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THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE

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THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE
Stephen R
...

-- Warren Bennis, author of On Becoming a Leader
I've never known any teacher or mentor on improving personal effectiveness to generate
such an Overwhelmingly positive reaction
...
I think anyone reading it will quickly understand the enormous
reaction I and others have had to Dr
...

-- John Pepper, President, Procter and Gamble
Stephen Covey is an American Socrates, opening your mind to the 'permanent things' -values, family, relationships, communicating
...
Covey's book teaches with power, conviction, and feeling
...
As an educator, I think this book to be a significant addition to my
library
...
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People, he offers us an opportunity, not a how-to guide
...
It is a wonderful book that could change your life
...
That it works is apparent
...
Christensen, President, Public Broadcasting Service
At a time when American organizations desperately need to energize people and
produce leaders at all levels, Covey provides an empowering philosophy for life that is
also the best guarantee of success in business
...

-- Rosabeth Moss Kanter, editor of the Harvard Business Review and author of When
Giants Learn to Dance
I have learned so much from Stephen Covey over the years that every time I sit down to
write, I'm worried about subconscious plagiarism! Seven Habits is not pop psychology or
trendy self-help
...

-- Richard M
...
It would be far more effective than any legislation regarding
ethical conduct
...
-- Dun's Business Month
Stephen Covey's inspirational book will undoubtedly be the psychology handbook of the
'90s
...


1

These principles, however, are like an opera
...
In fact, I keep referring to it
...
DeVos, President, Amway
Winning is a habit
...
Twenty-five years of experience, thought, and research
have convinced Covey that seven habits distinguish the happy, healthy, successful from
those who fail or who must sacrifice meaning and happiness for success in the narrow
sense
...
Covey is a marvelous human being
...
The equivalent of an entire library of success literature is found in this one
volume
...

-- Ken Blanchard, Ph
...
, author of The One-Minute Manager
The Seven Habits are keys to success for people in all walks of life
...

-- Edward A
...
His book is not a photograph, but a process, and should be treated as
such
...
There are many more than seven
good reasons to read this book
...
Stephen Covey
has encapsulated the strategies used by all those who are highly effective
...

-- Charles Givens, President, Charles J
...
, author of Wealth
Without Risk
I know of no one who has contributed more to helping leaders in our society than
Stephen R
...
There is no literate person in our society who would not benefit by
reading this book and applying its principles
-- Senator Orrin G
...
He lives what he says and this book can help you live, permanently, in
the "Winner's Circle
...
Denis Waitley, author of The Psychology of Winning
It's powerful reading
...
I highly recommend it
...

-- James C
...
Dr
...
We now have a blueprint for
opening the American mind
...
It does a better job of inspiring a person to integrate
the different responsibilities in one's life -- personal, family, and professional – than any
other book I have read
...
Thompson, Dean, Marriott School of Management, BYU and author of
Novation
Goodbye, Dale Carnegie
...
His
principles are powerful
...
Buy this book
...

-- Robert G
...
The best way to accomplish this goal is through enhancing the human
resource
...
Covey's Seven Habits provides the guidelines for this to happen
...

-- F
...
"Buck" Rodgers, author of The IBM Way
This book is filled with practical wisdom for people who want to take control of their
lives, their business and their careers
...

-- Gifford Pinchot III, author of Intrapreneuring
Most of my learning has come from modeling after other people and what they do
...

-- Fran Tarkenton, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback
Not only does the "character ethic" win hands down every time over the "personality
ethic" in the battle of effectiveness, it also will bring greater fulfillment and joy to
individuals seeking meaning in their personal and professional lives
...
Stephen Covey is a master of them
...
At the end, you will feel not only that you know Covey, but also
that he knows you
--Orson Scott Card, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

3

Stephen Covey adds great value to any individual or organization, not just through his
words
...

-- Tom F
...

-- Marie Osmond
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey serves up a seven-course
meal on how to take control of one's life and become the complete, fulfilling person one
envisions
...

-- Roger Staubach, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback
The conclusions he draws in this book underscore the need to restore the character ethic
in our society
...

-- W
...

-- Gregory J
...
S
...

I suspect some of the problems they have shared with me may be familiar to you
...
But it's
cost me my personal and family life
...
I'm not
even sure I know myself and what's really important to me
...
I know I'm overweight, and I really
want to change
...
But I don't
...
I just can't seem to keep a promise I make to myself
...
I expect a lot out of my
employees and I work hard to be friendly toward them and to treat them right
...
I think if I were home sick for a day, they'd spend most
of their time gabbing at the water fountain
...
No matter what I try, he won't listen to me
...
And there's never enough time
...
I've attended time management seminars and I've
tried half a dozen different planning systems
...

I want to teach my children the value of work
...
It's so much
easier to do it myself
...
But sometimes I wonder if what I'm doing will make a difference
in the long run
...
I see my friends or relatives achieve some degree of
success or receive some recognition, and I smile and congratulate them enthusiastically
...
Why do I feel this way?

5

I have a forceful personality
...

Most of the time, I can even do it by influencing others to come up with the solution I
want
...
But I feel uneasy
...

My marriage has gone flat
...
We've gone to counseling; we've tried a number of things, but we just can't
seem to rekindle the feeling we used to have
...
A few years ago, my wife Sandra and I were struggling with this kind of concern
...
He was doing poorly
academically; he didn't even know how to follow the instructions on the tests, let alone
do well in them
...

Athletically, he was small, skinny, and uncoordinated -- swinging his baseball bat, for
example, almost before the ball was even pitched
...

Sandra and I were consumed with a desire to help him
...
So we
worked on our attitudes and behavior toward him and we tried to work on his
...
"Come on, son!
You can do it! We know you can
...
Don't swing till it gets close to you
...
"That's good, son, keep it up
...
"Leave him alone
...
He's
just learning
...

Nothing we did seemed to help, and we were really worried
...
We tried to be encouraging and helpful and positive, but
after repeated failure, we finally drew back and tried to look at the situation on a
different level
...
In that capacity I was preparing bimonthly
programs on the subject of communication and perception for IBM's Executive
Development Program participants
...
This led me to a study of expectancy theory
and self-fulfilling prophecies or the "Pygmalion effect," and to a realization of how deeply
imbedded our perceptions are
...

As Sandra and I talked about the concepts I was teaching at IBM and about our own
situation, we began to realize that what we were doing to help our son was not in
harmony with the way we really saw him
...
" No matter how much we worked on our attitude and behavior, our efforts were

6

ineffective because, despite our actions and our words, what we really communicated to
him was, "You aren't capable
...
"
We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first had to change
ourselves
...

The Personality and Character Ethics
At the same time, in addition to my research on perception, I was also deeply immersed
in an in-depth study of the success literature published in the United States since 1776
...
At my fingertips was the sum and
substance of what a free and democratic people considered to be the keys to successful
living
...
Because of our own pain, and
because of similar pain I had seen in the lives and relationships of many people I had
worked with through the years, I began to feel more and more that much of the success
literature of the past 50 years was superficial
...

In stark contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what
could be called the character ethic as the foundation of success -- things like integrity,
humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty,
and the Golden Rule
...
It is, basically, the story of one man's effort to integrate certain principles and
habits deep within his nature
...

But shortly after World War I the basic view of success shifted from the character ethic to
what we might call the personality ethic
...
This personality ethic essentially took two paths: one was
human and public relations techniques, and the other was positive mental attitude
(PMA)
...

Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even deceptive,
encouraging people to use techniques to get other people to like them, or to fake interest
in the hobbies of others to get out of them what they wanted, or to use the "power look,"
or to intimidate their way through life
...
Reference to
the character ethic became mostly lip service; the basic thrust was quick-fix influence
techniques, power strategies, communication skills, and positive attitudes
...
As I thought more deeply about the
difference between the personality and character ethics, I realized that Sandra and I had
been getting social mileage out of our children's good behavior, and, in our eyes, this son
simply didn't measure up
...
There was a lot
more wrapped up in the way we were seeing and handling the problem than our concern
for our son's welfare
...
We knew that social comparison
motives were out of harmony with our deeper values and could lead to conditional love
and eventually to our son's lessened sense of self-worth
...
Instead of trying to change him, we tried to stand apart -- to separate us from him -and to sense his identity, individuality, separateness, and worth
...
We saw within him layers and layers of potential that
would be realized at his own pace and speed
...
We saw our natural role as being to affirm, enjoy,
and value him
...

As we loosened up our old perception of our son and developed value-based motives,
new feelings began to emerge
...
We stopped trying to clone him in our own image or measure him against
social expectations
...
Because we saw him as fundamentally adequate and able to cope
with life, we stopped protecting him against the ridicule of others
...
"We
don't need to protect you," was the unspoken message
...
"
As the weeks and months passed, he began to feel a quiet confidence and affirmed
himself
...
He became outstanding as
measured by standard social criteria -- academically, socially and athletically -- at a rapid
clip, far beyond the so-called natural developmental process
...
He developed an engaging and
guileless personality that has enabled him to relate in nonthreatening ways to all kinds of
people
...
This was an amazing experience for Sandra and me, and a very
instructional one in dealing with our other children and in other roles as well
...
The Psalmist expressed our conviction well:
"Search your own heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life
...
I was suddenly able to see the powerful impact of the personality ethic
and to clearly understand those subtle, often consciously unidentified discrepancies
between what I knew to be true -- some things I had been taught many years ago as a
child and things that were deep in my own inner sense of value -- and the quick fix
philosophies that surrounded me every day
...

I am not suggesting that elements of the personality ethic -- personality growth,
communication skill training, and education in the field of influence strategies and
positive thinking -- are not beneficial, in fact sometimes essential for success
...
But these are secondary, not primary traits
...

If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what
I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other -- while my
character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity -- then, in the
long run, I cannot be successful
...
It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good
the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent
success
...

To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school
...

Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm -- to forget to
plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The
farm is a natural system
...
You always
reap what you sow; there is no shortcut
...
They,
too, are natural systems based on the The Law of the Harvest
...
" In most one-shot or short-lived
human interactions, you can use the personality ethic to get by and to make favorable
impressions through charm and skill and pretending to be interested in other people's
hobbies
...

But secondary traits alone have no permanent worth in long-term relationships
...

Many people with secondary greatness -- that is, social recognition for their talents -- lack
primary greatness or goodness in their character
...
It is character that
communicates most eloquently
...
"
There are, of course, situations where people have character strength but they lack
communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of relationships as well
...

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say
or do
...
There are people we trust absolutely because we know their
character
...
In the words of
William George Jordan, "Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power
for good or evil -- the silent unconscious, unseen influence of his life
...
"
The Power of a Paradigm
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People embody many of the fundamental principles
of human effectiveness
...
They represent the
internalization of correct principles upon which enduring happiness and success are
based
...
"
Both the The Character Ethic The Personality Ethic are examples of social paradigms
...
It was originally a scientific term, and is more
commonly used today to mean a model, theory, perception, assumption, or frame of
reference
...

For our purposes, a simple way to understand paradigms is to see them as maps
...
" A map is simply an explanation of certain
aspects of the territory
...
It is a theory, an explanation,
or model of something else
...
A street map of the
city would be a great help to you in reaching your destination
...
Through a printing error, the map labeled "Chicago" was actually a
map of Detroit
...
But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster
...
You still wouldn't
get to the right place, but perhaps you wouldn't care
...
The point is, you'd still be lost
...
It has everything to do
with having a wrong map
...

But the first and most important requirement is the accuracy of the map
...
We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps
...
We simply
assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be
...
The way we see things
is the source of the way we think and the way we act
...
Take a few seconds and just look at
the picture on the following page
Now look at the picture below and carefully describe what you see Do you see a woman?
How old would you say she is? What does she look like? What is she wearing? In what
kind of roles do you see her? You probably would describe the woman in the second
picture to be about 25 years old -- very lovely, rather fashionable with a petite nose and
demure presence
...
If you were in
retailing, you might hire her as a fashion model
...
She's
someone you probably would help cross the street
...
Can you see the old woman? If you can't, keep
trying
...
You could describe
what you see to me, and I could talk to you about what I see
...

Because we can't do that, turn to page 45 and study the picture there and then look at this
picture again
...

I first encountered this exercise many years ago at the Harvard Business School
...
It's not logical; it's psychological
...

He passed them out to the class, the picture of the young woman to one side of the room
and the picture of the old woman to the other
...
He then projected
upon the screen the picture you saw on page 26 combining both images and asked the
class to describe what they saw
...
And almost every
person in that class who had first seen the old woman's image on a card saw an old
woman in the picture
...
As they talked back and forth, communication problems flared up
...
You have to be joking
...
I'd like to
take her out
...
"
"Lovely? She's an old hag
...
All of this occurred in spite of one exceedingly important advantage the
students had -- most of them knew early in the demonstration that another point of view
did, in fact, exist -- something many of us would never admit
...

After a period of futile communication, one student went up to the screen and pointed to
a line on the drawing
...
" The other one said, "No,
that is the old woman's mouth
...
Through continued calm, respectful, and
specific communication, each of us in the room was finally able to see the other point of
view
...

I frequently use this perception demonstration in working with people and organizations
because it yields so many deep insights into both personal and interpersonal
effectiveness
...
If 10 seconds can have that kind of impact on the way we see things, what
about the conditioning of a lifetime? The influences in our lives -- family, school, church,
work environment, friends, associates, and current social paradigms such as the
personality ethic -- all have made their silent unconscious impact on us and help shape
our frame of reference, our paradigms, our maps
...
We
cannot act with integrity outside of them
...
If you were among the 90 percent who typically see
the young woman in the composite picture when conditioned to do so, you undoubtedly
found it difficult to think in terms of having to help her cross the street
...

This brings into focus one of the basic flaws of the personality ethic
...

This perception demonstration also shows how powerfully our paradigms affect the way
we interact with other people
...
"Where we stand depends on where we sit
...
But this is not
the case
...

When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our
perceptions, our paradigms
...
But, as the demonstration shows, sincere, clearheaded
people see things differently, each looking through the unique lens of experience
...
In the demonstration, two individuals who
initially have been influenced by different conditioning pictures look at the third picture
together
...
But each person's
interpretation of these facts represents prior experiences, and the facts have no meaning
whatsoever apart from the interpretation
...


The Power of a Paradigm Shift
Perhaps the most important insight to be gained from the perception demonstration is in
the area of paradigm shifting, what we might call the "Aha!" experience when someone
finally "sees" the composite picture in another way
...
It's as though a light were
suddenly turned on inside
...
Kuhn shows how almost every
significant breakthrough in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition,
with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms
...
But
Copernicus created a Paradigm Shift, and a great deal of resistance and persecution as
well, by placing the sun at the center
...

The Newtonian model of physics was a clockwork paradigm and is still the basis of
modern engineering
...
The scientific world was
revolutionized by the Einsteinian paradigm, the relativity paradigm, which had much
higher predictive and explanatory value
...
In military skirmishes, more men were
dying from small wounds and diseases than from the major traumas on the front lines
...

The United States today is the fruit of a Paradigm Shift
...
Then a different
paradigm was developed -government of the people, by the people, and for the people
...

Not all Paradigm Shifts are in positive directions
...

But whether they shift us in positive or negative directions, whether they are
instantaneous or developmental, Paradigm Shifts move us from one way of seeing the
world to another
...
Our paradigms, correct or
incorrect, are the sources of our attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately our relationships
with others
...
People were sitting quietly -- some reading newspapers, some lost in thought,
some resting with their eyes closed
...

Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car
...
The man sat down next
to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation
...
It was very
disturbing
...

It was difficult not to feel irritated
...
It
was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too
...
wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?"
The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time
and said softly, "Oh, you're right
...
We just came
from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago
...
"
Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted
...
My irritation vanished
...
Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely
...
Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?" Everything changed in
an instant
...

We could spend weeks, months, even years laboring with the personality ethic trying to
change our attitudes and behaviors and not even begin to approach the phenomenon of
change that occurs spontaneously when we see things differently
...
But if we want to make
significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms
...
" We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit
hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms
from which our attitudes and behaviors flow
...
Unlike my instant insight on the
subway, the paradigm-shifting experience Sandra and I had with our son was a slow,
difficult, and deliberate process
...
It was the
result of deeper paradigms we held about our own success as parents as well as the
measure of success of our children
...

In order to see our son differently, Sandra and I had to be differently
...

Our Paradigms are the way we "see" the world or circumstances -- not in terms of our
visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting
...
Being is seeing in the human dimension
...
We can't go very far to change our
seeing without simultaneously changing our being, and vice versa
...

I'm sure there are people who, even suddenly understanding the true situation, would
have felt no more than a twinge of regret or vague guilt as they continued to sit in
embarrassed silence beside the grieving, confused man
...

Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world
...

The Principle-Centered Paradigm
The character ethic is based on the fundamental idea that there are principles that govern
human effectiveness -- natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as
unchanging and unarguably "there" as laws such as gravity are in the physical
dimension
...

Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in
heavy weather for several days
...
The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained
on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities
...
"
"Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out
...
The captain then called to the signal man, "Signal that ship: We are on a
collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees
...
"
The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees
...
"You had better change course 20 degrees
...
He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship
...
"
Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse
...
Paradigm
Shift experienced by the captain -- and by us as we read this account -- puts the situation
in a totally different light
...

Principles are like lighthouses
...
As Cecil B
...
We can only break ourselves
against the law
...

They are a "subjective reality," only an attempt to describe the territory
...
The degree to which our mental maps
accurately describe the territory does not alter its existence
...
These principles surface time and time
again, and the degree to which people in society recognize and live in harmony with
them moves them toward either survival and stability or disintegration and destruction
...
There is
not one principle taught in this book that is unique to any specific faith or religion,
including my own
...
They are self-evident and can easily
be validated by any individual
...

They seem to exist in all human beings, regardless of social conditioning and loyalty to
them, even though they might be submerged or numbed by conditions or disloyalty
...
Little children seem to have an innate sense of the idea of
fairness even apart from opposite conditioning experiences
...

Other examples would include integrity and honesty
...

Another principle is human dignity
...
"We hold these truths to be self-evident:
that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
...
Another is quality or
excellence
...

Highly related to potential is the principle of growth -- the process of releasing potential
and developing talents, with the accompanying need for principles such as patience,
nurturance, and encouragement
...
A practice is a specific activity or action
...

While practices are situationally specific, principles are deep, fundamental truths that
have universal application
...
When these truths are internalized into habits,
they empower people to create a wide variety of practices to deal with different
situations
...
They apply to individuals, to marriages, to families, to private
and public organizations of every kind
...

Principles are not values
...
Principles are the territory
...
When we value correct principles, we have truth -- a knowledge of things as they
are
...
They're fundamental
...
One way to quickly grasp the self-evident nature of principles is to simply
consider the absurdity of attempting to live an effective life based on their opposites
...

