- Be Proactive
- Begin with the End in Mind
- Put First Things First
- Think Win-Win
- Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the Saw
These are based on Stephen Covey's best-selling book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People".
Habits 1, 2, and 3 are focused on self-mastery and moving from dependence to independence.
Habits 4, 5, and 6 are focused on developing teamwork, collaboration, and communication skills, and moving from independence to interdependence.
Habit 7 is focused on continuous growth and improvement and embodies all the other habits.
Habit 1 - Be Proactive
We choose how we want to live our lives. Use this self-awareness to be proactive and take responsibility for your choices.
We Response to Stimulus. We have our freedom to choose our response based on the following,
- Self Awareness
- Imagination
- Conscience
- Independent Will
We have the ability to examine our own character, to decide how to view ourselves and our situations, and to control our own effectiveness. In order to be effective, we need to first Be Proactive.
Reactive people take a passive stance. They believe the world is happening to them. They say things like:
"There's nothing I can do."
"That's just the way I am."
They think the problem is always "out there", that thought is the problem itself. Reactivity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and reactive people feel increasingly victimized and out of control.
Proactive people, however, recognize they have responsibility or "response-ability" which Covey defines as the ability to choose how you will respond to a given stimulus or situation. 
In order to be proactive, we must focus on the Circle of Influence that lies within our Circle of Concern, we must work on the things we can do something about. The positive energy we exert will cause our Circle of Influence to expand.
Reactive people, on the other hand, focus on things that are in their Circle of Concern but not in their Circle of Influence, which leads to blaming external factors, producing negative energy, and causing their Circle of Influence to shrink.
The Circle of Concern is filled with "If only I have ....", "If I could..."The Circle of Influence is about "I can be ...", "I want to ..."
Suggestions
- Listen to the sentences used around you. How often do you use or heard others using reactive phases such as "If only...", "I can't ..." or "I have to ..." ?
- Identify an experience you might encounter in the near future where, based on your past experience, you would probably behave reactively. Review the situation in the context of your Circle of influence. How could you respond proactively?
- Select a problem from your work or personal life that is frustrating to you. Determine whether it is direct (problems involving our own behaviour), Indirect (problems involving others behaviour) or no control (problems we do nothing about, such as our past or situational realities) problem. Identify the first step you can take in your Circle of Influence to solve it and then take that step.
Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind
We can use our imagination to develop a vision of what we want to become and use our conscience to decide what values will guide us.
Most of us find it rather easy to busy ourselves. We work hard to achieve individual "achievement" such as promotions, higher income, more recognition. But we don't often stop to evaluate the meaning behind this busyness, behind these "achievement". We don't ask ourselves if these things that we focus on so intently are what really matter to us.
Everything we do should begin with the end in mind. Start with a clear destination. That way, we can make sure the steps we're taking are in the right direction. Don't live our lives by default or based on the standards or preferences of others. Instead, we should exercise our self-awareness to empowers us to shape our own lives.
The principle of Habit 2 is that "all things are created twice". Once in your mind (Mental), the other will be the actual action of creating it (Physical). We should exercise our Personal Leadership with Imagination and Conscience to have the "first creation". Personal Management will be for the "second creation" (which will be covered in Habit 3).
Before we as individuals or organizations can start setting and achieving goals, we must be able to identify our values. This process may involve some "re-scripting" to be able to assert our own personal values. "Re- Scripting" is recognizing ineffective scripts that have been written for you, and changing those scripts by proactively writing new ones that are built of your own values.
It is important to identify the center of our life when scripting our life, our destination. It can be Spouse-Centered, Family-Centered, Money-Centered, Work-Centered, Self-Centered, etc. Our centers affect us fundamentally, when determining our daily decisions, actions, and motivations, as well as our interpretation of events.
However, none of these centers are optimal. We should instead strive to be principle-centered. We should identify the timeless, unchanging principles by which we must live our lives. This will give us the guidance that we need to align our behaviors with our beliefs and values.
Be a Principle-Centered person. Making of daily decisions / actions, interpreting of events should be based on your values and principle.
Suggestions
- Visual your own funeral with details.
- Who do you think will attend? List them down in a table.
- What is their relationship to you? What do you think they will say about you?
