

To assist clients with the systematic design, implementation and evaluation of quality, management and leadership initiatives, CLC offers a wide range of consulting services and training programs.  These services help clients assess needs, design and implement solutions, and measure results.  Our consultants work with clients in strategic win-win partnerships.

Public Programs

 First Things First Time Management

 First Things First with Roger Merrill

 Power and Leadership with Dr. Blaine Lee

 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People from a Sales Perspective

 Covey Leadership Week

In-House Training Programs

 Seven Habits In-House Video Training Program

 Principle-Centered Leadership In-House Video Training Program

First Things First In-House Training Program

 Custom In-House Training Programs

Keynote Addresses and Speeches

Covey Leadership Center, Inc., authors and senior presenters are available for a limited number of keynotes and speeches on a number of topics.  Speech lengths range from one hour to half a day.  For more information, call Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.


Related Products

 Feedback

 Profiles

 Stakeholder Information Systems

CALL 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.


Related Products

 Seven Habits Organizer Kits, Paper, and Binders

The Covey Leadership Center is proud to offer both a paper-based and an electronic version of the Seven Habits Organizer.  They are fully compatible systems and were designed to work together for your convenience.

 Seven Habits Organizer, paper-based

 Computer Paper and Components

 Binders and Accessories

 Desk Calendar (1996)

For a free catalog, call 1-800-304-9799 or FAX 1-800-304-9798
Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Please let us know if you would prefer to receive your copy of the catalog on CD-ROM.


See Also MT
See Also

Mission Statements

Organizational Mission Statements

The Six Step Process

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind


See Also

Review Roles

The Six Step Process

Why Only Seven Roles?

Sharpen the Saw

Long Term Goals

Goals Tab


See Also

Identify Goals

The Six Step Process

Sharpen the Saw

Big Rocks Story

Big Rocks Jar

Roles Tab


See Also

Info Buttons

Wisdom Literature


See Also

Quadrant II Organizing: Urgency vs. Importance

Mission Statements

Review Roles

Identify Goals

Organize Weekly

Exercise Integrity

Evaluate


See Also

Writing a Personal Mission Statement

Organizational Mission Statements

Mission Tab

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind


See Also

Defining Your Roles

Why Only Seven Roles?

Sharpen the Saw

Synergy Among the Roles

Long Term Goals

Roles Tab


See Also

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Roles Tab


See Also

The Perhaps List

Sharpen the Saw

Synergy Among the Roles

Concentrations vs. Determinations

Goals Tab


See Also

Daily Planning


See Also

The Moment of Choice

Educating Your Conscience

Wisdom Literature

Quadrant II Organizing


See Also

Themes in Wisdom Literature

Wisdom Literature Bibliography

Educating Your Conscience

Wisdom Tab


See Also

Exercise Integrity

Wisdom Literature


See Also

Goals Tab


See Also

Mission Statements

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind


See Also

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

The Space Between Stimulus and Response

Four Human Endowments

Circle of Influence

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

Mission Statements

Organizational Mission Statements

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

Quadrant II Organizing

The Six Step Process

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


See Also

Sharpen the Saw

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 6: Synergize


See Also

Exercise Integrity


See Also

Emotional Bank Accounts


See Also

Basic Works

Collections


See Also

The Seven Habits

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

The Six Step Process

Additional Products and Programs


Stories: Roles
Stories

Story: Roles

Story: Imbalance Among the Roles


Stories: Synergize
Stories

Story: University

Story: Family Vacation

Story: Husband/Wife


Stories: Sharpen the Saw
Stories

Sharpen the Saw, Story

Story: Physical Dimension

Story: Social/Emotional Dimension

Story: Mental Dimension

Story: Spiritual Dimension


Stories: Long Term Goals
Stories

Story: Why

Story: How


How To

Adding Roles

Editing Roles

Removing Roles


How To

Goal, Perhaps and To Do

Adding Goals

Editing Goals

Removing Goals


How To

Browsing for Wisdom Literature


 Mission Tab

 Mission Tab, Overview

 Mission Statements

 Organizational Mission Statements


 Roles Tab

 Roles Tab, Overview

 Adding Roles

 Editing Roles

 Removing Roles

 Why Only Seven Roles?

 Sharpen the Saw

 Review Roles


 Goals Tab

 Goals Tab, Overview

 Goal, Perhaps and To Do

 Adding Goals

 Editing Goals

 Removing Goals

 Big Rocks

 Identify Goals


 Wisdom Tab

 Wisdom Tab, Overview

 Browsing for Wisdom Literature

 About Wisdom Literature


 The Six Step Process

 Six Step Process, Overview

 Urgency vs. Importance

 Step 1: Connect to Mission

 Step 2: Review Roles

 Step 3: Identify Goals

 Step 4: Organize Weekly

 Step 5: Exercise Integrity

 Step 6: Evaluate


 The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

 The Seven Habits, Overview

 Habit 1: Be Proactive

 Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind

 Habit 3: Put First Things First

 Habit 4: Think Win-Win

 Habit 5: Seek First To Understand

 Habit 6: Synergize

 Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw


 Wisdom Literature

 Wisdom Literature, Overview

 Themes in Wisdom Literature

 Wisdom Literature Bibliography


The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

This book has been a national bestseller for more than four years, with over 5 million copies in print.  This enlightening book teaches how to get more fulfillment from your time, your relationships—your life. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People teaches the fundamental Inside-Out approach to personal effectiveness and provides a sure foundation for Principle-Centered Living.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is available in both hard and softback, and in 28 languages, including: English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.