Although people may argue about how these principles are defined or manifested or
achieved, there seems to be an innate consciousness and awareness that they exist
...
Correct maps will infinitely impact
our personal and interpersonal effectiveness far more than any amount of effort
expended on changing our attitudes and behaviors
...
It's the "get rich quick" scheme promising "wealth without
work
...

The personality ethic is illusory and deceptive
...

In the words of Erich Fromm, an astute observer of the roots and fruits of the personality
ethic
...
Two statements may be said concerning this individual
...
At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the
millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth
...
A child learns to
turn over, to sit up, to crawl, and then to walk and run
...
No step can be skipped
...
It is true with individuals,
with marriages, with families, and with organizations
...
And even if we understand it, to accept it
and to live in harmony with it are even less common and more difficult
...

But what happens when we attempt to shortcut a natural process in our growth and
development? If you are only an average tennis player but decide to play at a higher level
in order to make a better impression, what will result? Would positive thinking alone
enable you to compete effectively against a professional?
What if you were to lead your friends to believe you could play the piano at concert hall
level while your actual present skill was that of a beginner?
The answers are obvious
...
It is contrary to nature, and attempting to seek such a shortcut only
results in disappointment and frustration
...
"A thousand-mile journey begins with the first
step" and can only be taken one step at a time
...
You cannot pretend for long, for you will
eventually be found out
...

Thoreau taught, "How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires,
when we are using our knowledge all of the time?"
I recall one occasion when two young women, daughters of a friend of mine, came to me
tearfully, complaining about their father's harshness and lack of understanding
...
And yet they
desperately needed their parents' love, understanding, and guidance
...
But while he admitted he had a temper problem, he refused to take
responsibility for it and to honestly accept the fact that his emotional development level
was low
...

To relate effectively with a wife, a husband, children, friends, or working associates, we
must learn to listen
...
Listening involves patience,
openness, and the desire to understand -- highly developed qualities of character
...

Our level of development is fairly obvious with tennis or piano playing, where it is
impossible to pretend
...
We can "pose" and "put on" for a stranger or an associate
...

And for a while we can get by with it -at least in public
...
Yet I believe that most of us know the truth of what we really are inside; and I
think many of those we live with and work with do as well
...
But they ignore the low-trust climate produced by such
manipulations
...

I remember violating this principle myself as a father many years ago
...
The first thing I noticed was several parents in the room witnessing this selfish
display
...
And I knew, or at least felt, the expectation of these parents
...
I said to myself, "Certainly I should teach my
daughter to share
...
"

19

So I first tried a simple request
...

My second method was to use a little reasoning
...
"
Again, the immediate reply was "No!"
I was becoming a little more embarrassed, for it was evident I was having no influence
...
Very softly I said, "Honey, if you share, I've got special
surprise for you
...
"
"I don't want gum!" she exploded
...
For my fourth attempt, I resorted to fear and threat
...
"These are my things
...
I merely took some of the toys and gave them to the other
kids
...
"
But at that moment, I valued the opinion those parents had of me more than the growth
and development of my child and our relationship together
...

Perhaps I superimposed a higher-level expectation on her simply because on my own
scale I was at a lower level
...
In an attempt to compensate for my deficiency, I
borrowed strength from my position and authority and forced her to do what I wanted
her to do
...
It builds weakness in the borrower
because it reinforces dependence on external factors to get things done
...
And finally, it builds weakness in the relationship
...

And what happens when the source of borrowed strength -- be it superior size or
physical strength, position, authority, credentials, status symbols, appearance, or past
achievements -- changes or is no longer there?
Had I been more mature, I could have relied on my own intrinsic strength -- my
understanding of sharing and of growth and my capacity to love and nurture -- and
allowed my daughter to make a free choice as to whether she wanted to share or not to
share
...
I've
learned that once children gain a sense of real possession, they share very naturally,
freely, and spontaneously
...
When
relationships are strained and the air charged with emotion, an attempt to teach is often
perceived as a form of judgment and rejection
...
It may have been that the emotional maturity to do that was beyond my
level of patience and internal control at the time
...
Many
people who give mechanically or refuse to give and share in their marriages and families
may never have experienced what it means to possess themselves, their own sense of
identity and self-worth
...

The Way We See the Problem is the Problem
People are intrigued when they see good things happening in the lives of individuals,
families, and organizations that are based on solid principles
...

And their immediate request is very revealing of their basic paradigm
...
" What they're really saying is, "Give me some quick fix
advice or solution that will relieve the pain in my own situation
...
They may eliminate some of the cosmetic
or acute problems through social aspirin and band-aids
...
The more people are into quick fix and focus on the acute problems and pain, the
more that very approach contributes to the underlying chronic condition
...

Look again at some of the concerns that introduced this chapter, and at the impact of
personality ethic thinking
...
I expect a lot out of my employees and I work hard to be friendly toward them
and to treat them right
...
I think if I were home sick
for a day, they'd spend most of their time gabbing at the water fountain
...
Or that I could find some motivational training program that would get them
committed
...

But is it possible that under that apparently disloyal behavior, these employees question
whether I really act in their best interest? Do they feel like I'm treating them as
mechanical objects? Is there some truth to that?
Deep inside, is that really the way I see them? Is there a chance the way I look at the
people who work for me is part of the problem?

21

There's so much to do
...
I feel pressured and hassled all
day, every day, seven days a week
...
They've helped some, but I still don't feel
I'm living the happy, productive, peaceful life I want to live
...

But is there a chance that efficiency is not the answer? Is getting more things done in less
time going to make a difference -- or will it just increase the pace at which I react to the
people and circumstances that seem to control my life?
Could there be something I need to see in a deeper, more fundamental way -- some
paradigm within myself that affects the way I see my time, my life, and my own nature?
My marriage has gone flat
...
We've gone to counseling; we've tried a number of things, but we just can't
seem to rekindle the feeling we used to have
...
Or maybe
that it's useless, and only a new relationship will provide the love I need
...
As I travel around the country and work with organizations, I
find that long-term thinking executives are simply turned off by psyche up psychology
and "motivational" speakers who have nothing more to share than entertaining stories
mingled with platitudes
...
They want more than aspirin and band-aids
...

A New Level of Thinking
Albert Einstein observed, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same
level of thinking we were at when we created them
...


22

We need a new level, a deeper level of thinking -- a paradigm based on the principles that
accurately describe the territory of effective human being and interacting -- to solve these
deep concerns
...
It's a
principle-centered, character-based, "Inside-Out" approach to personal and interpersonal
effectiveness
...

It says if you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates
positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it
...
If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be
a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee
...
If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus
first on primary greatness of character
...
It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve
relationships with others before improving ourselves
...
It's an upward spiral of growth that leads to
progressively higher forms of responsible independence and effective interdependence
...
I've worked with business executives, college
students, church and civic groups, families and marriage partners
...

What I have seen result from the outside-in paradigm is unhappy people who feel
victimized and immobilized, who focus on the weaknesses of other people and the
circumstances they feel are responsible for their own stagnant situation
...
I've seen labor
management disputes where people spend tremendous amounts of time and energy
trying to create legislation that would force people to act as though the foundation of
trust were really there
...
Each involved group is
convinced the problem is "out there" and if "they" (meaning others) would "shape up" or
suddenly "ship out" of existence, the problem would be solved
...


23

But from my own experience -- both personal and in working with thousands of other
people -- and from careful examination of successful individuals and societies throughout
history, I am persuaded that many of the principles embodied in the Seven Habits are
already deep within us, in our conscience and our common sense
...

As we sincerely seek to understand and integrate these principles into our lives, I am
convinced we will discover and rediscover the truth of T
...
Eliot's observation:
We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive
where we began and to know the place for the first time
...
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit
...
"Sow a thought, reap an action; sow
an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny," the
maxim goes
...
Because they are consistent, often unconscious
patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character and produce our effectiveness or
ineffectiveness
...
We weave a
strand of it everyday and soon it cannot be broken
...
I know they can be broken
...
But I also know it isn't a quick fix
...

Those of us who watched the lunar voyage of Apollo 11 were transfixed as we saw the
first men walk on the moon and return to earth
...
But to get there, those
astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth
...

Habits, too, have tremendous gravity pull -- more than most people realize or would
admit
...
"Lift off" takes
a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a
whole new dimension
...
The gravity pull of
some of our habits may currently be keeping us from going where we want to go
...
It is a powerful force, and if we use it effectively, we can use the

24

gravity pull of habit to create the cohesiveness and order necessary to establish
effectiveness in our lives
...
Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why
...
And desire is the motivation, the want to do
...

I may be ineffective in my interactions with my work associates, my spouse, or my
children because I constantly tell them what I think, but I never really listen to them
...

Even if I do know that in order to interact effectively with others I really need to listen to
them, I may not have the skill
...

But knowing I need to listen and knowing how to listen is not enough
...
Creating a habit requires
work in all three dimensions
...
By working on
knowledge, skill, and desire, we can break through to new levels of personal and
interpersonal effectiveness as we break with old paradigms that may have been a source
of pseudo-security for years
...
It's a change that has to be motivated by a higher
purpose, by the willingness to subordinate what you think you want now for what you
want later
...
"
Happiness can be defined, in part at least, as the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice
what we want now for what we want eventually
...
In harmony
with the natural laws of growth, they provide an incremental, sequential, highly
integrated approach to the development of personal and interpersonal effectiveness
...

We each begin life as an infant, totally dependent on others
...
Without this nurturing, we would only live for a few hours or a
few days at the most
...

As we continue to grow and mature, we become increasingly aware that all of nature is

25

interdependent, that there is an ecological system that governs nature, including society
...

Our growth from infancy to adulthood is in accordance with natural law
...
Reaching our full physical maturity, for example, does not
necessarily assure us of simultaneous emotional or mental maturity
...

On the maturity continuum, dependence is the paradigm of you -- you take care of me;
you come through for me; you didn't come through; I blame you for the results
...
Interdependence is the paradigm of we -- we can do it: we can cooperate; we can
combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together
...
Independent people can get what
they want through their own effort
...

If I were physically dependent -- paralyzed or disabled or limited in some physical way -I would need you to help me
...
If you didn't like me, it could be
devastating
...

If I were independent, physically, I could pretty well make it on my own
...
I
could think creatively and analytically and organize and express my thoughts in
understandable ways
...
I would be inner
directed
...

It's easy to see that independence is much more mature than dependence
...
But independence is not supreme
...
It is the avowed goal
of many individuals and social movements
...

Nevertheless, the current social paradigm enthrones independence
...
Most of the self-improvement material puts
independence on a pedestal, as though communication, teamwork, and cooperation were
lesser values
...
The little understood
concept of interdependence appears to many to smack of dependence, and therefore, we
find people often for selfish reasons, leaving their marriages, abandoning their children,
and forsaking all kinds of social responsibility -- all in the name of independence
...

Of course, we may need to change our circumstances
...
Even with better
circumstances, immaturity and dependence often persist
...
It frees us
from our dependence on circumstances and other people and is a worthy, liberating goal
...

Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality
...
They're not coming from the
paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational
reality
...
To try to achieve maximum effectiveness
through independence is like trying to play tennis with a golf club -- the tool is not suited
to the reality
...
If I am physically
interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working
together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone
...
If I am
intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join
with my own
...

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make
...
They don't have the character to do it; they
don't own enough of themselves
...
They move
a person from dependence to independence
...
Private Victories precede Public Victories
...
It's Inside-Out
...
You have the character base from which you can effectively work on
the more personality-oriented "Public Victories" of teamwork, cooperation, and
communication in Habits 4, 5, and 6
...


27

Understanding the sequence will help you manage your growth more effectively, but I'm
not suggesting that you put yourself in isolation for several years until you fully develop
Habits 1, 2, and 3
...
But the
acute problems of that world can easily obscure the chronic character causes
...

Habit 7 is the habit of renewal -- a regular, balanced renewal of the four basic dimensions
of life
...
It is the habit of continuous
improvement that creates the upward spiral of growth that lifts you to new levels of
understanding and living each of the habits as you come around to them on a
progressively higher plane
...
Each concept or habit will be highlighted as it is introduced
...
Because they are based on principles, they
bring the maximum long-term beneficial results possible
...

They are also habits of effectiveness because they are based on a paradigm of
effectiveness that is in harmony with a natural law, a principle I call the "P/PC Balance,"
which many people break themselves against
...

This fable is the story of a poor farmer who one day discovers in the nest of his pet goose
a glittering golden egg
...
But as he starts to
throw the egg aside, he has second thoughts and takes it in to be appraised instead
...
He becomes even more
incredulous the following day when the experience is repeated
...
He becomes fabulously
wealthy; it all seems too good to be true
...
Unable to wait day after day
for the golden eggs, the farmer decides he will kill the goose and get them all at once
...
There are no golden eggs -- and now there is
no way to get any more
...

But as the story shows, true effectiveness is a function of two things: what is produced
(the golden eggs) and the producing asset or capacity to produce (the goose)
...
On the other hand, if you only take
care of the goose with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won't have the
wherewithal to feed yourself or the goose
...
P stands for
production of desired results, the golden eggs
...

Three Kinds of Assets
Basically, there are three kinds of assets: physical, financial, and human
...

A few years ago, I purchased a physical asset -- a power lawn mower
...
The mower worked well for two
seasons, but then it began to break down
...
It was
essentially worthless
...
As it was, I had to spend far more time and money
replacing the mower than I ever would have spent, had I maintained it
...

In our quest for short-term returns, or results, we often ruin a prized physical asset -- a
car, a computer, a washer or dryer, even our body or our environment
...

It also powerfully impacts the effective use of financial assets
...
And the dwindling capital becomes smaller and
smaller until it no longer supplies even our basic needs
...
If we don't continually
invest in improving our own PC, we severely limit our options
...
Again, it simply isn't effective
...

When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the
benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often
become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so
important to a deep relationship
...
The love, the richness, the softness, and
spontaneity begin to deteriorate
...

And what about a parent's relationship with a child? When children are little, they are
very dependent, very vulnerable
...
It's easy to take advantage, to
manipulate, to get what you want the way you want it -- right now! You're bigger, you're
smarter, and you're right! So why not just tell them what to do? If necessary, yell at them,
intimidate them, insist on your way
...
You can go for the golden egg of popularity, of pleasing them,
giving them their way all the time
...

Either way -- authoritarian or permissive -- you have the golden egg mentality
...
But what happens, meantime, to the goose?
What sense of responsibility, of self-discipline, of confidence in the ability to make good
choices or achieve important goals is a child going to have a few years down the road?
And what about your relationship? When he reaches those critical teenage years, the
identity crises, will he know from his experience with you that you will listen without
judging, that you really, deeply care about him as a person, that you can be trusted, no
matter what? Will the relationship be strong enough for you to reach him, to
communicate with him, to influence him?
Suppose you want your daughter to have a clean room -- that's P, production, the golden
egg
...
Your
daughter is the goose, the asset, that produces the golden egg
...
She is a
valuable asset, a goose that can produce golden eggs
...
You might even escalate your efforts to threatening or
yelling, and in your desire to get the golden egg, you undermine the health and welfare
of the goose
...
We
were planning a private date, which is something I enjoy regularly with each of my
children
...

So I approached my daughter and said, "Honey, tonight's your night
...
"
"Really, honey," I said earnestly, "I want to do it
...
"
"I want to go see Star Wars," she replied
...
You slept
through it before
...
That's okay, Dad
...
"

30

"Dad, don't worry about it
...
" She paused and then
added,
"But you know why you don't like Star Wars? It's because you don't understand the
philosophy and training of a Jedi Knight
...
"
"Really? Let's go to Star Wars!"
And we did
...
I became her student, her
learner
...
I could begin to see out of a new paradigm the whole
way a Jedi Knight's basic philosophy in training is manifested in different circumstances
...
It was bonding and very satisfying
...

Organizational PC
One of the immensely valuable aspects of any correct principle is that it is valid and
applicable in a wide variety of circumstances
...

When people fail to respect the P/PC Balance in their use of physical assets in
organizations, they decrease organizational effectiveness and often leave others with
dying geese
...
Perhaps the company is in a rapid growth
stage and promotions are coming fast
...
He runs the machine day and night
...
Within a short time, he's promoted
...

But suppose you are his successor on the job
...
You have to invest heavily in
downtime and maintenance
...
And who gets blamed for
the loss of golden eggs? You do
...

The P/PC Balance is particularly important as it applies to the human assets of an
organization -- the customers and the employees
...
Then the business was sold, and the new owner
focused on golden eggs -- he decided to water down the chowder
...
But little by little, the customers
began to disappear
...
The new
owner tried desperately to reclaim it, but he had neglected the customers, violated their

31

trust, and lost the asset of customer loyalty
...

There are organizations that talk a lot about the customer and then completely neglect the
people that deal with the customer -- the employees
...

You can buy a person's hand, but you can't buy his heart
...
You can buy his back, but you can't buy his brain
...

PC work is treating employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers,
because that's what they are
...

I was in a group once where someone asked, "How do you shape up lazy and
incompetent employees?" One man responded, "Drop hand grenades!" Several others
cheered that kind of macho management talk, that "shape up or ship out" supervision
approach
...
"
"Well, why don't you do that to your customers?" the other man replied
...
'"
He said, "You can't do that to customers
...
"
"I see
...
There's too much turnover,
absenteeism, moonlighting
...
"
That focus on golden eggs -- that attitude, that paradigm -- is totally inadequate to tap
into the powerful energies of the mind and heart of another person
...

Effectiveness lies in the balance
...
Too much focus on PC is
like a person who runs for three or four hours a day, bragging about the extra 10 years of
life it creates, unaware he's spending them running
...

To maintain the P/PC Balance, the balance between the golden egg (Production) and the
health and welfare of the goose (Production Capability) is often a difficult judgment call
...
It balances short term with long term
...
It balances the

32

desire to have a room clean and the building of a relationship in which the child is
internally committed to do it -- cheerfully, willingly, without external supervision
...

You can see it when you press to get your own way with someone and somehow feel an
emptiness in the relationship; or when you really take time to invest in a relationship and
you find the desire and ability to work together, to communicate, takes a quantum leap
...
It's validated in every arena of life
...
It's a lighthouse
...

How to Use This Book
Before we begin work on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I would like to
suggest two Paradigm Shifts that will greatly increase the value you will receive from this
material
...

You may choose to read it completely through once for a sense of the whole
...
It
is organized incrementally and with suggestions for application at the end of each habit
so that you can study and focus on any particular habit as you are ready
...

Second, I would suggest that you shift your paradigm of your own involvement in this
material from the role of learner to that of teacher
...

If you had known, for example, that you would be teaching the material on the P/PC
Balance Principle to someone else within 48 hours, would it have made a difference in
your reading experience?
Try it now as you read the final section in this chapter
...

