Best Of Stephen R. Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
Here are some memorable quotes from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
 |
| Painting above: Vanitas Still Life c. 1662 by Edwart Collier |
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 improved technologies and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for the machete wielders.
The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation and yells, "Wrong jungle!"
p.108
Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth - in other words, conforming our words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. The requires integrated character, a oneness, primarily with self but also with life.
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.
p. 205-206
Covey quotes Dag Hammarskjöld, past Secretary-General of the UN:
“It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual
than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses”
p. 211
As a teacher, I have come to believe that many truly great classes
teeter on the very edge of chaos.
Synergy tests whether teachers and students
are really open to the principle of
the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
p.277
Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do
in increasingly higher planes.
We deceive ourselves if we think that any one of these is sufficient.
To keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do
—learn, commit, and do
—and learn, commit, and do again.
p.318
When we prioritize being loyal to a person or group
over doing what we feel to be right, we lose integrity.
We pay temporarily gain popularity or build loyalty, but,
downstream, this loss of integrity will undermine even those relationships […]
Over time, integrity produces loyalty.
If you attempt to reverse them and go for loyalty first,
you will find yourself temporizing and compromising integrity.
It is better to be trusted than to be liked.
Ultimately, trust and respect will generally produce love.
p.334-335 in the Afterword
I am highly amused by these two random quotes about Japanese business in 7 Habits, seemingly inserted as an edit later on in successive publications, nevertheless entertaining for boh the sense of "and now, some facts about Japan!" feeling to it and general North American fetish for Japanese culture.
The relationship of the parts is also the power
in creating a synergistic culture inside a family or an organization.
The more genuine the involvement,
the more sincere and sustained the participation
in analyzing and solving problems,
the greater the release of everyone’s creativity,
and of their commitment to what they create.
This, I’m convinced, is the essence of the power
in the Japanese approach to business,
which has changed the world marketplace.
p.295
This process of continuous improvement
is the hallmark of the Total Quality Movement
and a key to Japan’s economic ascendency.
p.315
