The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey - Book Report/Review Example

? “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey Executive summary The given work presents the report of the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. It was written with the purpose to provide the review of the given book and to evaluate it in terms of its usefulness. The main idea of the book is “Every man is the architect of his own fortune”. The author emphasizes the role of habits and states that it is never late to change our habits. Better late than never. Covey offers seven habits to be acquired by everybody who wants to be successful. The author describes the way to acquire these habits. The conclusion is made that the book is very helpful and should be on the table of every person who wants to change his/her life for better. Introduction In the bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen R. Covey reminds us that everyone is the master and the designer of his own life. “Your life doesn't just "happen." Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours” (Covey). Our life offers much choice and it is up to us what to choose. Much depends on the choice we made: we may choose pleasure or sorrow, despair or hope, self-assurance or uncertainty. Unfortunately, we very often forget that every situation presents us with the new choice and we always have an opportunity to change the way we go to receive better outcomes. The book by Stephen Covey is unique because it does not offer a recipe of success. The recipe of success can’t be the one for all of us as we may have different situations in our life and the recipe comes from the analysis of each particular situation. Also the author does not guarantee quick results. The principles should be learn, thought over, taught to others and only then they will become and integral part of your soul and will change your personality greatly. The personality of each of us is made of experiences we had in our childhood. However, these experiences are not always the best to ground one’s personality on and sometimes they need to be changed in order to acquire new habits and change our personality. The author emphasizes the important role of habits. As you sow the habit, so you reap your character, as you sow your character, you reap your own destiny. In order to change our life we should change our character Before writing the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen R. Covey studied a lot of literature that provides the recipes of successful life. Having studied it, he made definite conclusions. It appeared that the literature written about 150 years ago was oriented on the developing certain characteristics such as honesty, bravery, fairness, tolerance. It taught people that only these personal qualities can lead people to success. This approach is called Character Ethics. The literature of the 20th century, especially the second half of it, was mostly oriented on the promoting the rules of healthy communications and positive attitude maintenance that is called Personality Ethics. Character Ethics tells us what primary qualities we should possess, while Personality Ethics emphasizes secondary characteristics, which lead to success. However, according to Covey, the Personality Ethics can’t be reliable as the people who do not have corresponding primary traits will not be able to develop the needed secondary traits. The life and the world of every person are based on his/her own vision and personal attitude towards things. Two people can’t perceive equally, every person treat everything in his own way. Thus, much depends on our attitudes towards things and not on what they are. If we understand the importance of changing attitude towards our past experiences, we will be able to change our attitude towards things and thus change our future life experience (Gandel, 2011). Character ethics also can be called more reliable as it teaches to develop personal characteristics, which are of primary importance. However, not all the people follow the rules of character ethics and also can’t determine what traits should dominate in this or that situation. The approach offered by the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is called “inside-out”. The author explains that we should change inside first in order to change our life. Many individuals tend to understand this method as the transition from Personality ethics to Character Ethics. The Seven Habits Stephen R. Covey presents our essence as consisting of different habits. The author emphasizes the role of these habits that is usually underestimated. Every habit is acquired by means of desire, skill and knowledge. Knowledge gives us necessary information about what we should do, skills provides us with the ability to understand how we should do that and the role of desire is crucial as it represents the motivation to act. The author also explains that every person moves through 3 different stages: dependence, independence and interdependence. When a person comes to this world, he/she is dependent on those who take care of this person. Then a person starts taking his own decisions and this means that he/she is independent. Interdependence means our communication and cooperation with other people to reach the goals, which can’t be reached independently. Modern literature tends to promote independence instructing people to do what they want and take their own independent decisions. However, according to Covey, this approach is not good and reliable simply because a person can seldom act alone as he/she has to be interdependent, but in order to become interdependent it is necessary to become independent first. So, the first three habits advise the way from dependence to interdependence. The first habit is “to be proactive” that means to be responsible for your life and for the decisions you take. “Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior” (Covey). The author distinguishes between proactive and reactive people. Proactive people are responsible for their life and they are not influenced by external factors or other people much, while reactive ones depend on everything including weather and the mood of other people. The second habit is to “begin with the end in mind” (Covey). It means that in order to set the goals it is necessary to understand the reality and analyze what you have already reached for today. Covey specifies: “be honest. Sometimes people find themselves achieving victories that are empty--successes that have come at the expense of things that were far more valuable to them. If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster” (Covey).  