I guarantee that if you approach the material in each of the following chapters in this
way, you will not only better remember what you read, but your perspective will be
expanded, your understanding deepened, and your motivation to apply the material
increased
...
Those you teach will see you as a changing, growing person, and will be more
inclined to be helpful and supportive as you work, perhaps together, to integrate the
Seven Habits into your lives
...
Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside
...

If you decide to open your "gate of change" to really understand and live the principles
embodied in the Seven Habits, I feel comfortable in assuring you several positive things
will happen
...
Would
you not agree that the P/PC Balance principle alone, if fully lived, would transform most
individuals and organizations?
The net effect of opening the "gate of change" to the first three habits -- the habits of
Private Victory -- will be significantly increased self-confidence
...
As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity,
control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace
...
"Wrong" and "right" will have little to do with being found out
...
You'll no longer build your emotional life on other people's weaknesses
...

As you open yourself to the next three habits -- the habits of Public Victory -- you will
discover and unleash both the desire and the resources to heal and rebuild important
relationships that have deteriorated, or even broken
...

The seventh habit, if deeply internalized, will renew the first six and will make you truly
independent and capable of effective interdependence
...

Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits
...

With genuine caring, I encourage you to open the gate of change and growth as you
study these habits
...
Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground
...

It's obviously not a quick fix
...
In the words of Thomas Paine, "That which we obtain
too easily, we esteem too lightly
...

Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods
...

-- Henry David Thorea
As you read this book, try to stand apart from yourself
...
Can you
look at yourself almost as though you were someone else?
Now try something else
...
Can you identify it?
What are you feeling? How would you describe your present mental state Now think for
a minute about how your mind is working
...
Animals do not possess this
ability
...

This is the reason why man has dominion over all things in the world and why he can
make significant advances from generation to generation
...
This
is also why we can make and break our habits
...
We are not our
moods
...
The very fact that we can think about these things
separates us from them and from the animal world
...
It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors,
but also how we see other people
...

In fact, until we take how we see ourselves (and how we see others) into account, we will
be unable to understand how others see and feel about themselves and their world
...
Unaware, we will project our intentions on their behavior and call ourselves
objective
...

But because of the unique human capacity of self-awareness, we can examine our
paradigms to determine whether they are reality- or principle-based or if they are a
function of conditioning and conditions
...


35

"You're never on time
...
Why can't you understand?"
These visions are disjointed and out of proportion
...

The reflection of the current social paradigm tells us we are largely determined by
conditioning and conditions
...

There are actually three social maps -- three theories of determinism widely accepted,
independently or in combination, to explain the nature of man
...
That's why you have such a temper
...
It just goes through the
generations and you inherited it
...

Psychic determinism basically says your parents did it to you
...
That's why you're afraid to be in front of a group
...
You feel terribly guilty if you make a mistake because you "remember"
deep inside the emotional scripting when you were very vulnerable and tender and
dependent
...

Environmental determinism basically says your boss is doing to you -- or your spouse, or
that bratty teenager, or your economic situation, or national policies
...

Each of these maps is based on the stimulus/response theory we most often think of in
connection with Pavlov's experiments with dogs
...

How accurately and functionally do these deterministic maps describe the territory? How
clearly do these mirrors reflect the true nature of man? Do they become self-fulfilling
prophecies? Are they based on principles we can validate within ourselves?
Between Stimulus and Response
In answer to those questions, let me share with you the catalytic story of Viktor Frankl
...
The limits and parameters of your life are set, and,
basically, you can't do much about it
...
He was
imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany, where he experienced things that were
so repugnant to our sense of decency that we shudder to even repeat them
...

Except for his sister, his entire family perished
...

One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later
called "the last of the human freedoms" -- the freedom his Nazi captors could not take
away
...
His basic identity was intact
...
Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and
his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response
...
He would
describe himself in the classroom, in his mind's eye, and give his students the lessons he
was learning during his very torture
...
They had more
liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he had more freedom,
more internal power to exercise his options
...
He helped others find meaning in their suffering and
dignity in their prison existence
...

Within the freedom to choose are those endowments that make us uniquely human
...
We have conscience -- a deep inner awareness of right and
wrong, of the principles that govern our behavior, and a sense of the degree to which our
thoughts and actions are in harmony with them
...

Even the most intelligent animals have none of these endowments
...
They can be trained to be
responsible, but they can't take responsibility for that training; in other words, they can't
direct it
...
They're not even aware of it
...
This is why an animal's capacity is
relatively limited and man's is unlimited
...

The deterministic paradigm comes primarily from the study of animals -- rats, monkeys,
pigeons, dogs -- and neurotic and psychotic people
...
The extent to which we
exercise and develop these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human
potential
...

"Proactivity" Defined
In discovering the basic principle of the nature of man, Frankl described an accurate selfmap from which he began to develop the first and most basic habit of a highly effective
person in any environment, the habit of Proactivity
...
It means more than merely taking initiative
...
Our behavior is a function of
our decisions, not our conditions
...
We have the
initiative and the responsibility to make things happen
...

Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility
...
Their behavior is a product of their own
conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on
feeling
...

In making such a choice, we become reactive
...
If the weather is good, they feel good
...
Proactive people can carry their own weather with them
...
They are value driven; and if
their value is to produce good quality work, it isn't a function of whether the weather is
conducive to it or not
...
"
When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don't, they become defensive
or protective
...

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person
...
Proactive people are driven by values -- carefully thought about, selected
and internalized values
...
But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a valuebased choice or response
...
" In the
words of Gandhi, "They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them
...

I admit this is very hard to accept emotionally, especially if we have had years and years
of explaining our misery in the name of circumstance or someone else's behavior
...
"
Once in Sacramento when I was speaking on the subject of Proactivity, a woman in the
audience stood up in the middle of my presentation and started talking excitedly
...
But she seemed to
find it difficult to restrain herself and started talking to the people around her
...

I could hardly wait for a break to find out what had happened
...

"You just can't imagine what's happened to me!" she exclaimed
...
Nothing I do is good
enough for him
...
He
constantly harps at me and finds fault with everything I do
...
The other nurses feel the
same way
...

"And for you to have the gall to stand up there and suggest that nothing can hurt me, that
no one can hurt me without my consent, and that I have chosen my own emotional life of
being miserable -- well, there was just no way I could buy into that
...
I really went inside myself and began to ask, 'Do I have the
power to choose my response?"
"When I finally realized that I do have that power, when I swallowed that bitter pill and
realized that I had chosen to be miserable, I also realized that I could choose not to be
miserable
...
I felt as though I was being let out of San Quentin
...
'"
It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us
...
But our
character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all
...

Frankl is one of many who have been able to develop the personal freedom in difficult
circumstances to lift and inspire others
...

We have all known individuals in very difficult circumstances, perhaps with a terminal
illness or a severe physical handicap, who maintain magnificent emotional strength
...

One of the most inspiring times Sandra and I have ever had took place over a four-year
period with a dear friend of ours named Carol, who had a wasting cancer disease
...

When Carol was in the very last stages of the disease, Sandra spent time at her bedside
helping her write her personal history
...

Carol would take as little pain-killing medication as possible so that she had full access to
her mental and emotional faculties
...
Carol was so proactive, so brave, and so concerned
about others that she became an enormous source of inspiration to many people around
her
...
I could see in her eyes a life of character, contribution, and service as well
as love, concern, and appreciation
...
Usually, about one-fourth of the audience respond in the affirmative
...
The same people respond again, almost
inevitably
...

My own experience with people confirms the point Frankl makes -- that the highest of the
three values is attitudinal, in the paradigm of reframing sense
...

Difficult circumstances often create Paradigm Shifts, whole new frames of reference by
which people see the world and themselves and others in it, and what life is asking of
them
...


40

Taking the Initiative
Our basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon
...
It does mean
recognizing our responsibility to make things happen
...
It's called "solution selling," and is a key paradigm in business success
...
But many of
them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen
...
"
"How do I study industry and organizational problems? No one wants to help me
...
But people
who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not
problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with
correct principles, to get the job done
...
In fact, often
before we can say it, they answer their own complaints, "I know -- use my R and I!"
Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming
...
By respecting the proactive nature of other people, we provide them with at least
one clear, undistorted reflection from the social mirror
...
We can't
expect high creative cooperation from those who are deep into emotional dependence
...

Act or be Acted Upon
The difference between people who exercise initiative and those who don't is literally the
difference between night and day
...

It takes initiative to create the P/PC Balance of effectiveness in your life
...
As you study the other six habits, you will see that each
depends on the development of your proactive muscles
...
If you wait to be acted upon, you will be acted upon
...

At one time I worked with a group of people in the home improvement industry,
representatives from 20 different organizations who met quarterly to share their numbers
and problems in an uninhibited way
...
These people were fairly
discouraged as we began
...
The environmental pressures were powerful
...
By the end of the day, everyone was
even more discouraged
...
By the end of the second day, we were even more depressed
...

So on the third day, we decided to focus on the proactive question, "What is our
response? What are we going to do? How can we exercise initiative in this situation?" In
the morning we talked about managing and reducing costs
...
We brainstormed both areas, then concentrated on
several very practical, very doable things
...

At the every end of the third day, we summarized the results of the conference in a threepart answer to the question, "How's business?"
Part one: What's happening to us is not good, and the trends suggest that it will get worse
before it gets better
Part two: But what we are causing to happen is very good, for we are better managing
and reducing our costs and increasing our market share
Part three: Therefore, business is better than ever
Now what would a reactive mind say to that? "Oh, come on
...
You can only
carry this positive thinking and self-psych approach so far
...
"
But that's the difference between positive thinking and proactivity
...

We faced the reality of the current circumstance and of future projections
...
Not facing reality would have been to accept the idea that
what's happening in our environment had to determine us
...
They can combine the creativity and resourcefulness of proactive individuals
to create a proactive culture within the organization
...

Listening to our Language
Because our attitudes and behaviors flow out of our paradigms, if we use our selfawareness to examine them, we can often see in them the nature of our underlying maps
...

The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility
...
That's just the way I am
...
There's nothing I can do about it
...
My emotional life is governed by something
outside my control
...
I just don't have the time
...

"If only my wife were more patient
...

"I have to do it
...
I'm not
free to choose my own actions
...
That's just the way I am
...
They won't allow that
...
I can't
...
If only
...
I can choose a different approach
...
I can create an effective presentation
...
choose
...
I will
...
And the whole spirit of it is the transfer of responsibility
...

One time a student asked me, "Will you excuse me from class? I have to go on a tennis
trip
...

"I really have to," he exclaimed
...
"
"How would you like that consequence?"
"I wouldn't
...
What will happen if you miss my class?"
"I don't know
...
What do you think would be the natural consequence of not coming to
class?"
"You wouldn't kick me out, would you?"
"That would be a social consequence
...
If you don't participate on
the tennis team, you don't play
...
But if you don't come to class, what would
be the natural consequence?"
"I guess I'll miss the learning
...
So you have to weigh that consequence against the other consequence and
make a choice
...
But never say you
have to do anything
...

"And miss my class?" I replied in mock disbelief
...

People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce
evidence to support the belief
...
They blame outside forces -- other people,
circumstances, even the stars -- for their own situation
...
But every situation is so different
...
I'm really worried
...
I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me
...

"That's right," he reaffirmed
...

What do you suggest?"
"Love her," I replied
...
"
"Love her
...
The feeling of love just isn't there
...
If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her
...
Love -- the feeling -- is a fruit of love the verb
...

Sacrifice
...
Empathize
...
Affirm her
...
Reactive people make it a
feeling
...
Hollywood has generally scripted us to believe that

44

we are not responsible, that we are a product of our feelings
...
If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have
abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so
...
Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make,
the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world
...
If you are a parent, look at the love you have for the children you sacrificed for
...
Proactive people subordinate
feelings to values
...

Circle of Concern
...

Another excellent way to become more self-aware regarding our own degree of
proactivity is to look at where we focus our time and energy
...

We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional
involvement by creating a "Circle of Concern
...
We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them
within a smaller Circle of Influence
...

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence
...
The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and
magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase
...
They focus
on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances
over which they have no control
...
The negative energy generated
by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their
Circle of Influence to shrink
...
We aren't taking the proactive initiative necessary to effect positive change
...
Sandra and I were deeply concerned about his apparent weaknesses and about
the way other people were treating him
...
As long as we focused our efforts on those
things, we accomplished nothing, except to increase our own feelings of inadequacy and
helplessness and to reinforce our son's dependence
...
By working on ourselves instead of worrying
about conditions, we were able to influence the conditions
...

This situation reflects on a self-inflicted emotional myopia -- another reactive selfish lifestyle focused in the Circle of Concern
...

Direct, Indirect, and No Control
The problems we face fall in one of three areas: direct control (problems involving our
own behavior); indirect control (problems involving other people's behavior); or no
control (problems we can do nothing about, such as our past or situational realities)
...

Direct control problems are solved by working on our habits
...
These are the "Private Victories" of Habits 1, 2, and 3
...
These are the
"Public Victories" of Habits 4, 5, and 6
...
Most people have only three or four of these methods in
their repertoire, starting usually with reasoning, and, if that doesn't work, moving to
flight or fight
...
In this way, we do not empower these
problems to control us
...
"
Whether a problem is direct, indirect, or no control, we have in our hands the first step to
the solution
...

Expanding the Circle of Influence
It is inspiring to realize that in choosing our response to circumstance, we powerfully
affect our circumstance
...
He could read trends
...
But he had a very dictatorial style of management
...
His manner of speaking to those

46

who worked in the organization was, "Go for this; go for that; now do this; now do that -I'll make the decisions
...

They would gather in the corridors and complain to each other about him
...
But they did it endlessly, absolving themselves of responsibility in the name of
the president's weaknesses
...
"The other day he
went into my department
...
But he came in and gave totally
different signals
...
I don't know
how I'm supposed to keep working for him
...
"Do you think you can survive for six
more years?"
"I don't know
...
"
But one of the executives was proactive
...
He took
initiative -- he anticipated, he empathized, he read the situation
...

Where the president was weak in his style, he'd try to buffer his own people and make
such weaknesses irrelevant
...

This man focused on his Circle of Influence
...
But he
would do more than what was expected
...
He read
with empathy the president's underlying concern, so when he presented information, he
also gave his analysis and his recommendations based on that analysis
...
He's not only given me the information I requested, but
he's provided additional information that's exactly what we needed
...

"The recommendations are consistent with the analysis, and the analysis is consistent
with the data
...
"
At the next meeting, it was "go for this" and "go for that" to all the executives but one
...
The reactive minds in the executive corridors
began shooting their vindictive ammunition at this proactive man
...
It's so much safer to say, "I am not
responsible
...
" It would
be very hard for me to say that I have the power to choose my response and that the
response I have chosen has resulted in my involvement in a negative, collusive
environment, especially if for years I have absolved myself of responsibility for results in
the name of someone else's weaknesses
...

But this man was proactive toward them, too
...
It continued to expand to the extent that eventually no one made
any significant moves in the organization without that man's involvement and approval,
including the president
...
So he had the
strength of two people, a complementary team
...
Many others were in the
same situation
...

There are some people who interpret "proactive" to mean pushy, aggressive, or
insensitive; but that isn't the case at all
...
They're smart,
they're value driven, they read reality, and they know what's needed
...
While his accusers were in the legislative chambers criticizing him
because he wouldn't join in their Circle of Concern rhetoric condemning the British
Empire for their subjugation of the Indian people, Gandhi was out in the rice paddies,
quietly, slowly, imperceptibly expanding his Circle of Influence with the field laborers
...

Though he held no office or political position, through compassion, courage, fasting, and
moral persuasion he eventually brought England to its knees, breaking political
domination of 300 million people with the power of his greatly expanded Circle of
Influence
...
The Circle of Concern is filled with the have's
"I'll be happy when I have my house paid off
...
"
"If only I had a more patient husband
...
"
"If I had my degree
...
"
The Circle of Influence is filled with the be's -- I can be more patient, be wise, be loving
...
Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the
problem
...
The change paradigm is "outsidein" -- what's out there has to change before we can change
...


48

One of my favorite stories is one in the Old Testament, part of the fundamental fabric of
the Judeo-Christian tradition
...
Can you imagine how easy it would have been for him to
languish in self-pity as a servant of Potiphar, to focus on the weaknesses of his brothers
and his captors and on all he didn't have? But Joseph was proactive
...

And within a short period of time, he was running Potiphar's household
...

Then the day came when Joseph was caught in a difficult situation and refused to
compromise his integrity
...
But again
he was proactive
...

I know this idea is a dramatic Paradigm Shift for many people
...
But we
are responsible --"response-able" -- to control our lives and to powerfully influence our
circumstances by working on be, on what we are
...
I also diminish my ability to influence her -- my nagging,
accusing, critical attitude only makes her feel validated in her own weakness
...
My ability to positively impact the
situation withers and dies
...
I can stop trying to shape up my wife and work on my own
weaknesses
...
Hopefully, my wife will feel the power of proactive example and respond in
kind
...

There are so many ways to work in the Circle of Influence -- to be a better listener, to be a
more loving marriage partner, to be a better student, to be a more cooperative and
dedicated employee
...
Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice
...
But as proactive people, we
can carry our own physical or social weather with us
...

The Other End of the Stick
Before we totally shift our life focus to our Circle of Influence, we need to consider two
things in our Circle of Concern that merit deeper thought -- consequences and mistakes
...
Consequences are governed by natural law
...
We can decide to step in front of a fast-moving train, but we cannot decide what
will happen when the train hits us
...
While the social consequences of
that decision may vary depending on whether or not we are found out, the natural
consequences to our basic character are a fixed result
...
Living in harmony with them brings positive
consequences; violating them brings negative consequences
...
"When
we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other
...
Our choices have brought consequences we would
rather have lived without
...
We call these choices mistakes, and they are the second thing that merits our
deeper thought
...
We can't recall them, we
can't undo them, we can't control the consequences that came as a result
...

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct it, and learn
from it
...
"Success," said IBM founder T
...

Watson, "is on the far side of failure
...
It usually puts a person on a self-deceiving, self-justifying path, often
involving rationalization (rational lies) to self and to others
...

It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response
to those things
...
It is far better to take measures immediately to get the poison
out
...
It is important to
immediately admit and correct our mistakes so that they have no power over that next
moment and we are empowered again
...
The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to
those commitments, is the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity
...
Through our human endowments of self-awareness
and conscience, we become conscious of areas of weakness, areas for improvement, areas
of talent that could be developed, areas that need to be changed or eliminated from our
lives
...

It is here that we find two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately
...
Or we can set a goal -- and work to achieve it
...
By making and keeping promises to
ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods
...
Knowledge, skill, and desire are all within our control
...
As the area of intersection
becomes larger, we more deeply internalize the principles upon which the habits are
based and create the strength of character to move us in a balanced way toward
increasing effectiveness in our lives
...
It is in the ordinary events of every day that we develop the
proactive capacity to handle the extraordinary pressures of life
...
It's how we view our problems and where we focus our energies
...