- Is this what you want them to say or think about you?
- Breakdown the different roles in your life, whether is it professional (engineer, manager...), personal (Father, son, father...) and community. List 3 to 5 goals you want to achieve for each role.
- Identify a project (work or family) that you will be facing in the near future. Using your "mental creation" to plan out the result that you desire and the steps that will lead to those results.
Habit 3 - Put First Things First
In the previous habit 2, we discussed the importance of determining our values and understanding what it is we are setting out to achieve. in this Habit, it is about actually going after these goals, and executing on our priorities on day-to-day basis.
In order to maintain the discipline and the focus to stay on track toward our goals, we need to have the willpower to do something when we don't want to do it. We need to act according to our values rather than our desires or impulses at any given moment.
All activities can be categorized based on 2 factors (2 x 2 Time Management Matrix): Urgency and Importance.
Quadrant II is at the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things like building relationships, long-term planning, exercising, preparation -- all things we know we need to do but somehow seldom get around to actually doing because they don't feel urgent.
If we focus on Quadrant I and spend our time managing crises and problems, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it consumes us. This leads to stress, burnout, and constantly putting out fires.
If we focus on Quadrant III, we spend most of our time reacting to matters that seem urgent, when the reality is their perceived urgency is based on the priorities and expectations of others. This leads to short-term focus, feeling out of control, and shallow or broken relationships.
If we focus on Quadrant IV, we are basically leading an irresponsible life. This often leads to getting fired from jobs and being highly dependent on others.
In order to focus our time in Quadrant II, we have to learn how to say "no" to other activities, sometimes ones that seem urgent. We also need to be able to delegate effectively.
Effective delegation = Growth = Efficiency and Effectiveness. It will help to reduce your activities in other Quadrant and let you focus on Quadrant II.
Besides, when we focus on Quadrant II, it means we're thinking ahead, working on the roots, and preventing crises from happening in the first place. This will help further reduce possible urgent activities in Quadrant I and Quadrant III.
Suggestions
- Identify a Quadrant II activity you've been neglecting in your life. The activity that would have a significant impact to your life, either personally or professionally. Write it down and commit to implement it.
- Create a time management matrix and try to estimate what percentage of your time was spend in each quadrant. How much of your time are spent on Quadrant II? Are you satisfied with the way you spend your time? What do you need to change?
- Make a list of responsibilities / areas, that you could delegate and the people you could delegate or train to be responsible in these areas. Determine what is needed to start the process of delegation or training.
Habit 4 - Think Win-Win
There are six paradigms of human interaction:
- Win/Win: Both people win. Agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. both parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan. They both see it as a cooperative, and not a competitive environment.
- Win/Lose: This is the authoritarian approach. "If I win, you lose." Win-Lose people are prone to use position, power, credentials, and personality to get their way.
- Lose/Win: "I lose, you win." Lose-Win people are quick to please and appease, and seek strength from popularity or acceptance.
- Lose-Lose: Both people lose. When two Win-Lose people interact, both determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals. The result will be Lose-Lose. Lose/Lose is the philosophy of adversarial conflict, the philosophy of war.
- Win: People with the Win mentality don't necessarily want someone else to lose. They think in terms of securing his own WIN and leaving the others to secure theirs.
- Win-Win or No Deal: If you can't reach an agreement or solution that is mutually beneficial, there is no deal.
The best option is to create Win-Win situations. With Win-Lose, or Lose-Win, one person appears to get what he wants for the moment, but the results will negatively impact the relationship between those two people going forward.
The Win-Win or No Deal option is important to use as a backup. When we have No Deal as an option in our mind, it liberates us from needing to manipulate people and push our own agenda. We can be open and really try to understand the underlying issues.
To Achieve Win/Win, you need to follow the following principles:
Character
This is the foundation of Win/Win.
Integrity. Habit 1, 2 and 3 help us develop and maintain integrity, by making and keeping meaningful promises and commitments.
Maturity. This is the balance between courage and consideration. To go for strong courage and high consideration. You not only have to be nice, you have to be courageous. Not only be empathic but also be confident.