"The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is one of the most influential books ever published in the history of business literature."
~Fast Track Executive Book Summaries

"Stephen Covey has written a remarkable book about the human condition, so elegantly written, so understanding of our embedded concerns, so useful for our organizational and personal lives that it's going to be my gift to everyone I know."
~Warren Bennis, author of On Becoming a Leader

M-BEHB7HB	$24.00	hardbound


Priciple-Centered Leadership
Principle-Centered Leadership

Dr. Stephen R. Covey's follow-up to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Principle-Centered Leadership, is a comprehensive tool, training readers to manage expectations, maximize personal and business effectiveness, and incorporate patterns of organizational excellence.  In this book, Dr. Covey writes about the key to managing expectations, the six conditions of empowerment, and patterns of organizational excellence. He advocates developing the habit of lifelong learning and teaches how to achieve satisfying results.

Principle-Centered Leadership is available in both hard and softback.

M-BEHB8CL	$20.00	hardbound


First Things First

First Things First teaches you to accomplish those things which are truly important, not merely urgent. In contrast to many time-management approaches currently available, this new work does not offer quick-fix solutions. Instead, First Things First provides deep, meaningful answers that will help you develop and achieve personal goals within every facet of your life. This work shares further applications of the Seven Habits on both personal and interpersonal levels.

First Things First is available in hardback.

M-BEHB1ST	$23.00	hardbound	(Call for the price and availability of a softbound version.)


In Search of Quality

In Search of Quality provides the most complete perspective on quality available today.  This book examines four perspectives on quality—CEOs from Motorola to Xerox; managers from FedEx; Quality consultants from Deming to Juran; and business consultants from Covey to Peters.  This rare digest, dedicated to the memory of Edwards Deming, is required reading for those serious about competing in the world market.

"This book brings together the thinking of many people who are active in the quality movement, for that reason alone, it is well worth reading."
~Philip B. Crosby, author Quality is Free

M-BEHBQUA	$20.00	hardbound


Daily Reflections

As a succinct introduction to Dr. Covey's revolutionary book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or as a reminder of key principles, Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People provides an inspirational renewal that will bring you closer to a holistic sense of personal effectiveness and purpose.

M-BEPBDAI	$10.00	softbound


Quotes and Quips

Much of the value of the Seven Habits comes from the recognition that they are based on universal principles.  These principles are found in many great works and statements made throughout history.  Now you can benefit from this collection of quotations that support the principles embodied in the Seven Habits.

M-BEPBQUO	$8.95	softbound


The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Eight-Cassette Audio Learning System
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Audio Learning System

Millions of people have benefited from the wisdom and insights of Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  In this comprehensive eight-cassette audio learning system, Dr. Covey delivers an in-depth presentation of these timely and timeless principles. Also included is an extensive application workbook containing summaries of key ideas along with individual exercises designed to enhance use of the habits.

A four-cassette audio seminar on the Seven Habits is also available.  In this set, you will hear Dr. Covey teach habits of effective personal and interpersonal leadership as he describes timeless and universally valid principles which can help you achieve long term happiness and growth.

M-AE8S7HB	$79.95	8 Set plus workbook
M-AE4S7HB	$34.95	4 Set


Living the Seven Habits: Applications and Insights

On this audio cassette seminar, Stephen R. Covey presents his latest thinking and insights on applying the Seven Habits.  In it, Dr. Stephen R. Covey presents new and valuable insights developed over many years of teaching and consulting with individuals and corporations, and provides practical, how-to advice about applying the Seven Habits in daily life.  He explains how each habit can be actualized and integrated on different levels, and he outlines the benefits and challenges in doing so.

This five-cassette audio series includes a comprehensive listener's guide.

M-AE5SLIV	$59.95	5 Set plus workbook


Principle-Centered Leadership Six-Cassette Audio Learning System
Principle-Centered Leadership Audio Learning System

This audio learning system provides guidelines for improving relationships, systems, and operations within organizations.  Stephen R. Covey presents timeless principles of effective leadership which enable leaders to respond to the significant challenges which confront them as they strive to improve themselves and their organizations.  This comprehensive six-cassette series also includes an application workbook which contains concepts, summaries, and a variety of exercises that maximize learning of these leadership principles.

M-AE6S8CL	$69.95	6 Set plus workbook


First Things First Audio Learning System

This four-cassette audio product features Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill in an impactful discussion of time management.  Based on The Wall Street Journal best-seller First Things First, this powerful message is critical for those who strive for personal excellence.  Learn to overcome the urgency addiction and achieve what's truly important to you.

M-AE4S1S2	$39.95	4 Set	(Call for the price and availability of a 6 cassette version.)


Executive Excellence, Audio Tapes
Executive Excellence Audio Tapes

Enjoy a year of Executive Excellence on tape.  Executive Excellence is the journal of personal development, managerial effectiveness, and organizational productivity written for today's leaders and managers.  Receive one cassette each month with your paper copy of Executive Excellence and fill the case by the end of the year.

Available in one and two year subscriptions.

M-PEEEKA1	$199.00	1 Year Subscription plus Audio
M-PEEEKA2	$299.00	2 Year Subscription plus Audio


Daily Reflections, Audio Tape
Daily Reflections Audio Tape

As a succinct introduction to Dr. Covey's revolutionary book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or as a reminder of key principles, Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People provides an inspirational renewal that will bring you closer to a holistic sense of personal effectiveness and purpose.