I would challenge you to test the principle of proactivity for 30 days
...
For 30 days work only in your Circle of Influence
...
Be a light, not a judge
...
Be part of
the solution, not part of the problem
...
Don't argue for other people's
weaknesses
...
When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it,
and learn from it -immediately
...
Work on things
you have control over
...
On be
...
It's not what they're
not doing or should be doing that's the issue
...
If you start to think the problem is "out
there," stop yourself
...

People who exercise their embryonic freedom day after day will, little by little, expand
that freedom
...
" They are acting out the scripts written by parents, associates, and society
...

Samuel Johnson observed: "The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he
who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything
but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he
proposes to remove
...

Application Suggestions
1
...

How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as "If only," "I can't," or "I have to"
2
...
Review the situation in the context of
your Circle of Influence
...
Remind yourself of the gap between stimulus and response
...

3
...
Determine
whether it is a direct, indirect, or no control problem
...

4
...
Be aware of the change in your Circle of Influence
...
Clear your mind of everything except what you will read and what I will
invite you to do
...
Just focus with me and really open your mind
...
As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music
...
You feel the shared
sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people
there
...
This is your funeral, three years from today
...

As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your
hand
...
The first one is from your family, immediate and also
extended -- children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and
grandparents who have come from all over the country to attend
...
The
third speaker is from your work or profession
...

Now think deeply
...
What difference would you like to have made in their lives?
Before you read further, take a few minutes to jot down your impressions
...

What it Means to "Begin with the End in Mind"
If you participated seriously in this visualization experience, you touched for a moment
some of your deep, fundamental values
...
When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and
some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be
Contemporaries, and make our appearance together
...
Each part of your life -- today's behavior,
tomorrow's behavior, next week's behavior, next month's behavior -- can be examined in
the context of the whole, of what really matters most to you
...

To Begin with the End in Mind means to start with a clear understanding of your
destination
...

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work
harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against
the wrong wall
...

People often find themselves achieving victories that are empty, successes that have come
at the expense of things they suddenly realize were far more valuable to them
...

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and,
keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really
matters most
...
We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we
will also be truly effective only when we Begin with the End in Mind
...
It may be very different from the definition you
thought you had in mind
...
When you Begin with the End in Mind, you gain a
different perspective
...
"
All Things Are Created Twice
"Begin with the End in Mind" is based on the principle that all things are created twice
...
You create it in every detail before you
ever hammer the first nail into place
...
If you want a family-centered home, you plan a family room where it
would be a natural gathering place
...
You work with ideas
...
Then you reduce it to blueprint and develop construction
plans
...
If not, then in the second creation,
the physical creation, you will have to make expensive changes that may double the cost
of your home
...
" You have to make sure that the
blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you've thought everything
through
...
Each day you go to the construction
shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day
...

For another example, look at a business
...
You carefully think through the product
or service you want to provide in terms of your market target, then you organize all the
elements -- financial, research and development, operations, marketing, personnel,
physical facilities, and so on -- to meet that objective
...
Most business failures begin in the first creation, with problems such as under
capitalization, misunderstanding of the market, or lack of a business plan
...
If you want to raise responsible, self-disciplined
children, you have to keep that end clearly in mind as you interact with your children on
a daily basis
...

To varying degrees, people use this principle in many different areas of life
...
Before you plant
a garden, you plan it out in your mind, possibly on paper
...

To the extent to which we understand the principle of two creations and accept the
responsibility for both, we act within and enlarge the borders of our Circle of Influence
...

By Design or Default
It's a principle that all things are created twice, but not all first creations are by conscious
design
...
We reactively live the scripts
handed to us by family, associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance
-- scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning
...
And they rise out of our deep
vulnerabilities, our deep dependency on others and our need for acceptance and love, for
belonging, for a sense of importance and worth, for a feeling that we matter
...
We are either the second creation of our own proactive
design, or we are the second creation of other people's agendas, of circumstances, or of
past habits
The unique human capacities of self-awareness, imagination, and conscience enable us to
examine first creations and make it possible for us to take charge of our own first
creation, to write our own script
...
"
Habit 2 is the first creation
...
Leadership is not management
...
But leadership has to come first
...
" Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of
success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall
...
They're the producers,
the problem solvers
...

The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure
manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies,
and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders
...
"
As individuals, groups, and businesses, we're often so busy cutting through the
undergrowth we don't even realize we're in the wrong jungle
...

We are more in need of a vision or designation and a compass (a set of principles or
directions) and less in need of a road map
...
But an inner compass will always give us direction
...
And the
metamorphosis taking place in most every industry and profession demands leadership
first and management second
...
Proactive
powerful leadership must constantly monitor environmental change, particularly

56

customer buying habits and motives, and provide the force necessary to organize
resources in the right direction
...
If industries do not monitor the environment, including their own work teams, and
exercise the creative leadership to keep headed in the right direction, no amount of
management expertise can keep them from failing
...
" No management success can compensate for
failure in leadership
...

At the final session of a year-long executive development program in Seattle, the
president of an oil company came up to me and said, "Stephen, when you pointed out the
difference between leadership and management in the second month, I looked at my role
as the president of this company and realized that I had never been into leadership
...
So I decided to withdraw from management
...

I wanted to really lead my organization
...
I went through withdrawal pains because I stopped dealing with a lot of the
pressing, urgent matters that were right in front of me and which gave me a sense of
immediate accomplishment
...
Others also went through withdrawal pains from their working
style comfort zones
...
They still
wanted me to be available to them, to respond, to help solve their problems on a day-today basis
...
I was absolutely convinced that I needed to provide leadership
...
Today our whole business is different
...
We
have doubled our revenues and quadrupled our profits
...
"
I'm convinced that too often parents are also trapped in the management paradigm,
thinking of control, efficiency, and rules instead of direction, purpose, and family feeling
...
We're into managing with
efficiency, setting and achieving goals before we have even clarified our values
...
The two additional unique human endowments that enable us to expand
our proactivity and to exercise personal leadership in our lives are imagination and
conscience
...
Through conscience, we can come in contact with universal laws or principles with
our own singular talents and avenues of contribution, and with the personal guidelines
within which we can most effectively develop them
...


57

Because we already live with many scripts that have been handed to us, the process of
writing our own script is actually more a process of "rescripting," or Paradigm Shifting -of changing some of the basic paradigms that we already have
...

I think one of the most inspiring accounts of the rescripting process comes from the
autobiography of Anwar Sadat, past president of Egypt
...
He would make the statement on national
television, "I will never shake the hand of an Israeli as long as they occupy one inch of
Arab soil
...

The script was very independent and nationalistic, and it aroused deep emotions in the
people
...
It ignored the perilous, highly
interdependent reality of the situation
...
It was a process he had learned when he was a young man
imprisoned in Cell 54, a solitary cell in Cairo Central Prison, as a result of his involvement
in a conspiracy plot against King Farouk
...
He learned how to vacate his
own mind and, through a deep personal process of meditation, to work with his own
scriptures, his own form of prayer, and rescript himself
...
It's not in having things, but in having
mastery, having victory over self
...
Everyone felt that his spirit was broken, but it wasn't
...
They didn't understand him
...

And when that time came, when he became president of Egypt and confronted the
political realities, he rescripted himself toward Israel
...

Sadat was able to use his self-awareness, his imagination, and his conscience to exercise
personal leadership, to change an essential paradigm, to change the way he saw the
situation
...
And from that rescripting,
that change in paradigm, flowed changes in behavior and attitude that affected millions
of lives in the wider Circle of Concern
...
Habit 2 says we don't have to live with those scripts
...

Suppose, for example, that I am highly over reactive to my children
...
feel defensive walls go up; I prepare for battle
...
I'm
trying to win the battle, not the war
...
And I win
...

Now if I were sitting at that funeral we visualized earlier, and one of my children was
about to speak, I would want his life to represent the victory of teaching, training, and
disciplining with love over a period of years rather than the battle scars of quick-fix
skirmishes
...
I would want him to remember me as a loving father
who shared the fun and the pain of growing up
...
I would want to have listened and loved
and helped
...
And that, perhaps more than anybody in the world, I loved him
...
I love
them, I want to help them
...
But I don't always see those
values
...
" What matters most gets buried under
layers of pressing problems, immediate concerns, and outward behaviors
...
And the way I interact with my children every day often bears little resemblance
to the way I deeply feel about them
...
I can realize that the script I'm living is not in harmony with those values,
that my life is not the product of my own proactive design, but the result of the first
creation I have deferred to circumstances and other people
...
I can live
out of my imagination instead of my memory
...
I can become my own first creator
...
It means to be responsible for my
own first creation, to descript myself so that the paradigms from which my behavior and
attitude flow are congruent with my deepest values and in harmony with correct
principles
...
Then as the
vicissitudes, as the challenges come, I can make my decisions based on those values
...
I don't have to react to the emotion, the circumstance
...

A Personal Mission Statement
The most effective way I know to Begin with the End in Mind is to develop a personal
mission statement or philosophy or creed
...
My friend, Rolfe Kerr, has expressed his personal
creed in this way:

59

Succeed at home first
...

Never compromise with honesty
...

Hear both sides before judging
...

Defend those who are absent
...

Develop one new proficiency a year
...

Hustle while you wait
...

Keep a sense of humor
...

Do not fear mistakes -- fear only the absence of creative, constructive, and corrective
responses to those mistakes
...

Listen twice as much as you speak
...

A woman seeking to balance family and work values has expressed her sense of personal
mission differently:
I will seek to balance career and family as best I can since both are important to me
...
Still I will seek to create a clean and orderly environment, yet
livable and comfortable
...
I especially want to teach my children to love, to learn, and to laugh -- and to
work and develop their unique talents
...
I will be a
concerned and informed citizen, involved in the political process to ensure my voice is
heard and my vote is counted
...
I will act on situations and opportunities, rather than to be acted upon
...
I will develop
habits that free me from old labels and limits and expand my capabilities and choices
...
I will seek financial independence over
time
...
Except for long-term home
and car loans, I will seek to keep myself free from consumer debt
...

Moreover, I will use what money and talents I have to make life more enjoyable for
others through service and charitable giving
...
Like the United
States Constitution, it's fundamentally changeless
...

The United States Constitution is the standard by which every law in the country is
evaluated
...
It is the criterion by which people are admitted into citizenship
...
It is the written standard, the key criterion by
which everything else is evaluated and directed
...
These principles empower the Constitution with a timeless strength, even
in the midst of social ambiguity and change
...
"
A personal mission statement based on correct principles becomes the same kind of
standard for an individual
...
It empowers individuals with the same
timeless strength in the midst of change
...
The key to the
ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you
value
...
We don't need prejudgments or
prejudices
...
Such rapid change
burns out a large number of people who feel they can hardly handle it, can hardly cope
with life
...

But it doesn't have to be that way
...

The essence of "logotherapy," the philosophy he later developed and taught, is that many

61

so-called mental and emotional illnesses are really symptoms of an underlying sense of
meaninglessness or emptiness
...

Once you have that sense of mission, you have the essence of your own proactivity
...
You have the basic direction from
which you set your long- and short-term goals
...

At the Center
In order to write a personal mission statement, we must begin at the very center of our
Circle of Influence, that center comprised of our most basic Our paradigms, the lens
through which we see the world
...
It is here that we use our
endowment of self-awareness to examine our maps and, if we value correct principles, to
make certain that our maps accurately describe the territory, that our paradigms are
based on principles and reality
...
It is here that
we use our endowment of imagination to mentally create the end we desire, giving
direction and purpose to our beginnings and providing the substance of a written
personal constitution
...
As we work within the
very center of our Circle of Influence, we expand it
...

Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom,
and power
...

Guidance means your source of direction in life
...

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how
the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other
...
It is a gestalt or oneness, an integrated wholeness
...

It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions
...

These four factors -- security, guidance, wisdom, and power -- are interdependent
...
When these four factors are present together,
harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create the great force of a noble
personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual
...
And none of them
is an all-or-nothing matter
...
At the bottom end, the four factors are weak
...
At the top
end you are in control
...

Your security lies somewhere on the continuum between extreme insecurity on one end,
wherein your life is buffeted by all the fickle forces that play upon it, and a deep sense of
high intrinsic worth and personal security on the other end
...
Your wisdom falls somewhere between a totally inaccurate map
where everything is distorted and nothing seems to fit, and a complete and accurate map
of life wherein all the parts and principles are properly related to each other
...

The location of these factors on the continuum, the resulting degree of their integration,
harmony, and balance, and their positive impact on every aspect of your life is a function
of your center, the basic paradigms at your very core
...
Neither do we
recognize the all-encompassing effects of that center on every aspect of our lives
...

Spouse Centeredness
...
It might seem natural and proper to
be centered on one's husband or wife
...
Over the years, I have been involved
in working with many troubled marriages, and I have observed a certain thread weaving
itself through almost every spouse-centered relationship I have encountered
...

If our sense of emotional worth comes primarily from our marriage, then we become
highly dependent upon that relationship
...

When responsibilities increase and stresses come in the marriage, we tend to revert to the
scripts we were given as we were growing up
...
And those scripts
are usually different
...
When these deep-seated tendencies combine with the
emotional dependency in the marriage, the spouse-centered relationship reveals all its
vulnerability
...
Love-hate overreactions, fight-or-flight tendencies, withdrawal,
aggressiveness, bitterness, resentment, and cold competition are some of the usual
results
...

Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need to protect ourselves from
further wounds
...
Each partner tends to wait on the initiative of
the other for love, only to be disappointed but also confirmed as to the rightness of the
accusations made
...

Guidance is based on the emotion of the moment
...

Family Centeredness
...
This, too, may seem to be
natural and proper
...
But as a center, it ironically destroys the very elements necessary to family
success
...
Thus, they become vulnerable to
any changes in that tradition or culture and to any influences that would affect that
reputation
...
If they derive their own security from
the family, their need to be popular with their children may override the importance of a
long-term investment in their children's growth and development
...
Any behavior that they
consider improper threatens their security
...
They may overreact and punish out of bad
temper
...

Money Centeredness
...
Economic security is basic to one's opportunity to do much in any other
dimension
...
Other needs are not even activated until that basic need is satisfied, at least
minimally
...
Many forces in the wider culture can and do act upon
our economic situation, causing or threatening such disruption that we often experience
concern and worry that may not always rise to the conscious surface
...
And these things are important
...


64

Consider again the four life-support factors -- security, guidance, wisdom, and power
...
Since many factors affect these economic foundations, I become anxious and
uneasy, protective and defensive, about anything that may affect them
...
But work and money, per se, provide no wisdom, no guidance, and only a
limited degree of power and security
...

Money-centered people often put aside family or other priorities, assuming everyone will
understand that economic demands come first
...
He declined
...
" For the rest of
their lives his children remembered this little act of priority setting, not only as an object
lesson in their minds but as an expression of love in their hearts
...
Work-centered people may become "workaholics," driving
themselves to produce at the sacrifice of health, relationships, and other important areas
of their lives
...
"
Because their identity and sense of self-worth are wrapped up in their work, their
security is vulnerable to anything that happens to prevent them from continuing in it
...
Their wisdom and power come
in the limited areas of their work, rendering them ineffective in other areas of life
...
A driving force of many people is possessions -- not only
tangible, material possessions such as fashionable clothes, homes, cars, boats, and
jewelry, but also the intangible possessions of fame, glory, or social prominence
...

If my sense of security lies in my reputation or in the things I have, my life will be in a
constant state of threat and jeopardy that these possessions may be lost or stolen or
devalued
...
If I'm in the presence of someone of lesser net worth or fame or status, I feel
superior
...
I don't have any sense of
constancy or anchorage or persistent selfhood
...
We have all heard stories
of people committing suicide after losing their fortunes in a significant stock decline or
their fame in a political reversal
...
Another common center, closely allied with possessions, is that
of fun and pleasure
...
Television and movies are major influences in increasing people's
expectations
...
"
But while the glitter of pleasure-centered lifestyles is graphically portrayed, the natural
result of such lifestyles -- the impact on the inner person, on productivity, on
relationships -- is seldom accurately seen
...
But pleasure, per se, offers no deep, lasting
satisfaction or sense of fulfillment
...
So the next new
pleasure has to be bigger and better, more exciting, with a bigger "high
...

Too many vacations that last too long, too many movies, too much TV, too much video
game playing -- too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes
the course of least resistance -- gradually wastes a life
...
Where is the security, the guidance, the wisdom, and the
power? At the low end of the continuum, in the pleasure of a fleeting moment
...
For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known
and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or
traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, explaining and
experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer
...
"
Friend/Enemy Centeredness
...
Acceptance and belonging to a peer
group can become almost supremely important
...

Friend centeredness can also focus exclusively on one person, taking on some of the
dimensions of marriage
...

And what about putting an enemy at the center of one's life? Most people would never
think of it, and probably no one would ever do it consciously
...
When someone feels he has been unjustly dealt with by an
emotionally or socially significant person, it is very easy for him to become preoccupied
with the injustice and make the other person the center of his life
...

One friend of mine who taught at a university became very distraught because of the
weaknesses of a particular administrator with whom he had a negative relationship
...
It so preoccupied him
that it affected the quality of his relationships with his family, his church, and his
working associates
...


66

"Wouldn't you really prefer to teach at this university, if the man were not here?" I asked
him
...
"But as long as he is here, then my staying is too disruptive
to everything in life
...

"Why have you made this administrator the center of your life?" I asked him
...
He denied it
...

He finally admitted that this individual had had such an impact on him, but he denied
that he himself had made all these choices
...
He, himself, he declared, was not responsible
...

Many divorced people fall into a similar pattern
...
In a negative sense,
psychologically they are still married -- they each need the weaknesses of the former
partner to justify their accusations
...
They
blame them for past abuses, neglect, or favoritism and they center their adult life on that
hatred, living out the reactive, justifying script that accompanies it
...
Feelings of
self-worth are volatile, a function of the emotional state or behavior of other people
...
The individual has no
power
...

Church Centeredness
...

There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become
insensitive to the pressing human needs that surround them, contradicting the very
precepts they profess to believe deeply
...

Having participated throughout my life in organized church and community service
groups, I have found that attending church does not necessarily mean living the
principles taught in those meetings
...

In the church-centered life, image or appearance can become a person's dominant
consideration, leading to hypocrisy that undermines personal security and intrinsic
worth
...
"

67

Because the church is a formal organization made up of policies, programs, practices, and
people, it cannot by itself give a person any deep, permanent security or sense of intrinsic
worth
...

Nor can the church give a person a constant sense of guidance
...
Such a lack of wholeness or unity or
integrity is a further threat to security, creating the need for increased labeling and selfjustifying
...
Although the church claims to teach people about the
source of power, it does not claim to be that power itself
...

Self-Centeredness
...
The most obvious
form is selfishness, which violates the values of most people
...