Abundance Mentality. Most people operate with the Scarcity Mentality. They act as though everything is zero-sum (in other words, if you get it, I don't). People with the Scarcity Mentality have a very hard time sharing recognition or credit and find it difficult to be genuinely happy about other people's successes. Abundance Mentality is the belief that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. This may result in sharing of prestige, recognition, profits or decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives and creativity.
Relationships
The need to build and maintain Win/Win relationships. In order to have this trust and relationship, you need to build the Emotional Bank Account. This account is a metaphor that describe the amount of trust that have been built up in a relationship.
The six major deposits that builds the Emotional Bank Account:
Understanding the Individual. Really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important deposits you can make. What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you. The golden rule "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you".
Attending to the Little Things. The little kindnesses and courtesies are important. Small discourtesies, little unkindnesses, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals. In relationships, little things are the big things.
Keeping Commitments. Keeping a commitments and a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. Occasionally, despite all effort, the unexpected does come up making it unwise or impossible to keep the promise. Explain the situation thoroughly to the person involved and ask to released (or amend) the promise.
Clarifying Expectations. The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations. That is why it is important to get all the expectations out on the table whenever you come into a new situation. The deposit is to make the expectations clear and explicit in the beginning. When expectations are not clear and shared, people begin to become emotionally involved and simple misunderstandings become compounded, turning into personality clashes and communication breakdowns. Clarifying expectations sometimes take a great deal of courage.
Showing Personal Integrity. Personal Integrity generates trust and is the basis of many different kinds of deposits. Integrity goes beyond honesty. One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present. Integrity also means avoiding any communications that is deceptive or beneath the dignity of people.
Apologizing Sincerely When You make a Withdrawal. Sincere apologies make deposits. It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather than out of pity. People will forgive mistakes because these are usually mistakes of the mind, mistakes of judgement. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives and the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.
Agreements
Win/Win agreements cover a wide scope of interdependent interaction. They create an effective way to clarify and manage expectations between people involved in any interdependent endeavour.
In the Win/Win agreements, the following five elements are made very 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 organisational support available to help accomplish the results.
Accountability sets up the standards of performance and the time of evaluation.
Consequences specify the good and bad, natural and logical. What does and will happen as a result of the evaluation. Four kinds of consequences, Financial (Income, stocks), Psychological (recognition, respect), Opportunity (training, perks) and Responsibility (scope and authority).
Suggestions
- Think about an upcoming interaction wherein you will be attempting to reach an agreement or negotiate a solution. Commit to maintain a balance between courage and consideration.
- Select a specific relationship where you would like to develop a Win/Win agreement. Try to put yourself in the other person's place, and write down explicitly how you think that person sees the solution.
- Identify three key relationship in your life. Give some indication of what you feel is the balance in each of the Emotional Bank account. Write down some specific ways you could make deposit in each account.
Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Effectively interact with another person in any way, we must seek to deeply understand them and their perspective through emphatic listening.
Commonly, it is easy to hand someone "a pair of glasses" that have fit you well but it may not fit the others. We tend to prescribe a solution before we diagnose the problem. We don't seek to deeply understand the problem first. In order to seek to understand, we must learn to listen.
In the first part "Seek First to Understand", you require empathic listening. In empathic listening, it is listening with the intent to understand. It requires a fundamental paradigm shift. By empathic listening, you gets inside another person's frame of reference. You see through it, understand their paradigm and understand how they feel.
Unfortunately, most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. At any given moment, they're either speaking or preparing to speak. We tend to listen with our own perspective as our frame of reference. We then tend to respond in one of four ways:
- Evaluate: Agree or disagree with what is said
- Probe: Ask questions from our own frame of reference
- Advise: Give counsel based on our own experience
- Interpret: Try to figure out the person's motives and behavior based on our own motives and behavior
The Second part is "... Then to Be Understood". When we're able to present our ideas clearly, and in the context of a deep understanding of the other person's needs and concerns, we significantly increase the credibility of your ideas.
The early Greeks had a magnificent philosophy, which is embodied in three sequentially arranged words: ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos is your personal credibility, the faith people have in your integrity and competency.
Pathos is the empathic side. your alignment with the emotional thrust of another person's communication.
Logos is the logic and the reasoning of the presentation.