M-AE1SDAI	$12.00


First Things First Time Management
First Things First - Life Leadership Through Effective Time Management

Traditional time management prescribes harder, smarter, faster, and more. In contrast, this program empowers you to shift your focus from urgency to importance and from efficiency to effectiveness.  Using the Seven Habits Organizer, this program teaches you the Quadrant II organizing process, how to detect your mission and create a powerful future vision that will give your life meaning and purpose, how to bridge the gap between what is most important to you and how you spend your time, and many other life changing principles.

This workshop takes place in over 70 cities in North America and in over 40 countries worldwide. It is open to the public.  First Things First is also offered as a custom in-house training program. Call for the tuition price and the location nearest you.


First Things First with Roger Merrill
First Things First with Stephen R. Covey or Roger Merrill

In this one-day workshop, Steven R. Covey or Roger Merrill, co-authors of the book, First Things First,  personally show you how Putting First Things First will revolutionize your life.  First Things First teaches you how to develop a high trust culture within your organization or home; the new paradigm of time using a compass instead of a clock; the characteristics of an effective life leader; how to kindle The Fire Within; and how to leverage your influence with Principle-Centered Leadership; along with many other effective principles of life management.

This workshop takes place in selected cities throughout the United States and is open to the public.  Call for the tuition price and the workshop location nearest you.


Power and Leaderhsip with Dr. Blaine Lee
Power and Leadership with Dr. Blaine Lee

This one-day workshop is designed for any leader, whether in government, family, education, or business. The program addresses such questions as: What is power? Who has power? and Your leadership choice: Coercive, Exchange, or Principle-Centered.  This program will help you identify your level of influence in your particular environment, and will teach you the strategies needed to maximize personal power and to increase your influence.  You will also learn how to make decisions from a principle-centered power base; how to become a positive influence with others; how to empower others with principle-centered influence; and how both project efficiency and team unity can be synergized.

This workshop takes place in selected cities throughout the United States and is open to the public.  Call for the tuition price and the workshop location nearest you.


The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Three-Day Workshop
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

This intensive three-day workshop is an in-depth interactive study of the Seven Habits, focusing on the personal and interpersonal implementation and application of the principles taught in the best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  As a participant, you come away from the workshop with specific action plans for implementing the Seven Habits in your own life.

This workshop takes place in over 70 cities in North America and in over 40 countries worldwide. It is open to the public. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is also offered as a custom in-house training program. Call for the tuition price and the location nearest you.


Seven Habits of Highly Effective Sales
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People from a Sales Perspective

In today's marketplace, it's no longer a matter of just closing sales, it's a matter of developing relationships.  This workshop has a character-based focus and is designed to teach you the most important foundations of long-term success in sales.  The course addresses new salespeople, advanced sales professionals, and sales managers, teaching how to get back in touch with the joy of sales, how to increase sales effectiveness, why overcoming objections actually reduces sales, how to create lifelong customers and many other fundamental principles to effective sales.

This workshop takes place in selected cities throughout the United States and is open to the public.  Call for the tuition price and the workshop location nearest you.


Principle Centered Leadership Week
Covey Leadership Week

This five-day workshop is intended to inspire managers to improve their leadership capabilities and to discover meaningful ways to break through the barriers that have traditionally hindered their growth. Energizing and empowering others, building teams and alliances, realizing visions, and living quality are examples of the leadership skills taught in this program.

This workshop takes place at the Covey Leadership Center's facility in the Rocky Mountains of Utah.  It is open to the public. Call for the tuition price.


Seven Habits Video Training Program
Seven Habits In-House Video Training Program

In today's business environment, many organizations want to implement the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as an integral component of their quality, leadership, and organizational development initiatives. This video-based training program contains approximately 24 hours of instruction, including up to nine hours of video presentations by Dr. Stephen Covey and 15-20 hours of group and individual exercises from the course workbook. The program is very flexible and can be customized and delivered in a variety of formats.

NOTE  After completing the Seven Habits Facilitator Certification course, an organization's own facilitator is licensed to lead its her or her organization's employees through this unique video-based Seven Habits leadership development course.


Principle-Centered Leadership In-House Video Training Program

This three-day, internally facilitated workshop is designed to equip leaders with tools that build aligned organizations and empowered individuals and teams.  The course incorporates videos of Dr. Stephen R. Covey teaching Principle-Centered Leadership; a video case study, woven throughout the course which illustrates an actual organization's application of the concepts taught; and two video illustrations that provide dramatic examples of the principles discussed.  Also included is actual content application to a real-life leadership challenge currently facing the leader as well as a profile offering feedback on how others view the leader's performance within the team, department, or organization.

This course assumes that participants will come to the workshop with an understanding of the concepts, models, and vocabulary used in the Seven Habits.

NOTE  After completing the Principle-Centered Leadership Facilitator Certification course, an organization's own facilitator is licensed to lead its her or her organization's employees through this unique video-based Principle-Centered Leadership course.


First Things First In-House Training Program

Traditional time management prescribes harder, smarter, faster, and more. In contrast, this program empowers you to shift your focus from urgency to importance and from efficiency to effectiveness.  In addition, the program teaches you how to detect your mission and create a powerful future vision that will give your life meaning and purpose, how to bridge the gap between what is most important to you and how you spend your time, and many other life changing principles.