There is little security, guidance, wisdom, or power in the limited center of self
...
It becomes stagnant
...
It is often
much easier to recognize the center in someone else's life than to see it in your own
...
You
probably know someone whose energy is devoted to justifying his or her position in an
ongoing negative relationship
...

Identifying Your Center
But where do you stand? What is at the center of your own life? Sometimes that isn't easy
to see Perhaps the best way to identify your own center is to look closely at your lifesupport factors
...

If you are Spouse Centered
...

You are highly vulnerable to the moods and feelings of your spouse
...


68

Anything that may impinge on the relationship is perceived as a threat
...

Your decision-making criterion is limited to what you think is best for your marriage or
your mate, or to the preferences and opinions of your spouse
...

WISDOM
Your life perspective surrounds things which may positively or negatively influence your
spouse or your relationship
...

***
If you are Family Centered
...

Your sense of personal security is as volatile as the family
...

GUIDANCE
Family scripting is your source of correct attitudes and behaviors
...

WISDOM
You interpret all of life in terms of your family, creating a partial understanding and
family narcissism
...

***

69

If you are Money Centered
...

You are vulnerable to anything that threatens your economic security
...

WISDOM
Moneymaking is the lens through which life is seen and understood, creating imbalanced
judgment
...

***
If you are Work Centered
...

You are only comfortable when you are working
...

WISDOM
You tend to be limited to your work role
...

***
If you are Possession Centered
...
You tend to compare what you have to what others have
...

WISDOM
You see the world in terms of comparative economic and social relationships
...

***
If you are Pleasure Centered
...

Your security is short-lived, anesthetizing, and dependent on your environment
...

WISDOM
You see the world in terms of what's in it for you
...

***
If you are Friend Centered
...

You are highly dependent on the opinion of others
...


71

WISDOM
You see the world through a social lens
...

POWER
You are limited by your social comfort zone
...

SECURITY
Your security is volatile, based on the movements of your enemy
...

You seek self-justification and validation from the like-minded
...

You make your decisions based on what will thwart your enemy
...

You are defensive, over-reactive, and often paranoid
...

***
If you are Church Centered
...

You find identity and security in religious labels and comparisons
...


72

WISDOM
You see the world in terms of "believers" and "non-believers," "belongers" and "nonbelongers
...

***
If you are Self-Centered
...

GUIDANCE
Your judgment criteria are: "If it feels good
...
" "What I need
...

POWER
Your ability to act is limited to your own resources, without the benefits of
interdependency
...

Most people are very much a function of a variety of influences that play upon their lives
...
Then another center becomes the compelling force
...
One moment you're high, the next moment you're low, making
efforts to compensate for one weakness by borrowing strength from another weakness
...

The ideal, of course, is to create one clear center from which you consistently derive a
high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power, empowering your proactivity and
giving congruency and harmony to every part of your life
...


73

We can depend on them Principles don't react to anything
...
They aren't out to get us
...
They don't depend on the behavior of others, the environment,
or the current fad for their validity
...

They aren't here one day and gone the next
...
Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths, generic common
denominators
...

Even in the midst of people or circumstances that seem to ignore the principles, we can be
secure in the knowledge that principles are bigger than people or circumstances, and that
thousands of years of history have seen them triumph, time and time again
...

Admittedly, we're not omniscient
...
These ideas will have their season of acceptance, but, like many
before them, they won't endure because they're built on false foundations
...
An understanding of
the principle of our own growth enables us to search out correct principles with the
confidence that the more we learn, the more clearly we can focus the lens through which
we see the world
...

The wisdom and guidance that accompany Principle-Centered Living come from correct
maps, from the way things really are, have been, and will be
...
We can make our decisions using
the correct data that will make their implementation possible and meaningful
...

The only real limitation of power is the natural consequences of the principles
themselves
...
Remember, "If
you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other
...
There are positive
consequences when we live in harmony with the principles
...
But because these principles apply to everyone,
whether or not they are aware, this limitation is universal
...

By centering our lives on timeless, unchanging principles, we create a fundamental
paradigm of effective living
...


74

If you are Principle Centered
...

You know that true principles can repeatedly be validated in your own life, through your
own experiences
...

Correct principles help you understand your own development, endowing you with the
confidence to learn more, thereby increasing your knowledge and understanding
...

GUIDANCE
You are guided by a compass which enables you to see where you want to go and how
you will get there
...

You stand apart from life's situations, and circumstances and look at the balanced whole
...

In every situation, you consciously, proactively determine the best alternative, basing
decisions on conscience educated by principles
...

You see things differently and thus you think and act differently from the largely reactive
world
...

You see the world in terms of what you can do for the world and its people
...

You interpret all of life's experiences in terms of opportunities for learning and
contribution
...

You become a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, largely unrestricted by
the attitudes, behaviors, or actions of others
...

Your decisions and actions are not driven by your current financial or circumstantial
limitations
...

Remember that your paradigm is the source from which your attitudes and behaviors
flow
...
If you look at things through the paradigm of correct principles, what you see in life
is dramatically different from what you see through any other centered paradigm
...
But
for a quick understanding of the difference your center makes, let's look at just one
example of a specific problem as seen through the different paradigms
...
Try to feel the response that flows from the different
centers
...
You have the tickets; she's
excited about going
...

All of a sudden, your boss calls you into his office and says he needs your help through
the evening to get ready for an important meeting at 9 A
...
tomorrow
...
You may tell the boss you can't stay and you take her to the concert in
an effort to please her
...

If you're looking through a money-centered lens, your main thought will be of the
overtime you'll get or the influence working late will have on a potential raise
...

If you're work-centered, you may be thinking of the opportunity
...
You can make some points with the boss and further your career
...
Your wife should be proud of you!
If you're possession-centered, you might be thinking of the things the overtime income
could buy
...
Everyone would hear tomorrow how noble, how sacrificing and
dedicated you are
...
You deserve a night out!
If you're friend-centered, your decision would be influenced by whether or not you had
invited friends to attend the concert with you
...

If you're enemy-centered, you may stay late because you know it will give you a big edge
over that person in the office who thinks he's the company's greatest asset
...

If you're church-centered, you might be influenced by plans other church members have
to attend the concert, by whether or not any church members work at your office, or by
the nature of the concert -- Handel's Messiah might rate higher in priority than a rock
concert
...
"
If you're self-centered, you'll be focused on what will do you the most good
...

As we consider various ways of looking at a single event, is it any wonder that we have
"young lady/old lady" perception problems in our interactions with each other? Can you
see how fundamentally our centers affect us? Right down to our motivations, our daily
decisions, our actions (or, in too many cases, our reactions), our interpretations of events?
That's why understanding your own center is so important
...

As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation
and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the option
...

Whether you go to the concert or stay and work is really a small part of an effective
decision
...
But there are
several important differences when you are coming from a principle-centered paradigm
...
You are proactively
choosing what you determine to be the best alternative
...

Second, you know your decision is most effective because it is based on principles with
predictable long-term results
...
Staying at work
to get the edge on someone at the office is an entirely different evening in your life from
staying because you value your boss's effectiveness and you genuinely want to contribute
to the company's welfare
...


77

Fourth, you can communicate to your wife and your boss within strong networks you've
created in your interdependent relationships
...
You might decide to delegate what is delegable and come in
early the next morning to do the rest
...
Whatever you choose to do, you
can focus on it and enjoy it
...
And because you see things
differently, you think differently, you act differently
...

Writing and Using a A Personal Mission Statement
As we go deeply within ourselves, as we understand and realign our basic paradigms to
bring them in harmony with correct principles, we create both an effective, empowering
center and a clear lens through which we can see the world
...
I like that choice of words
...
In Frankl's
words, "Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life
...
Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific
opportunity to implement it
...
To
seek some abstract meaning to our lives out in our Circle of Concern is to abdicate our
proactive responsibility, to place our own first creation in the hands of circumstance and
other people
...
Again, in the words of Frankl, "Ultimately, man should
not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is
asked
...
"
Personal responsibility, or proactivity, is fundamental to the first creation
...
" Habit 2, then, says,
"Write the program
...

As proactive people , we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in
our lives
...

A mission statement is not something you write overnight
...
It may take you several weeks or even months before you feel really comfortable
with it, before you feel it is a complete and concise expression of your innermost values
and directions
...


78

But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid
expression of your vision and values
...

I recently finished reviewing my own mission statement, which I do fairly regularly
...
It took several hours, but I felt a sense of clarity, a sense of
organization and commitment, a sense of exhilaration and freedom
...
Writing or reviewing a mission
statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply,
carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs
...
You have a sense of
mission about what you're trying to do and you are excited about it
...
This is particularly
helpful in creating a personal mission statement because the two unique human
endowments that enable us to practice Habit 2 -- imagination and conscience -- are
primarily functions of the right side of the brain
...

A great deal of research has been conducted for decades on what has come to be called
brain dominance theory
...

Essentially, the left hemisphere is the more logical/verbal one and the right hemisphere
the more intuitive, creative one
...

The left deals with analysis, which means to break apart; the right with synthesis, which
means to put together
...
The left is time bound; the right is time free
...
Of course, the ideal would be to cultivate and develop the
ability to have good crossover between both sides of the brain so that a person could first
sense what the situation called for and then use the appropriate tool to deal with it
...

In the words of Abraham Maslow, "He that is good with a hammer tends to think
everything is a nail
...
Right-brain and left-brain people tend to look at things in different
ways
...
Many of us find it more difficult to tap into our right-brain
capacity
...
But the point here is that we are capable of performing

79

many different kinds of thought processes and we barely tap our potential
...

Two Ways to Tap the Right Brain
If we use the brain dominance theory as a model, it becomes evident that the quality of
our first creation is significantly impacted by our ability to use our creative right brain
...

Expand Perspective
Sometimes we are knocked out of our left-brain environment and thought patterns and
into the right brain by an unplanned experience
...
You can consciously create your own
...
Through the powers of your imagination, you can
visualize your own funeral, as we did at the beginning of this chapter
...
Actually write it out
...

You can visualize your twenty-fifth and then your fiftieth wedding anniversary
...
Try to capture the essence of the family relationship
you want to have created through your day-by-day investment over a period of that
many years
...
What contributions,
what achievements will you want to have made in your field? What plans will you have
after retirement? Will you enter a second career?
Expand your mind
...
Involve as many emotions and feelings as
possible
...

I have done similar visualization exercises with some of my university classes
...
Visualize how you would spend your
semester
...
Values quickly surface that before
weren't even recognized
...

The results are very revealing
...
They reconcile with a brother, a sister, a friend where the
relationship has deteriorated
...
The
futility of bad-mouthing, bad thinking, put-downs, and accusation becomes very evident
when they think in terms of having only a short time to live
...

There are a number of techniques using your imagination that can put you in touch with
your values
...
When people
seriously undertake to identify what really matters most to them in their lives, what they
really want to be and to do, they become very reverent
...

Visualization and Affirmation
Personal leadership is not a singular experience
...
It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision
and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important
things
...

It's another application of "Begin with the End in Mind
...
Suppose I am a parent who really
deeply loves my children
...
But suppose, on a daily basis, I have trouble overreacting
...

A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: it's personal, it's positive, it's present tense,
it's visual, and it's emotional
...
"
Then I can visualize it
...
I can visualize
them in rich detail
...
I can see the dress my daughter has on, the expression
on her face
...

Then I can see her do something very specific which normally makes my heart pound
and my temper start to flare
...
I can write the program, write the script, in harmony with my values, with
my personal mission statement
...
Instead of living out of the scripts
given to me by my own parents or by society or by genetics or my environment, I will be
living out of the script I have written from my own self-selected value system
...
We started when he played quarterback in high school,
and eventually, I taught him how to do it on his own
...
Then I
would help him visualize himself right in the heat of the toughest situations imaginable
...
He had to read the blitz and respond
...
He would imagine
quick reads with his first receiver, his second receiver, his third receiver
...

At one point in his football career, he told me he was constantly getting uptight
...
So we worked on visualizing
relaxation in the middle of the big pressure circumstance
...
If you visualize the wrong thing, you'll produce the
wrong thing
...
Charles Garfield has done extensive research on peak performers, both in athletics
and in business
...
Although he had a doctorate in
mathematics, he decided to go back and get another Ph
...
in the field of psychology and
study the characteristics of peak performers
...
They see it; they feel it; they experience it
before they actually do it
...

You can do it in every area of your life
...
Create an internal "comfort zone
...
It doesn't scare you
...

There is an entire body of literature and audio and video tapes that deals with this
process of visualization and affirmation
...
These all involve explanation,
elaboration, and different packaging of the fundamental principles of the first creation
...
Although some made extravagant claims and relied on anecdotal rather than
scientific evidence, I think that most of the material is fundamentally sound
...

In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge
naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that
become the center of a person's life
...
I believe that central to all enduring religions in society are the same
principles and practices clothed in different language -- meditation, prayer, covenants,
ordinances, scripture study, empathy, compassion, and many different forms of the use
of both conscience and imagination
...

Affirmation and visualization are forms of programming, and we must be certain that we
do not submit ourselves to any programming that is not in harmony with our basic center
or that comes from sources centered on money-making, self interest, or anything other
than correct principles
...
" But I believe the higher use of
imagination is in harmony with the use of conscience to transcend self and create a life of
contribution based on unique purpose and on the principles that govern interdependent
reality
...

Just as breathing exercises help integrate body and mind, writing is a kind of psychoneural muscular activity which helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious
minds
...

We each have a number of different roles in our lives -- different areas or capacities in
which we have responsibility
...
And each of these
roles is important
...
They lose the sense of proportion, the balance,
the natural ecology necessary to effective living
...
In the name of professional success, they may neglect the most
precious relationships in their lives
...
Look at your professional role
...
What are you about in that area?
What are the values that should guide you? Think of your personal roles -- husband,
wife, father, mother, neighbor, friend
...

One executive has used the idea of roles and goals to create the following mission
statement:
My mission is to live with integrity and to make a difference in the lives of others
...

I sacrifice: I devote my time, talents, and resources to my mission
...

I am impactful: What I do makes a difference in the lives of others
...
Together we contribute
the fruits of harmony, industry, charity, and thrift
...

Son/Brother -- I am frequently "there" for support and love
...

Neighbor -- The love of Christ is visible through my actions toward others
...

Scholar -- I learn important new things every day
...
It keeps each role clearly before you
...

After you identify your various roles, then you can think about the Long Term Goals are
plans you make that support the principles described in your Mission Statement
...
Typically, Long
Term Goals take longer than a week to complete, but are most specific than the lifetime
goals of your Mission Statement
...
We're into the right brain again, using imagination, creativity, conscience, and
inspiration
...
They will be
in harmony with correct principles, with natural laws, which gives you greater power to
achieve them
...
They are your goals
...
And they
grow out of your chosen roles in life
...
It identifies where you
want to be, and, in the process, helps you determine where you are
...
It
unifies your efforts and energy
...
And it can
finally translate itself into daily activities so that you are proactive, you are in charge of
your life, you are making happen each day the things that will enable you to fulfill your
personal mission statement
...
If you
don't yet have a personal mission statement, it's a good place to begin
...


84

As we move into Habit 3, we'll go into greater depth in the area of short-term goals
...
These roles and long-term goals will provide the
foundation for effective goal setting and achieving when we get to the Habit 3 day-to-day
management of life and time
...
In addition to individuals,
families, service groups, and organizations of all kinds become significantly more
effective as they Begin with the End in Mind
...
Symptoms surface whenever stress and pressure
mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting
...

The core of any family is what is changeless, what is always going to be there -- shared
vision and values
...

This mission statement becomes its constitution, the standard, the criterion for evaluation
and decision making
...

When individual values are harmonized with those of the family, members work
together for common purposes that are deeply felt
...
The very process of writing and
refining a mission statement becomes a key way to improve the family
...

By getting input from every family member, drafting a statement, getting feedback,
revising it, and using wording from different family members, you get the family talking,
communicating, on things that really matter deeply
...
Periodic review to expand perspective, shift emphasis or
direction, amend or give new meaning to time-worn phrases can keep the family united
in common values and purposes
...

When the problems and crises come, the constitution is there to remind family members
of the things that matter most and to provide direction for problem solving and decision
making based on correct principles
...
When we read the phrases about the sounds of
love in our home, order, responsible independence, cooperation, helpfulness, meeting
needs, developing talents, showing interest in each other's talents, and giving service to
others it gives us some criteria to know how we're doing in the things that matter most to
us as a family
...
It renews us, it recommits us to what we believe in, what
we stand for
...
One of the most important
thrusts of my work with organizations is to assist them in developing effective mission
statements
...
Everyone should participate in a meaningful way -- not just the top strategy
planners, but everyone
...

I am always intrigued whenever I go to IBM and watch the training process there
...

These things represent the belief system of IBM
...
Almost like osmosis, this belief system has spread
throughout the entire organization, providing a tremendous base of shared values and
personal security for everyone who works there
...
It was small group, about 20
people, and one of them became ill
...
The IBM people responsible for
the training session arranged to have him taken to an excellent hospital with medical
specialists in the disease
...

So they decided to get him home
...

I don't know what costs that involved; my guess would be many thousands of dollars
...
That's what the company stands for
...
I was
impressed
...
I was amazed at the level of service there
...
It was evident
at all levels, spontaneously, without supervision
...
The man at the
desk said, "No, Mr
...
" His attitude was one of total
concern about my comfort and welfare
...
"Do you have everything you need? What can I do for you? I'm here to
serve you
...
This man was sincere
...
So I went out into the hall during the brief break and
found a bellboy running to another convention
...
"I'm here
training a group of managers and I only have a short break
...

He whipped around and almost came to attention
...
Covey, I will solve your problem
...
" He just
took care of it
...

Later, I was in the side lobby, looking at some of the art objects
...
Covey, would you like to see a book that describes the art
objects in this hotel?" How anticipatory! How service-oriented!
I next observed one of the employees high up on a ladder cleaning windows in the lobby
...
She hadn't really fallen, and she was with other people
...
Then he went back and finished cleaning the windows
...
I interviewed housekeepers, waitresses,
bellboys in that hotel and found that this attitude had impregnated the minds, hearts, and
attitudes of every employee there
...
" I finally went to the manager and said, "My
business is helping organizations develop a powerful team character, a team culture
...
"
"Do you want to know the real key?" he inquired
...

After reading it, I acknowledged, "That's an impressive statement
...
"
"Do you want to see the one for this hotel?" he asked
...
"
"Different from the one for the hotel chain?"
"Yes
...
" He handed me another paper
...


87

"Everybody," he replied
...
"
"Housekeepers?"
"Yes
...
"
"Desk clerks?"
"Yes
...
Everyone, at every level, was involved
...
It spawned the
thoughtful, more specialized mission statements of particular groups of employees
...
It clarified what those people
stood for -- how they related to the customer, how they related to each other
...
It affected the compensation system
...
Every
aspect of that organization, essentially, was a function of that hub, that mission statement
...
At this hotel, I
came to understand the motto "Uncompromising personalized service" a little more
...
I always found that service was delivered in a very impressive, excellent way
...
For instance, in the swimming area I asked the
attendant where the drinking fountain was
...

