Who inspires me 6: Stephen Covey

“Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” -Stephen Covey

I came across Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” quite late. In mid-career I was working for the NHS Modernisation Agency. This was a national organisation here in England which focused on developing programmes of work that modernised healthcare provision. It was the agency that introduced concepts like lean thinking, six sigma, statistical process control, process re-engineering and many other approaches.

It was a great time in my career. I learnt so much and had so many opportunities to develop new ideas myself. One workshop that was really helpful was a paradigm sharing workshop. This offered staff within the agency an opportunity to present paradigms, theories or approaches that had made a significant impact on their work. It was a great day full of many diverse theories and approaches all presented with the enthusiasm of their sponsor!

When I wasn’t presenting my own thoughts on evaluation, focusing on Realistic Evaluation, I had the chance to look at some of the other ideas. One of these was ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. I had heard of the book, but I hadn’t read it. The title had put me off. Ginny Edwards, who was running one of the major collaborative programmes, described the approach with such passion that I went away and got hold of the book that week.

The Seven Habits are grouped into 3 sections. The first section looks at the move from dependence to independence (self-mastery):

1 – Be Proactive
2 – Begin with the End in Mind
3 – Put First Things First

The next three habits talk about Interdependence (e.g. working with others):

4 – Think Win-Win
5 – Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
6 – Synergise

The final habit is concerned with continuous Improvement

7 – Sharpen the Saw

As you can see, some of these concepts have become well-worn phrases – think win-win for example. It is important to read the book and truly grasp what Covey means with these concepts. The whole system as it is reflected in these terms is very powerful. Having read the book and begun to work with some of the concepts in the book, I then began to teach it one-to-one in coaching sessions, and to a group on a Masters programme. This really embedded the learning at a deeper level for me. I found myself using Covey’s ideas and achieving much better results.

After the Seven Habits had become so popular, Covey wrote further books that went into greater depth on some of the key principles. Later, he also wrote a book called the Eighth Habit in which he described a further habit that moves things on from effectiveness to greatness. He describes this as “Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs”. This is very like the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which he calls Self-actualisation. This further habit addresses the issue of contribution and is as important as the other habits, whilst creating a greater coherence and depth to the approach as a whole.

Combined with “Getting Things Done” by David Allen ( more on this book here, here and here) the ideas developed by Covey create a beautifully coherent system to underpin our interactions with others, networking, negotiation, effectiveness and work-life balance.

If you haven’t read the “Seven Habits” book (perhaps like me you thought it sounded a bit of a cliché from its title) then do give it a try. Hopefully it will have as significant an impact on you as it did on me.