This habit makes it possible to recognize what you are, realize what you want to be, and helps bring you plans into life. You build your mission statement that will help you formulate your own mission statement. If the person has his own mission statement, he or she is a real master of his own life. We should set only that missions that we really can reach and believe that the goals are reachable. It is necessary not only to dream about something but to makes steps to reach the goal. The third habit is “put first things first” (Covey). It is necessary to determine what tasks are the most important and what opportunities should be taken. “There's no need to overextend yourself. All it takes is realizing that it's all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities” (Covey). Everything should be done step by step. Between two stools one falls to the ground, thus it is not necessary to fulfill several tasks at once. It is essential to determine the top priorities. This will save your time and you will not fail anything you spent your efforts for. The third three habits help to move from dependence to interdependence, while the next three habits are for the people who are already interdependent. The forth habit is “think win-win” (Covey). Many people tend to make a mistake considering their success to be possible only in case of somebody’s failure. Covey states “if I win, you lose; or if you win, I lose. Life becomes a zero-sum game. There is only so much pie to go around, and if you get a big piece, there is less for me; it's not fair, and I'm going to make sure you don't get anymore. We all play the game, but how much fun is it really? ” (Covey). The author tries to explain that only mutual advantage can bring success. Every misunderstanding should be resolved with a win-win approach as our life should be the cooperation, not a competition. The fifth habit is “seek first to understand then to be understood” (Covey). Here the author wants to draw our attention to the importance of listening. People learn to read, to right, to speak, but usually fail to learn how to listen. We want people to understand us but usually fail to understand them, we do not even listen to them to learn about their ideas and problems. In return we have corresponding reaction of people that does not satisfy us. Thus, it is necessary to understand in order to be understood. The sixth habit if is to synergize. It is important to communicate with other people to get better results. If the person relies only on his own ideas and solutions, he/she may miss something important. That is why it is essential to cooperate with other people, listen to their ideas and advices to gain a success. The fact is that people are different and as it was already mentioned above they look at different things differently, thus they may have different ideas, which if taken together may comprise one successful project. If you give other people an opportunity to look at your project from different viewpoints, their propositions may help you realize your goals (Harper, 2012). Finally, the seventh habit is “sharpen the saw” (Covey). The author emphasized the importance of self-renewal that is necessary for our soul. It means that we should take care of ourselves: have a good rest, eat tasty food, communicate with nature, do exercises, read pleasant books. This will make our self-developing constant. It is not possible to do well without self-renewal. “As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?” (Covey).  Self-renewal should be an inevitable part of our life. It helps renew our forces and be ready for the next victories. Stephen R. Covey also talks about the eighth habit, but this is already a topic of his new book “From Effectiveness to Greatness”. This book teaches us how to be effective and why one should thrive to become effective. Conclusion Having read the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, I came to the conclusion that this book should be on the table of every person who wants to become successful. We all seek success and happiness but rarely try to change anything inside of our soul. Instead we prefer to change other people and their habits, to change our environment, to change our surroundings. We forget that it is impossible to run from ourselves and if our life brings only negative moments, we should begin to look for the problem inside of our soul. Our destiny depends on our character and our character depends on our habits but unfortunately we tend not to pay much attention to them. The author of the book emphasizes the importance of habits and creates the way for acquiring good habits instead of bad. Every man is the architect of his own fortune. We all know this proverb, many people even consider it to be the main rule of their life while they absolutely misunderstood its meaning. The life does not highly depend on what institute you graduated from, what job you found or whom you married. The life is highly dependent on your habits, which can be modified if you decide to change your life for better. It is never late to change your habits, everybody can do that no matter if he/she is twenty, thirty or fifty years old. When the habits are changed, the life will change for better. The book by Stephen R. Covey is the perfect guide to better life. References Covey, Stephen R. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. stephencovey.com. Retrieved April 8, 2013 from https://www.stephencovey.com/8thHabit/8thhabit.php; Gandel, Stephen. (2011). "The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People (1989), by Stephen R. Covey in The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books" Retrieved April 8, 2013 http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2086680_2086683_2087685,00.html; Harper, Lena M. (2012). "The Highly Effective Person". Marriott Alumni Magazine (Brigham Young University). Retrieved April 8, 2013 from http://marriottschool.byu.edu/marriottmag/summer12/features/feature02.cfm. Read More