But the thing that impressed me the very most was to see an employee, on his own, admit
a mistake to his boss
...
On the way to our room, the room service person spilled the hot
chocolate, and it took a few extra minutes to go back and change the linen on the tray and
replace the drink
...

Nevertheless, the next morning the room service manager phoned us to apologize and
invited us to have either the buffet breakfast or a room service breakfast, compliments of
the hotel, to in some way compensate for the inconvenience
...
But there is a real difference, all the difference in the
world, in the effectiveness of a mission statement created by everyone involved in the
organization and one written by a few top executives behind a mahogany wall
...
They simply don't
buy into them
...
I commonly find reward systems completely out of
alignment with stated value systems
...
Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it,
underline it
...

Now, in the early stages -- when a person is new to an organization or when a child in the
family is young -- you can pretty well give them a goal and they'll buy it, particularly if
the relationship, orientation, and training are good
...
And if they don't have that
involvement, they don't buy it
...

That's why creating an organizational mission statement takes time, patience,
involvement, skill, and empathy
...
It takes time and sincerity,
correct principles, and the courage and integrity to align systems, structure, and
management style to the shared vision and values
...

An organizational mission statement -- one that truly reflects the deep shared vision and
values of everyone within that organization -- creates a great unity and tremendous
commitment
...
They don't need someone else
directing, controlling, criticizing, or taking cheap shots
...


89

Application Suggestions
1
...
You may want to use the chart below to organize your
thoughts
...
Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them
...

3
...

4
...
Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life? Are you
comfortable with the implications of your analysis
...
Start a collection of notes, quotes, and ideas you may want to use as resource material
in writing your
...

6
...
Write down the results you desire and what steps will lead to those
results
...
Share the principles of Habit 2 with your family or work group and suggest that
together you begin the process of developing a family or group mission statement
...

Question 1: What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on a
regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?
Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar
results?
We'll come back to these answers later
...

Habit 1 says, "You're the creator
...
" It's based on the four unique human
endowments of imagination, conscience, independent will, and particularly, selfawareness
...
I don't like that ineffective script
...
"
Habit 2 is the first or mental creation
...
It's the deep contact with
our basic paradigms and values and the vision of what we can become
...
It's the fulfillment, the
actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2
...
It's the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment
doing it
...
You can't become
principle-centered without first being aware of and developing your own proactive
nature
...
You can't become
principle-centered without a vision of and a focus on the unique contribution that is
yours to make
...


91

Management, remember, is clearly different from leadership
...
It's more of an art; it's based on a philosophy
...

But once you have dealt with those issues, once you have resolved them, you then have
to manage yourself effectively to create a life congruent with your answers
...
" But if
you are in the right jungle, it makes all the difference
...
Management is the
breaking down, the analysis, the sequencing, the specific application, the time-bound leftbrain aspect of effective self-government
...

The Power of Independent Will
In addition to self-awareness, imagination, and conscience, it is the fourth human
endowment -- independent will -- that really makes effective self-management possible
...
It is the
ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have
developed through the other three endowments
...
Time after time, it has triumphed against
unbelievable odds
...

But as we examine this endowment in the context of effective self-management, we
realize it's usually not the dramatic, the visible, the once-in-a-lifetime, up-by-thebootstraps effort that brings enduring success
...

The degree to which we have developed our independent will in our everyday lives is
measured by our personal integrity
...
It's our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves, to "walk our talk
...

Effective management is putting first things first
...

Management is discipline, carrying it out
...

In other words, if you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from
within; it is a function of your independent will
...
And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate
your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values
...
M
...
He spent his life searching for the one denominator that all successful people share
...
The one factor that seemed to transcend all the rest embodies the essence of
Habit 3: Putting First Things First
...

"They don't like doing them either necessarily
...
"
That subordination requires a purpose, a mission, a Habit 2 clear sense of direction and
value, a burning "Yes!" inside that makes it possible to say "no" to other things
...
It's the power to act with integrity to your proactive first creation
...
As a longtime student of this fascinating field, I am personally
persuaded that the essence of the best thinking in the area of time management can be
captured in a single phrase: Organize and execute around priorities
...

Personal management has evolved in a pattern similar to many other areas of human
endeavor
...
For example, in social
development, the agricultural revolution was followed by the industrial revolution,
which was followed by the informational revolution
...

Likewise, in the area of time management, each generation builds on the one before it -each one moves us toward greater control of our lives
...

The second generation could be characterized by calendars and appointment books
...

The third generation reflects the current time-management field
...
In
addition, it focuses on setting goals -- specific long-, intermediate-, and short-term targets
toward which time and energy would be directed in harmony with values
...

While the third generation has made a significant contribution, people have begun to
realize that "efficient" scheduling and control of time are often counterproductive
...

As a result, many people have become turned off by time management programs and
planners that make them feel too scheduled, too restricted, and they "throw the baby out

93

with the bath water," reverting to first- or second-generation techniques to preserve
relationships, to meet human needs, and to enjoy spontaneous moments on a daily basis
...
It recognizes that
"time management" is really a misnomer -- the challenge is not to manage time, but to
manage ourselves
...
And
expectation (and satisfaction) lie in our Circle of Influence
...

Quadrant II
The essential focus of the fourth generation of management can be captured in the Time
Management Matrix diagrammed on the next page
...

As you see, the two factors that define an activity are urgent and important
...
It's "Now!" Urgent things act on us
...
Most people can't stand the thought of just allowing the phone to ring
...

If you were to phone someone, there aren't many people who would say, "I'll get to you
in 15 minutes; just hold
...

Urgent matters are usually visible
...
They're often
popular with others
...
And often they are pleasant,
easy, fun to do
...
If something is important, it
contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals
...
Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative,
more proactivity
...
If we don't
practice Habit 2, if we don't have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we
desire in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent
...
Quadrant I is
both urgent and important
...
We usually call the activities in Quadrant I "crises" or "problems
...
But Quadrant I consumes many people
...

As long as you focus on Quadrant I, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it dominates
you
...
A huge problem comes and knocks you down and you're
wiped out
...


94

Some people are literally beaten up by the problems all day every day
...
So
when you look at their total matrix, 90 percent of their time is in Quadrant I and most of
the remaining 10 percent is in Quadrant IV with only negligible attention paid to
Quadrants II and III
...

There are other people who spend a great deal of time in "urgent, but not important"
Quadrant III, thinking they're in Quadrant I
...
But the reality is that the
urgency of these matters is often based on the priorities and expectations of others
...
Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or
not, they aren't important
...
Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management
...
It deals with things like building
relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising,
preventive maintenance, preparation -- all those things we know we need to do, but
somehow seldom get around to doing, because they aren't urgent
...
They feed opportunities and starve problems
...
They have genuine Quadrant I crises and emergencies that require their
immediate attention, but the number is comparatively small
...

With the Time Management Matrix in mind, take a moment now and consider how you
answered the questions at the beginning of this chapter
...
They are obviously important, deeply
important, but not urgent
...

Now look again at the nature of those questions: What one thing could you do in your
personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a
tremendous positive difference in your life? Quadrant II activities have that kind of
impact
...

I asked a similar question to a group of shopping center managers
...

We did an analysis of the time they were spending on that activity
...
They had good reasons -- problems, one right after another
...
Quadrant I had consumed them
...
The only reason they visited the store managers at all

95

was to enforce the contract -- to collect the money or discuss advertising or other
practices that were out of harmony with center guidelines, or some similar thing
...
They had
employment problems, cost problems, inventory problems, and a host of other problems
...
Some were fairly good
merchandisers, but they needed help
...

So the owners decided to be proactive
...
In harmony with those priorities, they decided to spend about one-third of
their time in helping relationships with the tenants
...
In addition, they changed
their role
...
Their interchanges
were filled with positive energy
...
By focusing on relationships and results rather than
time and methods, the numbers went up, the tenants were thrilled with the results
created by new ideas and skills, and the shopping center managers were more effective
and satisfied and increased their list of potential tenants and lease revenue based on
increased sales by the tenant stores
...
They were problem solvers, helpers
...

Your effectiveness would increase dramatically
...
In the time management jargon, this is called the Pareto Principle -- 80 percent of
the results flow out of 20 percent of the activities
...

You can't ignore the urgent and important activities of Quadrant I, although it will shrink
in size as you spend more time with prevention and preparation in Quadrant II
...

You have to be proactive to work on Quadrant II because Quadrant I and III work on
you
...

Some time ago, my wife was invited to serve as chairman of a committee in a community
endeavor
...
But she felt pressured into it and finally agreed
...
Her
friend listened for a long time and then said, "Sandra, that sounds like a wonderful
project, a really worthy undertaking
...
I feel honored by it
...
"
Sandra was ready for anything but a pleasant "no
...
"
I don't mean to imply that you shouldn't be involved in significant service projects
...
But you have to decide what your highest priorities are and have
the courage --pleasantly, smiling, no apologetically -- to say "no" to other things
...
The enemy of the "best" is
often the "good
...
If it isn't to the apparent,
urgent things in your life, it is probably to the more fundamental, highly important
things
...

When I was Director of University Relations at a large university, I hired a very talented,
proactive, creative writer
...

He said, "Stephen, I'll do whatever you want me to do
...
"
Then he took me over to his wall board, where he had listed over two dozen projects he
was working on, together with performance criteria and deadline dates that had been
clearly negotiated before
...
"If you want to get something done, give it to a busy man
...

Which of these projects would you like me to delay or cancel to satisfy your request?"
Well, I didn't want to take the responsibility for that
...
The jobs I wanted done were urgent, but not important
...

We say "yes" or "no" to things daily, usually many times a day
...

As I work with different groups, I tell them that the essence of effective time and life
management is to organize and execute around balanced priorities
...
On deeper thought, I believe that
is not the case
...
They haven't really internalized Habit 2
...
And they attempt to give priority to those
activities and integrate them into their lives through self-discipline alone
...
They're working on the leaves, on the attitudes and the
behaviors of discipline, without even thinking to examine the roots, the basic paradigms
from which their natural attitudes and behaviors flow
...
If you are centered
on your spouse, your money, your friends, your pleasure, or any extrinsic factor, you will
keep getting thrown back into Quadrants I and III, reacting to the outside forces your life
is centered on
...
Your independent will alone cannot effectively discipline you
against your center
...
Likewise, management
follows leadership
...
If your priorities grow out of a principle center
and a personal mission, if they are deeply planted in your heart and in your mind, you
will see Quadrant II as a natural, exciting place to invest your time
...
Only when you
have the self-awareness to examine your program -- and the imagination and conscience
to create a new, unique, principle-centered program to which you can say "yes" -- only
then will you have sufficient independent will power to say "no," with a genuine smile, to
the unimportant
...

It gives us notes and "to do" lists that we can cross off, and we feel a temporary sense of
accomplishment every time we check something off, but no priority is attached to items
on the list
...
We simply respond to whatever penetrates our awareness
and apparently needs to be done
...
It's the course of least
resistance
...
" Externally imposed
disciplines and schedules give people the feeling that they aren't responsible for results
...
They produce very
little, and their life-style does nothing to build their Production Capability
...

Second-generation managers assume a little more control
...


98

But again, the activities they schedule have no priority or recognized correlation to
deeper values and goals
...

Third-generation managers take a significant step forward
...
They plan each day and prioritize their activities
...
But this third
generation has some critical limitations
...
The very
language "daily planning" focuses on the urgent -- the "now
...
The third-generation value-driven daily planning
approach basically prioritizes the Quadrant I and III problems and crises of the day
...
It lacks realism, creating the tendency to over-schedule the day, resulting in
frustration and the desire to occasionally throw away the plan and escape to Quadrant
IV
...

While each of the three generations has recognized the value of some kind of
management tool, none has produced a tool that empowers a person to live a principlecentered, Quadrant II life-style
...
The second-generation appointment books and calendars merely provide a place to
record our future commitments so that we can be where we have agreed to be at the
appropriate time
...
Though many
trainers and consultants recognize the value of Quadrant II activities, the actual planning
tools of the third generation do not facilitate organizing and executing around them
...
But
there is an added need for a new dimension, for the paradigm and the implementation
that will empower us to move into Quadrant II, to become principle-centered and to
manage ourselves to do what is truly most important
...
But striving to achieve it will have a phenomenal impact on
personal effectiveness
...


99

Coherence: Coherence suggests that there is harmony, unity, and integrity between your
vision and mission, your roles and goals, your priorities and plans, and your desires and
discipline
...
There also needs to be a place for your roles and for
both short- and long-term goals
...

Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other
areas of life
...
But can
success in your profession compensate for a broken marriage, ruined health, or weakness
in personal character? True effectiveness requires balance, and your tool needs to help
you create and maintain it
...
You need a tool that encourages you, motivates you, actually helps
you spend the time you need in Quadrant II, so that you're dealing with prevention
rather than prioritizing crises
...
You can still adapt and prioritize on a daily basis, but the
fundamental thrust is organizing the week
...
There seems to be implicit cultural recognition of the week as a single,
complete unit of time
...
The basic Judeo-Christian ethic honors the Sabbath,
the one day out of every seven set aside for uplifting purposes
...
But most third-generation planning tools focus on
daily planning
...
The key is not to prioritize what's on your
schedule, but to schedule your priorities
...

A "People" Dimension: You also need a tool that deals with people, not just schedules
...
There are times when
principle-centered Quadrant II living requires the subordination of schedules to people
...

Flexibility: Your planning tool should be your servant, never your master
...

Portability: Your tool should also be portable, so that you can carry it with you most of
the time
...

You may want to measure the value of a new opportunity against something you already
have planned
...

Since Quadrant II is the heart of effective self-management, you need a tool that moves
you into Quadrant II
...
But many good thirdgeneration tools can easily be adapted
...

Becoming a Quadrant II Self-Manager
Although my effort here is to teach principles, not practices, of effectiveness, I believe you
can better understand the principles and the empowering nature of the fourth generation
if you actually experience organizing a week from a principle-centered, Quadrant II base
...

Identifying Roles: The first task is to write down your key roles
...
You have a role as an individual
...
You may want to list a
few roles in your work, indicating different areas in which you wish to invest time and
energy on a regular basis
...

You don't need to worry about defining the roles in a way that you will live with for the
rest of your life -- just consider the week and write down the areas you see yourself
spending time in during the next seven days
...

1
...
Husband/Father
3
...
Manager Research
5
...

6
...
Chairman United Way
1
...
Wife
3
...
Real Estate Salesperson
5
...
Symphony Board Member
Selecting Goals: The next step is to think of two or three important results you feel you
should accomplish in each role during the next seven days
...

At least some of these goals should reflect Quadrant II activities
...
But even if you haven't written your mission statement, you
can get a feeling, a sense, of what is important as you consider each of your roles and two
or three goals for each role
...
For example, if your goal is to produce the first draft of your personal

101

mission statement, you may want to set aside a two-hour block of time on Sunday to
work on it
...
It's a good time to draw back, to see inspiration,
to look at your life in the context of principles and values
...
There are some goals that you may only be able to accomplish
during business hours, or some that you can only do on Saturday when your children are
home
...
You can also
check your annual or monthly calendar for any appointments you may have previously
made and evaluate their importance in the context of your goals, transferring those you
decide to keep to your schedule and making plans to reschedule or cancel others
...
In addition, notice the box labeled "Sharpen the Saw TM" that provides a place to
plan vital renewing Quadrant II activities in each of the four human dimensions that will
be explained in Habit 7
...

Daily Adapting: With Quadrant II weekly organizing, daily planning becomes more a
function of daily adapting, or prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated
events, relationships, and experiences in a meaningful way
...
As you overview the day, you can see that your roles and
goals provide a natural prioritization that grows out of your innate sense of balance
...

You may still find that the third-generation A, B, C or 1, 2, 3 prioritization gives needed
order to daily activities
...
They are obviously on a continuum, and some important
activities are more important than others
...

But trying to prioritize activities before you even know how they relate to your sense of
personal mission and how they fit into the balance of your life is not effective
...


102

Can you begin to see the difference between organizing your week as a principlecentered, Quadrant II manager and planning your days as an individual centered on
something else? Can you begin to sense the tremendous difference the Quadrant II focus
would make in your current level of effectiveness?
Having experienced the power of principle-centered Quadrant II organizing in my own
life and having seen it transform the lives of hundreds of other people, I am persuaded it
makes a difference -- a quantum positive difference
...

Living It
Returning once more to the computer metaphor, if Habit 1 says "You're the programmer"
and Habit 2 says "Write the program," then Habit 3 says "Run the program," "Live the
program
...

As you go through your week, there will undoubtedly be times when your integrity will
be placed on the line
...
Your principle center,
your self-awareness, and your conscience can provide a high degree of intrinsic security,
guidance, and wisdom to empower you to use your independent will and maintain
integrity to the truly important
...
As carefully as you organize the week, these will be times when, as a
principle-centered person, you will need to subordinate your schedule to a higher value
...

At one point, one of my sons was deeply into scheduling and efficiency
...
Everything went according to schedule until it came to
Carol
...
So, congruent with his
efficiency mode, he had scheduled a 10- to 15-minute telephone call to tell her
...
One-and-a-half hours later, he was still deeply
involved in a very intense conversation with her
...
The situation was a very frustrating experience for them both
...
You think effectiveness with people
and efficiency with things
...
I've tried to give 10 minutes of "quality time" to a
child or an employee to solve a problem, only to discover such "efficiency" creates new
problems and seldom resolves the deepest concern
...
Remember, frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are
often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities
...
You can subordinate your schedule to those values with integrity
...
You don't feel guilty when you don't meet your schedule or
when you have to change it
...
They subordinate people
to schedules because the efficiency paradigm of the third generation of management is
out of harmony with the principle that people are more important than things
...
It also recognizes that the first
person you need to consider in terms of effectiveness rather than efficiency is yourself
...
It helps you create balance in your life
...
And
when a higher value conflicts with what you have planned, it empowers you to use your
self-awareness and your conscience to maintain integrity to the principles and purposes
you have determined are most important
...

The fourth generation of self-management is more advanced than the third in five
important ways
...
More than giving lip service to Quadrant II, it creates the
central paradigm that empowers you to see your time in the context of what is really
important and effective
Second, it's conscience-directed
...
But it also gives you the
freedom to peacefully subordinate your schedule to higher values
...
This gives
direction and purpose to the way you spend each day
...

And fifth, it gives greater context through weekly organizing (with daily adaptation as
needed), rising above the limiting perspective of a single day and putting you in touch
with your deepest values through review of your key roles
...