NOTE  After completing the First Things First Facilitator Certification course, an organization's own facilitator is licenced to teach First Things First in his or her own organization.


Custom In-House Training Programs

One of the ways we best serve our clients' needs is by customizing our material to address an organization's specific and unique issues.  Working with both large and small companies, we first seek to understand your needs from your point of view.  After evaluating your company's challenges and opportunities, we work together to design a program to address your specific issues.  Our senior consultants, who are often called upon to help diagnose and create strategies, include recognized experts in organizational development, organizational behavior, and instructional science, as well as former senior executives with many years of top-level management experience in some of the largest and best-led companies in the world.


Seven Habits Magazine

This magazine provides quarterly reports on how other people and organizations are putting the Seven Habits to work in a variety of areas, including business, education, family, and personal settings.  Featuring thought-provoking articles, applications, and insights, Seven Habits will help you achieve personal and professional effectiveness.

Available as a one year subscription.

M-PE7RKS1	$29.95	1 Year Subscription


Executive Excellence

This monthly newsletter provides you with a digest of the best and latest thinking from America's top business consultants, management trainers, and corporate executives, including Stephen R. Covey, Peter Senge, Ken and Marjorie Blanchard, Warren Bennis, Charles Garfield, and many others.  Executive Excellence is a forum for excellence in personal, managerial, and organizational development, and can help increase effectiveness, both personally and within your organization.

This newsletter is available in one and two-year subscriptions, as well as on audio tape.  The last 10 years of Executive Excellence are also available on a reference CD-ROM.

M-PEEEKS1	$129.00	1 Year Subscription
M-PEEEKS2	$199.00	2 Year Subscription
M-PEEEKF1	$169.00	1 Year Foreign Subscription


Desk Calendar (1996)

This 365-day self-renewal calendar includes excerpts from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to help you live the Seven Habits in the hard moments—every day.

M-LEPZD96	$10.99	1996 Calendar


Notre Dame
The American Family: A Challenged Tradition

An all new look at problems and solutions for family living.  Hosted by Stephen R. Covey and produced by the University of Notre Dame, these eight video programs offer you profound insights that can make a difference in your marriage, your relationship with your children, and ultimately in knowing yourself.  Each video combines wisdom with application and provides guidance from numerous experts selected by Notre Dame with engaging role-plays, interviews, and panel discussions.

These videos are available separately.

 The First Fifteen Years of Marriage: "I Do" to "Don't You Dare"

 From the 15th to the 50th Anniversary: Making a Marriage Work

 I'm Me and I'm Special: Your Preschooler's Start to a Happy Life

 Parenting the Elementary School Child: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know

 A Positive Approach to Parenting Our Teenagers

 Our Family Roots: Why We Are Who We Are

 Building Family Esteem

 Family Communications: Effective Ways to Talk and Listen


Principle-Centered Living Video Program

This two-hour video presentation by Stephen R. Covey will help you identify and analyze your "life center." Life centers represent values and priorities and have an all encompassing effect on the other aspects of life.  Dr. Covey discusses why principles should be at our center, and shares his insights on how we can become principle-centered.  This program is particularly useful for those interested in writing or revising a personal mission statement.  Included is a 75-page application workbook.  Find out how to identify and evaluate the source of your personal security, guidance, wisdom, and power, as you explore how the "programming" you receive from parents and other key figures influence your life center.

NOTE  For individual use.  Not designed for use in group training.

M-VEVHV2S	$199.00	2 Video Set


Profiles

The Seven Habits Profile is a powerful catalyst for personal development based on The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Easy to use and easy to understand, the profile allows participants to compare their own perceptions of their personal/interpersonal leadership to the perceptions of work associates.  Blind spots in both weaknesses and strengths are revealed, and the experience suggests to participants that they can create a personal environment which empowers them to break old habits and to develop new habits that will help them to become the people they want to become.

Two versions are available:  Profile A is designed for individuals in management or supervisory positions.  Profile B is for individual contributors.  Collected data is processed into a Seven Habits Profile that is provided to the participant with an Action Planning Guide designed to prepare the participants to receive feedback, assist them in interpreting the data, and provide resources and guidance in developing their own action plan for personal effectiveness.

Because the profile contains feedback on participants' performance related to each of the foundational principles and Seven Habits, a working knowledge of these concepts is essential.

Call for pricing information.


Stakeholder Information Systems
Stakeholder Information System

For organizations committed to focusing resources on the few issues which yield the greatest improvement in performance, the Stakeholder Information System (SIS) Baseline integrates feedback from all the people who are critical to an organization's success, including customers, suppliers, employees, executives, etc.

The SIS is an assessment tool that clarifies the needs of an organization's stakeholders and the organization's ability to satisfy those needs by integrating feedback on the elements that are critical to its success, such as strategy, quality, trust, etc.

Call for pricing information.


The First 15 Years
The First 15 Years of Marriage

Topic: Marriage

Learn the secrets for keeping your marriage life-giving and fun.  Discover how to balance the tension between sacrifice and assertion, between loving self, spouse, and children.

M-VEVHMN1	$29.99


From the 15th to the 50th Anniversary

Topic: Marriage

Without the desire and ability to communicate, a couple's commitment withers.  This video discusses conversation as a turning toward the other, an effort to think and feel with one's partner.  Communication techniques are explained and role-playing is used to show alternative ways of dealing with situations that arise in a marriage.