Follow the sequence: ethos, pathos, logos. When trying to convince or letting others to be understood, your character and relationships (empathic listening and emotional bank account) should come before the logic of your ideas or presentation.
Suggestions
- Next time you're watching two people communicating, cover your ears and watch. What emotions are being communicated that might not come across through words alone? Was one person or the other more interested in the conversation? Write down what you noticed.
- Next time you give a presentation based on empathy. Begin by describing the audience's point of view in great detail. What problems are they facing? How is "what you're about to say" offering a solution to their problems?
Habit 6 - Synergize
By understanding and valuing the differences in another person's perspective, we have the opportunity to create synergy, which allows us to uncover new possibilities through openness and creativity - "When one plus one equals three or more and the whole is great than the sum of its parts."
To Synergize, you must think "Win-Win" and "seek first to understand". With these in mind, you can pool your desires with the others. And then you're not on opposite sides but instead together on one side, looking at the problem, understanding all the needs, and working to create a third alternative that will meet them. with both sides get what they want, it builds relationship in the process.
This Synergy allows us to create new alternatives and open new possibilities. It allows us as a group to collectively agree to ditch the old scripts and write new ones.
The real essence of synergy is valuing the differences -- the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people. If two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. When we become aware of someone's different perspective, we can say, "Good! You see it differently! Help me see what you see."
Synergy allows you to:
- Value the differences in other people as a way to expand your perspective
- Sidestep negative energy and look for the good in others
- Exercise courage in interdependent situations to be open and encourage others to be open
- Catalyze creativity and find a solution that will be better for everyone by looking for a third alternative
Habit 7 - Shapen the Saw
To be effective, we must devote the time to renewing ourselves physically, spiritually, mentally, and socially. Continuous renewal allows us to synergistically increase our ability to practice each habit.
There are four dimensions of our nature, and each must be exercised regularly, and in balanced ways:
Physical Dimension
he goal of continuous physical improvement is to exercise our body in a way that will enhance our capacity to work, adapt, and enjoy.
To renew ourselves physically, we must:
- Eat well
- Get sufficient rest and relaxation
- Exercise on a regular basis to build endurance, flexibility, and strength
Focusing on the physical dimension helps develop Habit 1 muscles of proactivity. We act based on the value of well-being instead of reacting to the forces that keep us from fitness.
Spiritual Dimension
The goal of renewing our spiritual self is to provide leadership to our life and reinforce your commitment to our value system.
To renew yourself spiritually, you can:
- Practice daily meditation
- Communicate with nature
- Immerse yourself in great literature or music
A focus on our spiritual dimension helps us practice Habit 2, as we continuously revise and commit ourselves to our values, so we can begin with the end in mind.
Mental Dimension
The goal of renewing our mental health is to continue expanding our mind.
To renew yourself mentally, you can:
- Read good literature
- Keep a journal of your thoughts, experiences, and insights
- Limit television watching to only those programs that enrich your life and mind
Focusing on our mental dimension helps us practice Habit 3 by managing ourselves effectively to maximize the use of our time and resources.
Social/Emotional Dimension
The goal of renewing ourselves socially is to develop meaningful relationships.
To renew yourself emotionally, you can:
- Seek to deeply understand other people
- Make contributions to meaningful projects that improve the lives of others
- Maintain an Abundance Mentality, and seek to help others find success
Renewing our social and emotional dimension helps us practice Habits 4, 5, and 6 by recognizing that Win-Win solutions do exist, seeking to understand others, and finding mutually beneficial third alternatives through synergy.
The real beauty of the 7 Habits is that improvement in one habit synergistically increases our ability to improve the rest. We must look to inspire others to a higher path by showing them we believe in them, by listening to them empathically, by encouraging them to be proactive.
Renewal is the process that empowers us to move along an upward spiral (learn, commit and do) of growth and change, of continuous improvement.
Suggestions
- Make a list of activities that would help you renew yourself along each of the 4 dimensions. Select one activity for each dimension and list it as a goal for the coming week. At the end of the week, evaluate your performance. What led you to succeed or fail to accomplish each goal?
- Commit to writing down a specific "sharpen the saw" activity in all four dimensions every week, to do them, and to evaluate your performance and results.