Delegation: Increasing P and PC
We accomplish all that we do through delegation -- either to time or to other people
...
If we delegate to other people, we think
effectiveness
...
But effectively
delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is
...
Delegation means growth, both for individuals
and for organizations
...
C
...
That decision, made long ago, enabled the development and growth of hundreds
of stores and thousands of people
...
But because we are focusing here on principles of personal
management, and the ability to delegate to others is the main difference between the role
of manager and independent producer, I am approaching delegation from the standpoint
of your personal managerial skills
...
A parent who washes the dishes, an architect who
draws up blueprints, or a secretary who types correspondence is a producer
...
A parent who delegates
washing the dishes to a child is a manager
...
A secretary who supervises other secretaries and office personnel
is an office manager
...
A manager, on the other hand, can invest one hour of effort and
produce 10 or 50 or 100 units through effective delegation
...

Gofer Delegation
There are basically two kinds of delegation: "gofer delegation" and "stewardship
delegation
...
" Most people who are producers have a gofer delegation paradigm
...
They roll up their
sleeves and get the job done
...
They don't know how to set up a full delegation so that
another person is committed to achieve results
...

I was involved in a gofer delegation once when our family went water skiing
...
I
handed the camera to Sandra and asked her to take some pictures
...
Then I realized she was unfamiliar with the camera, so I became a little more specific
...

But the more I thought about our limited footage and her inexperience with the camera,
the more concerned I became
...
Okay? And I spent the next few minutes yelling, "Take it! -- Take it! -- Don't take

105

it! -- Don't take it!" I was afraid that if I didn't direct her every move every second, it
wouldn't be done right
...
Many people
consistently delegate that way
...
And it's
based on a paradigm of appreciation of the self-awareness, the imagination, the
conscience, and the free will of other people
...
It gives people a choice
of method and makes them responsible for results
...
You can move the fulcrum over, you can increase your
leverage, through stewardship delegation
...

Desired Results: Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished,
focusing on what, not how; results, not methods
...
Be patient
...
Have the person see it, describe it, make out a quality statement of what
the results will look like, and by when they will be accomplished
...
These
should be as few as possible to avoid methods delegation, but should include any
formidable restrictions
...
That kills initiative and sends people back to the gofer's creed: "Just tell
me what you want me to do, and I'll do it
...
Be honest and open -- tell a person
where the quicksand is and where the wild animals are
...
Let people learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of
others
...
Keep the responsibility for results with them -- to do whatever is necessary within the
guidelines
...

Accountability: Set up the standards of performance that will be used in evaluating the
results and the specific times when reporting and evaluation will take place
...
This could include such things as financial rewards, psychic rewards,
different job assignments, and natural consequences tied into the overall mission of an
organization
...
We
were having a family meeting, and we had our mission statement up on the wall to make
sure our plans were in harmony with our values
...

I set up a big blackboard and we wrote down our goals -- the key things we wanted to do
-- and the jobs that flowed out of those goals
...

"Who wants to pay the mortgage?" I asked
...

"Who wants to pay for the insurance? The food? The cars?" I seemed to have a real
monopoly on the opportunities
...

As we went down the list, job by job, it was soon evident that Mom and Dad had more
than sixty-hour work weeks
...

My seven-year-old son, Stephen, volunteered to take care of the yard
...
I wanted him to have a clear picture
in his mind of what a well-cared-for yard was like, so I took him next door to our
neighbor's
...
"See how our neighbor's yard is green and clean? That's what we're
after: green and clean
...
See the mixed colors? That's not it;
that's not green
...
Now how you get it green is up to
you
...
But I'll tell you how I'd do it if
it were up to me
...
But you may want to use buckets or a hose
...
All we care about is that the color is green
...
"
"Now let's talk about 'clean,' Son
...
I'll tell you what let's do
...
"
So we got out two paper sacks and picked up one side of the yard
...

Look at the other side
...
"
"Wait!" he called
...
You have good eyes, Son
...
Because when you take the job, I don't do it anymore
...
It's called
a stewardship
...
' I trust you to do the job, to get it
done
...
You're the boss
...
How do you like Mom and Dad nagging
you all the time?"
"I don't
...
It sometimes causes a bad feeling doesn't it? So you boss
yourself
...
"
"Who?"
"I am," I said
...
"
"I do?"
"That's right
...
Sometimes I'm away
...
I'll do anything you want me to do
...
"
"Who?"
"You judge yourself
...
Twice a week the two of us will walk around the yard and you can show me
how it's coming
...
"
"Right!"
I trained him with those two words for two weeks before I felt he was ready to take the
job
...

"Is it a deal, Son?"
"It's a deal
...
"
"What's green?"
He looked at our yard, which was beginning to look better
...

"That's the color of his yard
...
"
"Who's the boss?"
"I am
...
"
"Who's the judge?"
"I am
...
"
"And what will we look for?"
"Green and clean
...
But I wouldn't hesitate to attach an allowance
to such a stewardship
...
I thought he was ready
...
And he did nothing
...
nothing
...
nothing
...
"Surely he'll do it today," I thought
...
I could rationalize
Sunday; Sunday was for other things
...
And now it was
Tuesday
...
It was summertime
...
As I rounded the
corner, I was met with the same picture I left that morning
...
This was not acceptable
...
We had a lot of
effort, pride, and money invested in the yard and I could see it going down the drain
...

I was ready to go back to gofer delegation
...
But what about the
goose? What would happen to his internal commitment?
So I faked a smile and yelled across the street, "Hi, Son
...

"How's the yard coming?" I knew the minute I said it I had broken our agreement
...
That's not what we had agreed
...
That's
not the way we had set up an accounting
...

So he felt justified in breaking it, too
...
"

109

I bit my tongue and waited until after dinner
...

Let's walk around the yard together and you can show me how it's going in your
stewardship
...
Tears welled up in his eyes and, by
the time we got out to the middle of the yard, he was whimpering
...
You haven't done a single thing! But I knew what
was hard -- self management, self-supervision
...
"
"I have time
...
He handed me one
...
"It makes
me sick!"
So I did
...
And that was when he signed the
agreement in his heart
...

He only asked for help two or three more times that entire summer
...
He kept it greener and cleaner than it had ever been under my stewardship
...

Trust is the highest form of human motivation
...
But it
takes time and patience, and it doesn't preclude the necessity to train and develop people
so that their competency can rise to the level of that trust
...
I believe that a family
that is well organized, whose time has been spent effectively delegating on a one-to-one
basis, can organize the work so that everyone can do everything in about an hour a day
...
The focus is on
effectiveness, not efficiency
...
It takes time
...
It takes time, but how valuable that time is downstream! It saves you so
much in the long run
...
In effect, it changes the
nature of the relationship: The steward becomes his own boss, governed by a conscience
that contains the commitment to agreed upon desired results
...


110

The principles involved in stewardship delegation are correct and applicable to any kind
of person or situation
...
With more mature people, you have more
challenging desired results, fewer guidelines, less frequent accountability, and less
measurable but more discernible criteria
...

The Quadrant II Paradigm
The key to effective management of self, or of others through delegation, is not in any
technique or tool or extrinsic factor
...

I have included in the Appendix an exercise called "A Quadrant II Day at the Office"
which will enable you to see in a business setting how powerfully this paradigm can
impact your effectiveness
...
You will not be dependent on any other person or thing for
the effective management of your life
...
Every one deals with
fundamentally important things that, if done on a regular basis, would make a
tremendous positive difference in our lives
...
Identify a Quadrant II activity you know has been neglected in your life -- one that, if
done well, would have a significant impact in your life, either personally or
professionally
...

2
...
Then log your time for three days in 15-minute intervals
...

3
...
Determine what is needed to start the process of
delegation or training
...
Organize your next week
...
At the end of the week, evaluate how well
your plan translated your deep values and purposes into your daily life and the degree of
integrity you were able to maintain to those values and purposes
...
Commit yourself to start organizing on a weekly basis and set up a regular time to do
it
...
Either convert your current planning tool into a fourth generation tool or secure such a
tool
...
Go through "A Quadrant II Day at the Office" (Appendix B) for a more in-depth
understanding of the impact of a Quadrant II paradigm
...
Private Victory
precedes Public Victory
...

As we look back and survey the terrain to determine where we've been and where we are
in relationship to where we're going, we clearly see that we could not have gotten where
we are without coming the way we came
...
There's no way to parachute into this terrain
...
They've tried to
jump into effective relationships without the maturity, the strength of character, to
maintain them
...
You can't be
successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself
...
" He had my
attention
...
"Look at this beautiful coastline and the sea
out there and all that's happening
...

"She gives me the third degree every time I'm away
...
She just nags me and questions everything I do whenever I'm away
...
I really don't enjoy it at all
...
We talked for a while, and then he made a very interesting
comment
...
"It was
at a seminar like this that I met her when I was married to someone else!"
I considered the implications of his comment and then said, "You're kind of into 'quick
fix,' aren't you?"
"What do you mean?" he replied
...
"I don't think it's right for her to constantly
grill me like she does
...
"
We're dealing with a very dramatic and very fundamental Paradigm Shift here
...
You can't have the fruits without the
roots
...
Selfmastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others
...
I think that
idea has merit, but if you don't know yourself, if you don't control yourself, if you don't
have mastery over yourself, it's very hard to like yourself, except in some short-term,
psych-up, superficial way
...
And that's the focus of Habits 1, 2, and 3
...

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make
...
We might
try
...
But when the
difficult times come -- and they will -- we won't have the foundation to keep things
together
...
And if our words and our actions come from superficial humanrelations techniques (the personality ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the
character ethic), others will sense that duplicity
...

The techniques and skills that really make a difference in human interaction are the ones
that almost naturally flow from a truly independent character
...
As we become independent -- proactive, centered in correct principles, value
driven and able to organize and execute around the priorities in our life with integrity -we then can choose to become interdependent -- capable of building rich, enduring,
highly productive relationships with other people
...

Interdependence opens up worlds of possibilities for deep, rich, meaningful associations,
for geometrically increased productivity, for serving, for contributing, for learning, for
growing
...
And we're very aware of that pain because
it is acute
...
We feel vaguely uneasy and uncomfortable and
occasionally take steps to ease the pain, at least for a time
...

But when we have problems in our interactions with other people, we're very aware of
acute pain -- it's often intense, and we want it to go away
...
We don't understand that the acute pain is an outgrowth of
the deeper, chronic problem
...
We will only be
successful at obscuring the chronic pain even more
...
We've said it's the P/PC Balance, the fundamental concept in the story of
the Goose and the Golden Egg
...

And to get those eggs on a regular basis, we need to take care of the goose
...

So before we descend from our point of reconnaissance and get into Habits 4, 5, and 6, I
would like to introduce what I believe to be a very powerful metaphor in describing
relationships and in defining the P/PC Balance in an interdependent reality
...
We make deposits into it and build up a
reserve from which we can make withdrawals when we need to
...
It's the feeling of safeness you have with another human being
...
Your trust toward
me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to
...
My
communication may not be clear, but you'll get my meaning anyway
...
" When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant,
and effective
...
The trust level
gets very low
...
I'm walking on mine fields
...
I measure
every word
...
It's protecting my backside, politicking
...
Many families are filled with it
...
If a large reserve of trust is not sustained by continuing deposits, a marriage
will deteriorate
...
The relationship may
further deteriorate to one of hostility and defensiveness
...

It may end up in a cold war at home, sustained only by children, sex, and social pressure,
or image protection
...


115

And this is in the most intimate, the most potentially rich, joyful, satisfying and
productive relationship possible between two people on this earth
...

Our most constant relationships, like marriage, require our most constant deposits
...
If you suddenly run into an old high
school friend you haven't seen for years, you can pick up right where you left off because
the earlier deposits are still there
...
There are sometimes automatic
withdrawals in your daily interactions or in their perception of you that you don't even
know about
...

Suppose you have a teenage son and your normal conversation is something like, "Clean
your room
...
Turn down the radio
...
And don't forget to
take out the garbage!" Over a period of time, the withdrawals far exceed the deposits
...
But the trust level is so low and the communication process so
closed, mechanical, and unsatisfying that he simply will not be open to your counsel
...

You need a positive balance to communicate on these tender issues
...
Perhaps you could invite him to go to a movie with you or take
him out for some ice cream
...
Just listen and seek to understand
...

He may not respond at first
...
"What's Dad up to now? What
technique is Mom trying on me this time?" But as those genuine deposits keep coming,
they begin to add up
...

Remember that quick fix is a mirage
...
If
you become impatient with this apparent lack of response of his seeming ingratitude, you
may make huge withdrawals and undo all the good you've done
...
I can't believe it!
It's hard not to get impatient
...
" But there really is no quick fix
...


116

Six Major Deposits
Let me suggest six major deposits that build the Emotional Bank Account
Understanding the Individual
Really seeking to understand another person is probably one of the most important
deposits you can make, and it is the key to every other deposit
...
What
might be a deposit for you -- going for a walk to talk things over, going out for ice cream
together, working on a common project -- might not be perceived by someone else as a
deposit at all
...

One person's mission is another person's minutia
...
You may be
working on a high priority project when your six-year-old child interrupts with
something that seems trivial to you, but it may be very important from his point of view
...
By accepting the value he places
on what he has to say, you show an understanding of him that makes a great deposit
...
My friend wasn't
interested in baseball at all
...
The trip took over six weeks and cost a great deal of money, but it
became a powerful bonding experience in their relationship
...
"
I have another friend, a college professor, who had a terrible relationship with his teenage
son
...
As a
result, he was almost constantly on the boy's back, and, in moments of regret, he would
try to make deposits that just didn't work
...
The
relationship was turning sour, and it was breaking the father's heart
...
He took it deeply to heart
...
It was a
consuming project, and they worked side by side on it for over a year and a half
...
But the real benefit was what happened to the
relationship
...


117

Our tendency is to project out of our own autobiographies what we think other people
want or need
...
We interpret what
constitutes a deposit based on our own needs and desires, either now or when we were at
a similar age or stage in life
...

The Golden Rule says to "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you
...

As one successful parent said about raising children, "Treat them all the same by treating
them differently
...
Small discourtesies, little
unkindnesses, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawals
...
I remember an evening I spent with two of my sons some
years ago
...

In the middle of the movie, Sean, who was then four years old, fell asleep in his seat
...
When it was over, I picked Sean up in my arms, carried him out to the car and
laid him in the back seat
...

When we arrived home, I quickly carried Sean in and tucked him into bed
...

"How'd you like it, Stephen?"
"Fine," he answere"
"Did you have fun?"
"Yes
...
The trampoline, I guess
...
I found myself making conversation
...
He usually did when exciting things
happened
...
I sensed something was wrong; he had been so
quiet on the way home and getting ready for bed
...
I wondered why and lifted
myself up just enough to see his eyes welling up with tears
...

What a powerful, personal lesson that experience was to me then and is even now
...
I don't believe age or experience makes much
difference
...

Keeping Commitments
Keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major
withdrawal
...
The next time a
promise is made, they won't believe it
...

I've tried to adopt a philosophy as a parent never to make a promise I don't keep
...

Occasionally, despite all my effort, the unexpected does come up, creating a situation
where it would be unwise or impossible to keep a promise I've made
...
I either keep it anyway, or explain the situation thoroughly to the person
involved and ask to be released from the promise
...

Then, when your child wants to do something you don't want him to do, and out of your
maturity you can see consequences that the child cannot see, you can say, "Son, if you do
this, I promise you that this will be the result
...

Clarifying Expectations
Imagine the difficulty you might encounter if you and your boss had different
assumptions regarding whose role it was to create your job description
...

"I've been waiting for you to bring one to me so that we could discuss it," your boss might
reply
...
"
"That's not my role at all
...
"

119

"I thought you meant that the quality of my job depended on me
...
"
"I did exactly what you asked me to do and here is the report
...
The goals was to solve the problem -- not to analyze it and report
on it
...
"
How many times have we had these kinds of conversations?
"You said
...
"
"You did not! You never said I was supposed to
...
"
"You never even mentioned
...
"
The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous
expectations around roles and goals
...

Many expectations are implicit
...
In marriage, for example, a man
and a woman have implicit expectations of each other in their marriage roles
...

That's why it's so important whenever you come into a new situation to get all the
expectations out on the table
...
And if they feel like their basic expectations have been violated, the reserve
of trust is diminished
...

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
...
It seems easier to act as
though differences don't exist and to hope things will work out than it is to face the
differences and work together to arrive at a mutually agreeable set of expectations
...

Lack of integrity can undermine almost any other effort to create high trust accounts
...

Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty
...
Integrity is conforming reality to our words -- in other
words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations
...

One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not
present
...
When you defend those
who are absent, you retain the trust of those present
...
Now what will happen when you and I
have a falling out? You know I'm going to be discussing your weaknesses with someone
else
...
You know my nature
...
You've seen me do it
...
Does that build a reserve of trust in my account with you
...

Then what would you know I would do if someone were to criticize you to me behind
your back?
For another example, suppose in my effort to build a relationship with you, I told you
something someone else had shared with me in confidence
...
" Would my betraying another person
build my trust account with you? Or would you wonder if the things you had told me in
confidence were being shared with others?
Such duplicity might appear to be making a deposit with the person you're with, but it is
actually a withdrawal because you communicate your own lack of integrity
...

Integrity in an interdependent reality is simply this: you treat everyone by the same set of
principles
...
They may not at first appreciate the
honest confrontational experiences such integrity might generate
...
But in the long run, people will trust and respect you if

121

you are honest and open and kind with them
...
And to be
trusted, it is said, is greater than to be loved
...

When my son Joshua was quite young, he would frequently ask me a soul-searching
question
...

As a teacher, as well as a parent, I have found that the key to the ninety-nine is the one -particularly the one that is testing the patience and the good humor of the many
...
It's how you treat the one that reveals how you regard the ninety-nine, because
everyone is ultimately a one
...
"A lie is any communication with intent to deceive,"
according to one definition of the word
...

Apologizing Sincerely When You Make a Withdrawal
When we make withdrawals from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize
and we need to do it sincerely
...
"
"That was unkind of me
...
"
"I gave you no dignity, and I'm deeply sorry
...
Even though I
wanted to make a point, I never should have done it
...
"
It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather
than out of pity
...

People with little internal security can't do it
...
They feel it
makes them appear soft and weak, and they fear that others will take advantage of their
weakness
...
In addition, they usually feel justified in what they did
...

"If you're going to bow, bow low," say Eastern wisdom
...
To be a deposit, an apology must be sincere
...


122

Leo Roskin taught, "It is the weak who are cruel
...
I was in my office at home one afternoon writing, of all things, on the subject
of patience
...

Suddenly, my son David started pounding on the bathroom door, yelling at the top of his
lungs, "Let me in! Let me in!"
I rushed out of the office and spoke to him with great intensity
...
" So in he went, dejected, and shut the door
...
The boys had been playing
tackle football in the four-foot-wide hallway, and one of them had been elbowed in the
mouth
...
David, I discovered, had
gone to the bathroom to get a wet towel for him
...