M-VEVHMN2	$29.99


I'm Me and I'm Special
I'm Me and I'm Special: Your Preschooler's Start to a Happy Life

Topic: Parenting

This video will help you understand the predictable developmental stages of the two- to five-year old.  Also you will learn how to enhance your child's self worth, how to stimulate your child's interest in learning, and how to discipline so that respect, responsibility and resourcefulness flourish in your youngster.

M-VEVHMN3	$29.99


Parenting the Elementary School Child
Parenting the Elementary School Child: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know

Topic: Parenting

This video offers numerous ideas for creating a positive learning environment for your child and for developing effective communication between the school and the family.

M-VEVHMN4	$29.99


A Positive Approach to Parenting Our Teenagers

Topic: Parenting

This video provides concrete ideas for parents struggling to communicate with their teenagers.  Discover ways to build understanding and trust between yourself and your child.  Gain a powerful perspective into the world of the teenager.

M-VEVHMN5	$29.99


Our Family Roots

Topic: Family Dynamics

This program offers tips for uncovering your family roots, processing this insight, and consequently broadening your choices.

M-VEVHMN6	$29.99


Building Family Esteem

Topic: Family Dynamics

Authors of the best-seller How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, offer ideas for bolstering children's self-esteem.  Their role playing offers us magnificent techniques for communicating with your children and grandchildren.  Attorney Janet Reno shares ideas for reaching out to children at risk.  And the panelists identify characteristics and tools for achieving family esteem.

M-VEVHMN7	$29.99


Family Communications
Family Communications: Effective Ways to Talk and Listen

Topic: Family Dynamics

Special guests include Notre Dame's football coach Lou Holtz, who lectures widely on the family; authors Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, and Stephen Covey.  This video offers many practical ideas for strengthening communication between siblings, between parents and children, and between the couple.  The lessons of this video transcend the family by helping us in the work place and in our social interactions.

M-VEVHMN8	$29.99


Seven Habits Organizer, paper version
Seven Habits Organizer, paper-based

The Seven Habits Organizer (paper-based) comes with everything you need to get started, including instructional aids, master tabs, personal filing sections, and dated schedules (yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily).  The Seven Habits Organizer is available in a variety of formats and sizes and is compatible with most other organizers and planners.  Yearly refills and a variety of forms and accessories are also available to help you customize your organizer to your lifestyle.

The Seven Habits Organizer is available in the following page sizes:

Senior (8 1/2" x 11")

Executive (5 1/2" x 8 1/2")

Ambassador (4 1/4" x 6 3/4")

Pocket (3 1/2" x 6")

Call today for a free catalog.  Please let us know if you would prefer to receive your copy of the catalog on CD-ROM.


Computer Paper and Components

The paper and components listed below were designed for users who desire to print to paper:

Computer Paper—Our high-quality computer paper was designed to print from Schedule+ and the Seven Habits Tools.  Pages are pre-punched to fit your paper organizer system and binder.  The paper works in both Laser and Dot Matrix printers.

Master Tab Pack—Comes with tabs, reference information, page finder, personal filing sections, instructional material, a zippered vinyl envelope, and much more.

Additional Forms for customizing your organizer.

These components are available in the following page sizes:

Senior (8 1/2" x 11")

Executive (5 1/2" x 8 1/2")

Ambassador (4 1/4" x 6 3/4")

Pocket (3 1/2" x 6")

The above components are available separately or as part of our Electronic Organizer Kits.  Kits come prepackaged with all of the components listed above.  If you desire, an organizer binder and the First Things First book and audio-tape can be included as part of your customized kit.

Call today for a free catalog and a sample of our computer paper.  Please let us know if you would prefer to receive your copy of the catalog on CD-ROM.


Binders and Accessories

As part of the Seven Habits Organizer, Covey Leadership Center, Inc., offers a variety of binders in different combinations of size, material, and color, as well as many accessories to enhance your organizer.

The look and feel of a beautifully crafted organizer binder can enhance the worth of the time-management system itself.  Add an element of refinement to your life with organizer binders hand-crafted from a variety of top-grade leathers and fabrics and fine-grade simulated leather.  Our binders work with both paper and electronic based organizers.

Call today for a free catalog.  Please let us know if you would prefer to receive your copy of the catalog on CD-ROM.


Seven Habits Tools, Add On
Schedule+, Seven Habits Tools—Add On

Increase the functionality of your Seven Habits Tools. The Seven Habits Tools focus on the first three steps of the Six Step Process (Connect to Mission, Review Roles, and Identify Goals). The Seven Habits Tools—Add On adds additional information to help you as you practice the last three steps: Organize Weekly, Exercise Integrity, and Evaluate.

The Add On includes an additional two weeks worth of sample Wisdom Literature topics, three additional Wizards (highlighting steps 4, 5, and 6 of the Six Step Process), and additional On-Line Help (with more applications, examples, and stories).  It also contains three additional tabs designed to help you increase your effectiveness through learning from living, by focusing on the sixth step of the Six Step Process: Evaluate.

Journal Tab—This is where you record your thoughts, feelings, and significant events.  Journal entries are stored according to topic, and each topic contains several thought-provoking questions to help stimulate your thinking.  The Journal Tab also includes a complete search engine that allows you to locate journal entries according to words included in them, the date they were written, and the topic they were stored under.

