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Tuesday, 23 July 2013 01:16 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
I still remember reading the book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ as a young school leaver. It had a profound influence on my thinking. Still, undoubtedly, it is one of my favourite management books. Let me share my thoughts on its writer, Dr. Stephen Covey, after one year of his sad demise.
Covey in focus
The name Stephen Covey is synonymous with ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. He created an awakening among managers on the character and competence. I remember meeting him in Sri Lanka and I must confess that I liked the author in him better than the trainer. As he shared with us in Sri Lanka, he was also influenced by Buddhism in writing the seven habits. That’s why we see parallels between the noble eight-fold path and the seven habits.
Stephen Richards Covey was born on 24 October 1932. He was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. Apart from ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,’ his other books include ‘First Things First,’ ‘Principle-Centred Leadership,’ ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families,’ ‘The 8th Habit’ and ‘The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time’. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University till his demise on 16 July 2012.
Covey earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the University of Utah, an MBA from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Religious Education (DRE) from Brigham Young University. He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity. He was awarded ten honorary doctorates. Covey lived with his wife Sandra and their family in Provo, Utah, home to Brigham Young University, where Covey taught prior to the publication of his best-selling book. A father of nine and a grandfather of 52, he received the Fatherhood Award from the National Fatherhood Initiative in 2003.
The essence of ‘7 Habits’
Having sold over 20 million books in 38 languages, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ was named the number one ‘Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century’. The audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in US publishing history to sell more than one million copies.
The world has changed dramatically since ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ was first published in 1989. Life is more complex, more stressful, more demanding. Are the ‘7 Habits’ still relevant today? And, for that matter, will they be relevant 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now? Stephen R. Covey’s answer: “The greater the change and more difficult our challenges, the more relevant the habits become.”
Through insight and practical exercises, Covey presents a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service and human dignity — principles that give you the security to adapt to change, and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
As most of us are aware, habit one advocated us to be proactive. This is the ability to control one’s environment, rather than have it control you, as is so often the case. Habit two tells us to begin with the end in mind. Covey calls this the habit of personal leadership towards what you consider your aims. Habit three is all about putting first things first. This involves organising and implementing activities in line with the aims established in habit two. Once you delightedly follow these three, you will achieve private victory, says Covey.
Habit four advocates thinking win-win. It deals with interpersonal leadership as achievements are largely dependent on co-operative efforts with others. He says that win-win is based on the assumption that there is plenty for everyone, and that success follows a cooperative approach more naturally than the confrontation of win-or-lose. I like the way he calls it abundant mentality. Habit five takes us further into working together as it recommends, seek first to understand and then to be understood. Habit six invites us to synergise. Once you consistently follow these, you will achieve public victory, says Covey.
Habit seven tells us to sharpen the saw. This is the habit of self renewal, says Covey, and it necessarily surrounds all the other habits, enabling and encouraging them to happen and grow. Covey interprets the self into four parts: the spiritual, mental, physical and the social/emotional, which all need feeding and developing.
Covey’s concepts
Covey’s 2004 book ‘The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness’ is the sequel to ‘The 7 Habits’. Covey posits that effectiveness does not suffice in what he calls “The Knowledge Worker Age”. He says that “the challenges and complexities we face today are of a different order of magnitude.” The 8th Habit essentially urges: “Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs...”
“I am not a product of my circumstances; I am a product of my decisions,” says Covey. You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, to say “no” to other things. That’s how he goes on further.
Covey argues against what he calls “The Personality Ethic,” something he sees as prevalent in many modern self-help books. He promotes what he labels “The Character Ethic”: aligning one’s values with so-called “universal and timeless” principles. Covey adamantly refuses to conflate principles and values; he sees principles as external natural laws, while values remain internal and subjective. Covey proclaims that values govern people’s behaviour, but principles ultimately determine the consequences. Covey presents his teachings in a series of habits, manifesting as a progression from dependence via independence to interdependence.
In reality, Covey influenced many people to begin to adopt a more ethical approach to business, and he also did much good work with children in schools, arguing that every child was a leader. If nothing else, he noted that the self-help literature of America had slid from the lofty and ethical heights of Benjamin Franklin to a sleazier every-man-for-himself ethical vacuum- the effects of which we are still seeing in the financial meltdowns of today and tomorrow.
Criticisms of Covey
The major critique of Covey’s work so far is Bradley G. Jackson who wrote in 1999 in the Journal of Management Studies, ‘The goose that laid the golden egg?: A rhetorical Critique of Stephen Covey and the Effectiveness Movement’. Jackson’s main problem with Covey (expressed with characteristic academic reserve) is that, as with all charismatic movements,” in order to properly appreciate the broad appeal of gurus in management and other fields, we need to better understand how their work resonates with the material, existential and spiritual needs of individuals that are peculiar to the late modem age.”
As The Economist magazine claims, Covey was influenced by Peter Drucker, the king of management theorists, who wrote in 1967 that “effectiveness…is a habit.” Covey also drew inspiration from the two centuries-worth of American “success literature” that he read for his doctoral thesis. He discovered that, in the first 150 years or so of the republic, self-help books mostly emphasised character; it was only after World War II that they switched to touting superficial qualities such as appearance and style.
He was also guided by his Mormon faith. He went to Britain as a missionary when he was 20, and preached on street corners. “It helped me learn how to speak in public and interact with an audience,” he recalled. The seven habits are essentially a secular distillation of Mormon teaching, says Clayton Christensen, a Harvard management guru and a Mormon, written for anyone regardless of “which sort of God you believe in or whether you even believe in God”. What set Covey apart from other management thinkers, says Christensen, is that “he lived the life he wrote about. He had a conviction that came from experience.”
Whether intentionally or not, commercialising the concepts and moving towards profit making would have led to the lesser acceptance of the 8th Habit compared to the 7 Habits. I see a conceptual ambiguity where seven habits are very much self-contained and eighth one comes “out of the blue”.
Way forward
The contribution by Covey towards humanity is indeed commendable. In his words, “life is about living, loving, earning and leaving a legacy”. Having an “abundant mentality” where you see world as full of opportunities rather than having a “scarcity mentality” where you fiercely compete to grab a top slot, is what he advocated. As Covey said, competence and character are both needed in order to live a meaningful life.
Covey will continue to inspire and influence us through his caring concepts.
(Dr. Ajantha Dharmasiri works at the Postgraduate Institute of Management. He can be reached on [email protected] or www.ajanthadharmasiri.info.)