7 Habits Tab—This tab will help you evaluate how well you are living the Seven Habits while reminding you how the Seven Habits apply in real life.  This tab also includes a Review for each habit to help you more objectively determine how well you are doing.  The results from this tab are saved and your progress can be charted over time.

Evaluation Tab—This is where you statistically analyze and chart how well you are doing—in the past week or over any period of time up to two years.  The types of information that are available include: goals set and completed by role, goals set and completed over time, goals set and completed by weekday, and information collected in the 7 Habits Tab.

M-EESW7WA	$39.95	For Windows


Seven Habits Screen Saver

Quotations from Quotes and Quips and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People appear as a screen saver whenever your computer is idle.  The quotes can be accessed randomly, sequentially within a topic, or you can search for specific quotes by author name or topic. The Seven Habits Screen Saver includes approximately 300 quotations, and you can add your own quotes or pictures.

M-EESW7WS	$19.95	For Windows

NOTE  As a special offer to people who own the Seven Habits Tools, you can receive the Seven Habits Screen Saver for FREE if you call within the first three months of receiving this product.  Call Today.	There is a $4.95 charge for shipping and handling.


The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, reference CD
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Reference CD-ROM
Principle-Centered Leadership Reference CD-ROM
First Things First Reference CD-ROM

The best-selling books from Covey Leadership Center, Inc., The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Principle-Centered Leadership, and First Things First, are now available on a reference CD-ROM for Windows or the Macintosh.  The titles come bundled together on one CD-ROM (ideal for cross-referencing), but individual titles may still be purchased separately.

The sophisticated search engine allows you to read straight through, or to search the books for words, phrases, or topics.  This reference CD also includes a "Problem/Opportunity Index" to aid you in your exploration of these books.

M-EECD7BA	$29.95	The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
M-EECD8BA	$29.95	Principle-Centered Leadership
M-EECD1BA	$29.95	First Things First

M-EECDBBA	$69.95	All three books.

For Windows and Macintosh


Executive Excellence CD-ROM--10 Years of Excellence
Executive Excellence CD-ROM—10 Years of Excellence

This reference CD includes all issues of Executive Excellence published from 1984 to 1994.  This journal of personal development, managerial effectiveness, and organizational productivity is written for today's leaders and managers, and includes articles from some of America's top business leaders and consultants, including: Stephen R. Covey, Peter Senge, and Warren Bennis.  You can search these issues by date, article title, author, or subject, and can look for specific words or phrases in articles.

M-EECDEBA	$199.00	For Windows and Macintosh


Multimedia Wisdom Literature on CD Rom
Wisdom Literature on CD ROM

Each CD contains approximately 30 days' worth of wisdom literature, broken into topics that can be consumed in 10-15 minutes.  Each topic may contain text, audio, and video clips.  Choose from our library of Wisdom Literature titles on a variety of subjects.  CD titles include traditional "wisdom literature," wisdom literature from various countries, and topics related to the Seven Habits.

Call for a current list of available titles	For Windows and Macintosh


Free Screen Saver

As a special offer to people who own the Seven Habits Tools, you can receive a Seven Habits Screen Saver for FREE if you call within the first three months of receiving this product.  The screen saver lists for $19.95, but is yours FREE if you call today.

Quotations from Quotes and Quips and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People appear as a screen saver whenever your computer is idle.  The quotes can be accessed randomly, sequentially within a topic, or you can search for specific quotes by author name or topic. The Seven Habits Screen Saver includes approximately 300 quotations, and you can add your own quotes or pictures.

Call 1-800-304-9799 and ask for the Free Screen Saver Offer.  Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.

NOTE  There is a $4.95 charge for shipping and handling. Have your Schedule+ serial number ready—you must provide this number as proof of ownership.


Free Seven Habits Application Workbook
Free Seven Habits Application Workbook — Free Paper Sample — Free Catalog

If you are intrigued by the ideas presented in the Seven Habits Tools, you can request a FREE Seven Habits Application Workbook that is designed to help you understand, through examples and exercises, the value of personal leadership.

The Seven Habits Application Workbook includes an overview of the Seven Habits, a self-scoring Seven Habits Profile for charting your Seven Habits effectiveness, a variety of sample mission statements, a mission statement workshop, and sample Win-Win Agreements.

If you are interested in paper that is designed to be used with your computer laser or dot-matrix printer and that is pre-punched and ready to fit into your organizer binder, you can request a FREE sample pack.

You can also request a FREE catalog of Covey Leadership Center's products and programs.  This catalog is available in paper or electronically on CD-ROM.

Call 1-800-304-9799 to receive your copy.  If you are calling from outside of the continental United States, please call 1-801-229-1333 or FAX 1-801-229-1233.  Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.


Quadrant II Goals

Quadrant II Goals are weekly goals that focus on things that are "important but not urgent."  These goals typically fall into categories such as: planning, preparation, prevention, relationship-building, and empowerment.


Quadrants I and III

Activities in Quadrant I are both "urgent" and "important."  Here's where we handle an irate client, meet a deadline, repair a broken-down machine, undergo heart surgery, or help a crying child who has been hurt.  This is where we respond to many needs and challenges.

Quadrant III includes things that are "urgent, but not important."  Activities in this quadrant sometimes appear deceptively "important" because of the urgency that surrounds them.  Many phone calls, meetings, and drop-in visitors fall into


Urgency Addiction

Urgency Addiction describes the dependency (much like a chemical addiction to drugs or alcohol) that we may develop when we get so used to the adrenaline rush of handling crises that we become dependent on it for a sense of excitement and energy.


Quadrant I

Activities in Quadrant I are both "urgent" and "important."  Here's where we handle an irate client, meet a deadline, repair a broken-down machine, undergo heart surgery, or help a crying child who has been hurt.  This is where we respond to many needs and challenges.


Proactivity

Proactivity means more than taking initiative.  It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives.  Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not conditions.  We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.


Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

Efficiency is getting more done in less time.  Effectiveness is getting the right things done.  It doesn't matter how fast you are going.  If you're not headed towards your desired goal, each step just moves you in the wrong direction faster.


Integrity

Integrity is your ability to follow through on your commitments, to treat everyone with the same set of rules, and to be completely honest in everything you do, even when no one else is looking.


4 Human Endowments

As human beings, we have unique Endowments or gifts. These endowments create our ultimate human freedom—the power to choose, to respond, and to change.  These endowments include: self-awareness (our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking), conscience (our internal guidance system), independent will (our capacity to act), and creative imagination (the power to create something in our mind).


Principles

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value. Just as there are natural principles like the law of gravity that govern our physical environment, there are principles that govern human growth and effectiveness—and they exist independent of our knowledge or acceptance of them.  Because principles govern human effectiveness, they impact our ability to produce the results we want and to achieve the things that are most important to us.


Circle of Concern

We have a wide range of concerns—our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war.  When these things are separated from those in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement, what you arrive at is your Circle of Concern.


Circle of Influence

Of all the things we are concerned about, there are some over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about.  Those concerns in the latter group make up our Circle of Influence.


Quadrant IV

Quadrant IV is reserved for those activities that are "not urgent and not important."  This is where we may escape when the demands of urgent activities become overwhelming.  The activities in this quadrant include all manner of  "time wasters" such as watching "mindless" television shows, reading addictive light novels, and gossiping around the water fountain at the office.


Quadrant II

Quadrant II includes activities that are "important, but not urgent."  This is where we do our long-range planning, anticipate and prevent problems, empower others, broaden our minds, and increase our skills through reading and continuous personal development.


Scarcity Mentality

People with a Scarcity Mentality see life as having only so much, as though there is only one pie out there.  And if someone was to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.  People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit.  They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people.  It's almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or has remarkable success or achievement.


Paradigm

Our Paradigms are the way we "see" the world or circumstances—not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting.


Abundance Mentality

Abundance Mentality is a way of looking at the world that includes the idea that "there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody."  It flows from a deep sense of personal worth and security.  It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making.  It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.  The Abundance Mentality is in direct contrast to the Scarcity Mentality.


Empathic Listening

Empathic Listening means listening with the intent to understand.  It means getting inside another person's frame of reference and looking out through it, seeing the world the way they see the world and understanding how they feel.


Emotional Bank Account

Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor describing the amount of trust built up in a relationship, or the feeling of safeness you have with another person.  We make deposits into this account each time we do things such as: take time to really understand an individual, attend to little kindnesses and courtesies, keep commitments, clarify our expectations, show personal integrity, or apologize sincerely.


Synergy

Simply defined, synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This term typically refers to the creative energy that develops as a result of bringing two or more parts (or people) together in an attempt to address a need or solve a problem.  By valuing the differences that each of the parts (or people) bring to the mix, it is often possible to find a better solution (a third alternative) that none of the parts were capable of arriving at on their own.


Third Alternative

A Third Alternative is a solution to a need or problem that was not immediately apparent.  This term is often used in conjunction with Synergy and Think Win-Win.  When a group of two or more people work together, they often have very different ideas and agendas that are not mutually compatible.  A Third Alternative is a solution they come upon together, that meets the needs of all people involved and upon which everyone can agree.


Win-Win

Win-Win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.  Win-Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan.


Quadrant III

Quadrant III includes things that are "urgent, but not important."  Activities in this quadrant sometimes appear deceptively "important" because of the urgency that surrounds them.  Many phone calls, meetings, and drop-in visitors fall into this category.  This is also the area where we meet other people's priorities and expectations.


True North Principles

True North Principles are the timeless laws of cause and effect that operate in the world of personal effectiveness and human interaction.


P and PC

P / PC is a principle of effectiveness defined in terms of a balance between the Production of desired results and Production Capability, or the ability of the asset that produces.  If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on end results and neglects yourself or any asset that produces positive results in your life, you will soon find yourself without the ability to produce in the future.


Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind involves obtaining a clear understanding of your desired direction and destination before selecting goals and going about the work.


Habits 4, 5, and 6

Habit 4: Think Win-Win represents a commitment to explore all options until a mutually satisfactory solution is reached, or to make no deal at all.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood is the habit of empathic listening, of seeking to understand the other person's point of view, before we try to present our own.

Habit 6: Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation or teamwork.  People with different perspectives are brought together with the charge to seek the best possible solutio


Mission Statement

A Personal Mission Statement encourages you to consider the big picture of your life.  It describes who you want to be and what you want to do, and serves as a compass to guide you in leading a principle-centered life.


Six Step Process

The Six Step Process is a weekly planning process that can help you Put First Things First in your life.  The steps are:

Connect to Mission

Review Roles

Identify Goals

Organize Weekly

Exercise Integrity

Evaluate


Roles

Roles are the parts that make up the whole of our life.  They represent responsibilities, relationships, and areas of contribution—at work, in the family, in the community or in other areas of life.


Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Saw is a metaphor that describes the energy we invest in increasing our personal capacity in four fundamental areas—physical, social, mental, and spiritual. Regularly investing time in our personal development helps increase our effectiveness in all areas of our lives.

Sharpen the Saw is Habit 7 of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and is also a role for personal development.


Four Human Needs

There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment.  If these basic needs aren't met, we feel empty and incomplete.  The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase "To Live, To Love, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy."  The need to live is our physical need for things such as food and clothing.  The need to love is our social need to relate to other people and to belong.  The need to learn is our mental need to develop and grow.  And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning and purpose.


Weekly Goals

Establishing weekly goals allows you to identify the most important things you could do in each role each week.  These goals are the specific steps that move you toward the realization of your mission.


Long Term Goals

Long Term Goals are plans you make that support the principles described in your Mission Statement.  These goals should represent areas you want to focus on in the near future.  Typically, Long Term Goals take longer than a week to complete, but are more specific than the lifetime goals of your Mission Statement.


Big Rocks

Big Rocks represent the things we hope to accomplish during the week that we consider to be the “most important.”  Setting weekly goals is like putting rocks, gravel, sand and water in a jar.  Life is such that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, they won’t get in.  The jar (life) will quickly be filled with other things, and the big rocks (or those things that are most important) are left sitting on the table.


Free Sample Paper

If you are interested in receiving a free sample of paper that is designed to be used with your computer laser or dot-matrix printer and that is pre-punched and ready to fit into your organizer binder, call 1-800-304-9799.  If you are calling from outside of the continental United States, please call 1-801-229-1333 or FAX 1-801-229-1233.


Seven Habits Tools

Opens the Seven Habits Tools.  These tools can help you Put First Things First in your life through implementing the Six Step Organizing Process.  The Seven Habits Tools contain the following tabs:

Mission Tab   This tab contains tools designed to help you Connect to Mission.

Roles Tab   This tab contains tools to help you Review Roles.

Goals Tab   This tab contains tools to help you Identify Goals each week.

Wisdom Tab   This tab contains a Wisdom Literature Viewer for reading assorted Wisdom Literature topics each day.

NOTE  Other tabs are available in the Seven Habits Tools Add-On.


Seven Habits Quick Start

Opens the Seven Habits Tools plus the Quick Start Guide.  These tools can help you Put First Things First in your life through implementing the Six Step Organizing Process.  The Seven Habits Tools contain the following tabs:

Mission Tab   This tab contains tools designed to help you Connect to Mission.

Roles Tab   This tab contains tools to help you Review Roles.

Goals Tab   This tab contains tools to help you Identify Goals each week.

Wisdom Tab   This tab contains a Wisdom Literature Viewer for reading assorted Wisdom Literature topics each day.

The Quick Start Guide walks you through the basic steps involved in using each of the tabs.

NOTE  Other tabs are available in the Seven Habits Tools Add On.


Using the Seven Habits Tools in Schedule+

 See Also

The Seven Habits Tools are based on the concepts taught in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First by Dr. Stephen R. Covey.  They consist of tools that will help you implement the habits of personal organization in your life using the Six Step Process discussed in First Things First.

Note  The Seven Habits Tools can be used with or without previous knowledge of The Seven Habits or The Six Step Process.

The Seven Habits Tools emphasize Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, by helping you create and continue developing a personal mission statement that reflects what you want to be and do in life; Habit 3: Put First Things First, by helping you begin to organize your life according to what is most important, rather than simply what is most urgent; and Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw, by emphasizing the importance of taking time on a regular basis for self-improvement in four areas—physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual.

The Seven Habits Tools are located under the Tools Menu and include a Mission Tab, Roles Tab, Goals Tab, and Wisdom Tab.  If you are unfamiliar with the Six Step Organizing Process, we suggest you begin by working through the Wizards.  (You can start the Wizards by selecting the Wizard button on the lower right-hand side of the Seven Habits Tools.)  These Wizards will help you understand the basics of the Six Step Process while helping you create a first draft of your mission statement, your first set of roles, and your first set of weekly goals.

The Seven Habits Tools Quick Start (also located under the Tools Menu) includes additional on-line instructional materials that briefly discusses each of the Tabs and how you can best use them in organizing your life.

As you go through a weekly process of reviewing your mission statement, setting goals according to your roles, these items are added as tasks to your schedule.  The Seven Habits Tab in Schedule+ is a Weekly View of your schedule that includes your weekly goals and is organized according to your roles.  (If this tab is not visible, you can add it by selecting the Tab Gallery from the Schedule+ View menu.)  Use this view to schedule your goals into your week.

Note  Additional Seven Habits Tools Tabs (that provide various ways of Evaluating your progress) are available from Covey Leadership Center.  Call Covey Leadership Center at 1-800-304-9799 for more information. Covey Leadership Center can also be reached via the Internet at www.covey.com.


Training

The Seven Habits Tools include on-line instructional materials for personal use.  These materials may not be used for group training without permission from Covey Leadership Center, Inc.

If you are interested in further training in the use of the Seven Habits Tools, either for yourself or for others in your organization, please contact Covey Leadership Center at 1-800-304-9799 or via the Internet at www.covey.com.

Covey Leadership Center offers public and custom on-site training programs on the following subjects:

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Principle Centered Leadership

First Things First

If you are interested in becoming a certified trainer of Covey materials, please contact Covey Leadership Center.