When I realized that I had completely misinterpreted the situation and had overreacted, I
immediately went in to apologize to David
...
"
"Well, why not, honey?" I replied
...
Why won't you forgive me?"
"Because you did the same thing last week," he replied
...

"Dad, you're overdrawn, and you're not going to talk your way out of a problem you
behaved yourself into
...
And the quality of the relationship reflects it
...
People will
forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment
...

The Laws of Love and the Laws of Life
When we make deposits of unconditional love, when we live the primary laws of love,
we encourage others to live the primary laws of life
...
Their natural
growth process is encouraged
...
We give them the freedom to act on their own inner
imperatives rather than react to our conditions and limitations
...
That itself is a massive withdrawal
...
But we love, regardless
...
We put them
in a reactive, defensive position where they feel they have to prove "I matter as a person,
independent of you
...
They are counter-dependent, which is another form of
dependency and is at the lowest end of the Maturity Continuum
...

Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind
...
I once had a friend who was dean of a very prestigious
school
...

This deeply concerned his father
...
Besides, it was a family tradition
...
The father pleaded and urged and talked
...

The subtle message being communicated was one of conditional love
...
Consequently, he fought for
and with his own identity and integrity, and he increased his resolve and his efforts to
rationalize his decision not to go
...
He knew that his son might choose differently than he had wished;
nevertheless, he and his wife resolved to love their son unconditionally, regardless of his
choice
...

The father and mother went through a very difficult rescripting process, struggling to
really understand the nature of unconditional love
...
They didn't do this to manipulate him, to try to get him
to "shape up
...

The boy didn't give much of a response at the time, but his parents had such a paradigm
of unconditional love at that point that it would have made no difference in their feelings
for him
...
They were
perfectly prepared for his response and continued to show unconditional love for him
...

A short time later, an interesting thing happened
...
He applied for admission, and then he told
his father, who again showed unconditional love by fully accepting his son's decision
...

Dag Hammarskjold, past Secretary-General of the United Nations, once made a
profound, far-reaching statement: "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one
individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses
...
And it would take more nobility of character -- more humility,
courage, and strength -- to rebuild that one relationship than it would to continue putting
in all those hours for all those people and causes
...
Many of the problems in organizations stem from
relationship difficulties at the very top -- between two partners in a company, between
the president and an executive vice-president
...
"
When I first came across Hammarskjold's statement, I was working in an organization
where there were unclear expectations between the individual who was my right-hand
man and myself
...
So I
worked for a number of months in a compromise mode to avoid what might turn out to
be an ugly confrontation
...

After reading that it is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to
labor diligently for the salvation of the masses, I was deeply affected by the idea of
rebuilding that relationship
...
I remember
actually shaking in anticipation of the visit
...
I was
afraid a confrontation might jeopardize the relationship and result in my losing those
strengths
...
At last I felt peace of mind and the courage to have the communication
...
He was
anything but hard and defensive
...
We both acknowledged the problems
that our disunity had created
...
We were able to develop a powerful complementary team and a

125

deep personal affection which added tremendously to our ability to work effectively
together
...
No amount of technical administrative skill
in laboring for the masses can make up for lack of nobility of personal character in
developing relationships
...

P Problems are PC Opportunities
This experience also taught me another powerful paradigm of interdependence
...
I had lived for months trying to avoid the
problem, seeing it as a source of irritation, a stumbling block, and wishing it would
somehow go away
...

I suggest that in an interdependent situation, every P problem is a PC opportunity -- a
chance to build the Emotional Bank Accounts that significantly affect interdependent
production
...
Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding
and helping their children
...
" Many interactions
change from transactional to transformational, and strong bonds of love and trust are
created as children sense the value parents give to their problems and to them as
individuals
...
One department store chain that operates
from this paradigm has created a great loyalty among its customers
...
They respond with a
cheerful, positive desire to solve the problem in a way that will make the customer
happy
...

By recognizing that the P/PC Balance is necessary to effectiveness in an interdependent
reality, we can value our problems as opportunities to increase PC
...
As we do, we can see
how these habits work together to create effective interdependence
...

In addition, we can see on an even deeper level that effective interdependence can only
be achieved by truly independent people
...

Let's now focus on each of the Public Victory habits in depth
...

-- Edwin Markha
**
One time I was asked to work with a company whose president was very concerned
about the lack of cooperation among his people
...
"They just won't cooperate
...
Can you help us
develop a human-relations program that will solve the problem?"
"Is your problem the people or the paradigm?" I asked
...

So I did
...
I could see that overdrawn Emotional
Bank Accounts had created a culture of low trust
...

"Let's look at it deeper," I suggested
...
"The rewards are much greater if
they do cooperate
...
Behind a curtain on one wall of this man's office was a chart
...
Superimposed on the face of
each horse was the face of one of his managers
...

Once a week, this man would bring all his people into this office and talk cooperation
...
We'll all make more money if we do
...
"Now which of you is going to win the trip to
Bermuda?"
It was like telling one flower to grow and watering another, like saying "firings will
continue until morale improves
...
He wanted his people to work
together, to share ideas, to all benefit from the effort
...
One manager's success meant failure for the other managers
As with many, many problems between people in business, family, and other
relationships, the problem in this company was the result of a flawed paradigm
...
And
when it didn't work, he wanted a technique, a program, a quick-fix antidote to make his
people cooperate
...
Working on the attitudes and
behaviors would have been hacking at the leaves
...

Whether you are the president of a company or the janitor, the moment you step from
independence into interdependence in any capacity, you step into a leadership role
...
And the habit of effective interpersonal
leadership is Think Win-Win
...
In fact, it is one
of six paradigms of interaction
...
Win-win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial,
mutually satisfying
...
Win-win sees life as a cooperative, not a competitive
arena
...
But that kind of thinking if fundamentally flawed
...
Win-win is based on the paradigm that there
is plenty for everybody, that one person's success is not achieved at the expense or
exclusion of the success of others
...
It's not your way or my way; it's a better
way, a higher way
...
It says "If I
win, you lose
...
"
Win-lose people are prone to use position, power, credentials, possessions, or personality
to get their way
...
First and most important of the powerful forces at work is the family
...

Whenever love is given on a conditional basis, when someone has to earn love, what's
being communicated to them is that they are not intrinsically valuable or lovable
...
It's in comparison with somebody else or against
some expectation
...

"If I'm better than my brother, my parents will love me more
...
I must not be as valuable
...
A child first wants acceptance from
his parents and then from his peers, whether they be siblings or friends
...
They often accept or reject totally on the basis of
conformity to their expectations and norms, providing additional scripting toward winlose
...
The "normal distribution curve"
basically says that you got an "A" because someone else got a "C
...
No recognition is given to
intrinsic value; everyone is extrinsically defined
...
You ought to be really proud of your
daughter, Caroline
...
"
"That makes me feel good
...
He's in the lower quartile
...
But people are
not graded against their potential or against the full use of their present capacity
...
And grades are carriers of social value; they open
doors of opportunity or they close them
...
Cooperation, in fact, is usually associated with cheating
...
Often they develop the basic paradigm that life is a big
game, a zero sum game where some win and some lose
...

Another agent is law
...
The first thing many people think
about when they get into trouble is suing someone, taking him to court, "winning" at
someone else's expense
...

Certainly we need law or else society will deteriorate
...
At best it results in compromise
...

The recent trend of encouraging lawyers and law schools to focus on peaceable
negotiation, the techniques of win-win, and the use of private courts, may not provide the
ultimate solution, but it does reflect a growing awareness of the problem
...
But most of life is not a competition
...
"Who's
winning in your marriage?" is a ridiculous question
...

Most of life is an interdependent, not an independent, reality
...
And the win-lose mentality is
dysfunctional to that cooperation
...

"I lose, you win
...
Have your way with me
...
Everyone does
...
I've always been a loser
...
I'll do anything to keep peace
...
People who think lose-win are usually quick to please or appease
...
They have little courage to express
their own feelings and convictions and are easily intimidated by the ego strength of
others
...
In leadership
style, it's permissiveness or indulgence
...

Win-lose people love lose-win people because they can feed on them
...
Such weaknesses complement their strengths
...
And unexpressed feelings
never die; they're buried alive and come forth in uglier ways
...
Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to
minor provocation, and cynicism are other embodiments of suppressed emotion
...
Both win-lose and lose-win are weak positions, based in
personal insecurities
...
Lose-win is
weak and chaotic from the outset
...
When they can't stand confusion and
lack of structure, direction, expectation, and discipline any longer, they swing back to
win-lose -- until guilt undermines their resolve and drives them back to lose-win -- until
anger and frustration drive them back to win-lose again
...
Both will lose
...


131

I know of a divorce in which the husband was directed by the judge to sell the assets and
turn over half the proceeds to his ex-wife
...
When the wife protested, the court clerk checked on the
situation and discovered that the husband was proceeding in the same manner
systematically through all of the assets
...
Lose-lose is the philosophy of adversarial
conflict, the philosophy of war
...

"If nobody ever wins, perhaps being a loser isn't so bad
...
People with the win mentality don't
necessarily want someone else to lose
...
What matters is that they get
what they want
...
A person with the win mentality thinks in terms of
securing his own ends -- and leaving it to others to secure theirs
...
" If you win a football game,
that means the other team loses
...
However,
you would not want to set up a win-lose situation like the "Race to Bermuda" contest
within a company or in a situation where you need cooperation among people or groups
of people to achieve maximum success
...
"What I want
isn't as important to me as my relationship with you
...
" You
might also go for lose-win if you feel the expense of time and effort to achieve a win of
any kind would violate other higher values
...

There are circumstances in which you would want to win, and you wouldn't be highly
concerned with the relationship of that win to others
...

But saving that life would be supremely important
...
The challenge is to read that reality accurately
and not to translate win-lose or other scripting into every situation
...

Win-lose is not viable because, although I appear to win in a confrontation with you, your
feelings, your attitudes toward me and our relationship have been affected
...
But will you come to me again? My short-term
win will really be a long-term lose if I don't get your repeat business
...

If we come up with a lose-win, you may appear to get what you want for the moment
...
I may carry battle scars with me into
any future negotiations
...
So we're into lose-lose again
...
And if I focus on my own win and don't even consider your
point of view, there's no basis for any kind of productive relationship
...
That's why win-win is the
only real alternative in interdependent realities
...
The tough, realistic
business world isn't like that
...
"
"All right," I said, "try going for win-lose with your customers
...

"Why not?"
"I'd lose my customers
...
Is that realistic?"
"No
...
"
As we considered the various alternatives, win-win appeared to be the only truly realistic
approach
...
"
"You are the customer of the supplier," I said
...

"We went in with a win-win attitude
...
But they
saw that position as being soft and weak, and they took us to the cleaners
...

"We didn't
...
"
"I thought you said they took you to the cleaners
...
"

133

"In other words, you lost
...
"
"And they won
...
"
"So what's that called?"
When he realized that what he had called win-win was really lose-win, he was shocked
...

If this man had had a real win-win attitude, he would have stayed longer in the
communication process, listened to the mall owner more, then expressed his point of
view with more courage
...
And that solution, that Third Alternative,
would have been synergistic -- probably something neither of them had thought of on his
own
...

No deal basically means that if we can't find a solution that would benefit us both, we
agree to disagree agreeably -- no deal
...
I don't hire you or we don't take on a particular
assignment together because it's obvious that our values or our goals are going in
opposite directions
...

When you have no deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have
no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want
...
You can really try to understand the deeper issues underlying the
positions
...
I want to
win, and I want you to win
...
On
the other hand, I don't think you would feel good if you got your way and I gave in
...
Let's really hammer it out
...
It would be better not to deal than to live with a decision
that wasn't right for us both
...
"
Some time after learning the concept of Win-Win or No Deal, the president of a small
computer software company shared with me the following experience:

134

"We had developed new software which we sold on a five-year contract to a particular
bank
...

"About a month later, that bank changed presidents
...
I have a mess on my hands
...
'
"My own company was in deep financial trouble
...
But I had become convinced of the value of the principle of win-win
...
Your bank has secured our products and our services
to convert you to this program
...
So
what we'd like to do is give you back the contract, give you back your deposit, and if you
are ever looking for a software solution in the future, come back and see us
...
It was close to financial suicide
...

"Three months later, the new president called me
...
' He signed a contract for
$240,000
...
The cost of the impact needs to be carefully
considered
...

Win-Win or No Deal provides tremendous emotional freedom in the family relationship
...

I have a friend whose family has been involved in singing together for several years
...

As the children grew older, their taste in music began to change and they wanted to have
more say in what they performed and what they wore
...

Because she had years of experience in performing herself and felt closer to the needs of
the older people at the rest homes where they planned to perform, she didn't feel that
many of the ideas they were suggesting would be appropriate
...

So she set up a Win-Win or No Deal
...
As a result, everyone felt free to express his or her feelings and ideas as they

135

worked to set up a Win-Win Agreement, knowing that whether or not they could agree,
there would be no emotional strings
...
In a continuing business relationship, no deal may not be a
viable option, which can create serious problems, especially for family businesses or
businesses that are begun initially on the basis of friendship
...

This creates serious problems for the people and for the business, particularly if the
competition operates on win-win and synergy
...
Experience shows that it is often better in setting
up a family business or a business between friends to acknowledge the possibility of no
deal downstream and to establish some kind of buy/sell agreement so that the business
can prosper without permanently damaging the relationship
...
I wouldn't abandon
my child or my spouse and go for no deal (it would be better, if necessary, to go for
compromise -- a low form of win-win)
...
And the freedom in the attitude is
incredible
...
It involves the exercise of each of
the unique human endowments -- self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and
independent will -- in our relationships with others
...

It takes great courage as well as consideration to create these mutual benefits, particularly
if we're interacting with others who are deeply scripted in win-los
...
Effective
interpersonal leadership requires the vision, the proactive initiative, and the security,
guidance, wisdom, and power that come from principle-centered personal leadership
...
It begins with character and moves toward
relationships, out of which flow agreements
...
And it involves process; we cannot achieve
win-win ends with win-lose or lose-win means
...

Now let's consider each of the five dimensions in turn
...

There are three character traits essential to the win-win paradigm
...

We've already defined integrity as the value we place on ourselves
...
As we clearly identify our values and proactively
organize and execute around those values on a daily basis, we develop self-awareness
and independent will by making and keeping meaningful promises and commitments
...
And if
we can't make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments
become meaningless
...
They sense duplicity and become
guarded
...
Integrity is the cornerstone in the foundation
...

Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration
...

If you examine many of the psychological tests used for hiring, promoting, and training
purposes, you will find that they are designed to evaluate this kind of maturity
...
1, 1
...
5, 9
...

Respect for this quality is deeply ingrained in the theory of human interaction,
management, and leadership
...
While
courage may focus on getting the golden egg, consideration deals with the long-term
welfare of the other stakeholders
...

Many people think in dichotomies, in either/or terms
...
But win-win is nice
...
It's twice as tough as win-lose
...
You not only have to be
empathic, you have to be confident
...
To do that, to achieve that balance between courage and
consideration, is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win
...
I'll be strong
and ego bound
...

To compensate for my lack of internal maturity and emotional strength, I might borrow
strength from my position and power, or from my credentials, my seniority, my
affiliation
...
I'll be so considerate
of your convictions and desires that I won't have the courage to express and actualize my
own
...
It is the balance that is the
mark of real maturity
...

ABUNDANCE MENTALITY TM
...

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality
...
And if someone were
to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else
...

People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit,
power or profit -- even with those who help in the production
...
It's
almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special
recognition or windfall gain or has remarkable success or achievement
...
Their sense of worth comes from being compared, and someone
else's success, to some degree, means their failure
...
" To "win" simply means to "beat
...
" They're always comparing, always competing
...

They want other people to be the way they want them to be
...

It's difficult for people with a Scarcity Mentality to be members of a complementary team
...

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal
worth and security
...
It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision
making
...

The Abundance Mentality takes the personal joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment of Habits 1,
2, and 3 and turns it outward, appreciating the uniqueness, the inner direction, the
proactive nature of others
...

Public Victory does not mean victory over other people
...
Public Victory
means working together, communicating together, making things happen together that
even the same people couldn't make happen by working independently
...


138

A character rich in integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality has a genuineness
that goes far beyond technique, or lack of it, in human interaction
...
When
people are deeply scripted in win-lose or other philosophies and regularly associate with
others who are likewise scripted, they don't have much opportunity to see and experience
the win-win philosophy in action
...

But remember: If we search deeply enough within ourselves -- beyond the scripting,
beyond the learned attitudes and behaviors -- the real validation of win-win, as well as
every other correct principle, is in our own lives
...
The
trust, the Emotional Bank Account, is the essence of win-win
...

But if our Emotional Bank Account is high, credibility is no longer an issue
...

We're focused on the issues, not on personalities or positions
...
We put our cards on the table
...
We're both committed to try to understand each other's point of
view deeply and to work together for the Third Alternative, the synergistic solution, that
will be a better answer for both of us
...
That relationship
neither makes the issues any less real or important, nor eliminates the differences in
perspective
...

But what if that kind of relationship isn't there? What if you have to work out an
agreement with someone who hasn't even heard of win-win and is deeply scripted in
win-lose or some other philosophy?
Dealing with win-lose is the real test of win-win
...
Deep issues and fundamental differences have to be dealt with
...

When you're dealing with a person who is coming from a paradigm of win-lose, the
relationship is still the key
...
You make
deposits into the Emotional Bank Account through genuine courtesy, respect, and
appreciation for that person and for the other point of view
...
You listen more, you listen in greater depth
...
You aren't reactive
...
You keep hammering it out until the other person
begins to realize that you genuinely want the resolution to be a real win for both of you
...

And the stronger you are -- the more genuine your character, the higher your level of
proactivity, the more committed you really are to win-win -- the more powerful your
influence will be with that other person
...
It
goes beyond transactional leadership into transformational leadership, transforming the
individuals involved as well as the relationship
...
But there will be a few who are so deeply embedded in the win-lose
mentality that they just won't Think Win-Win
...
Or you may occasionally choose to go for the low form of win-win -- compromise
...
Again, the key is the relationship
...
I don't have time to explain it to you, let alone get you involved
...
But will you support it?"
If you had a positive Emotional Bank Account with me, of course I'd support it
...
I'd work to make your decision work
...
I might say I would to your face, but behind your back I wouldn't be very
enthusiastic
...
"It didn't
work," I'd say
...
Or I might become "maliciously obedient" and do exactly and only
what you tell me to do, accepting no responsibility for results
...

An agreement means very little in letter without the character and relationship base to
sustain it in spirit
...

Agreements
From relationships flow the agreements that give definition and direction to win-win
...

Win-Win Agreements cover a wide scope of interdependent interaction
...
The same five elements we listed there provide the structure for WinWin Agreements between employers and employees, between independent people
working together on projects, between groups of people cooperatively focused on a
common objective, between companies and suppliers -- between any people who need to
interact to accomplish
...
interdependent endeavor
...

Guidelines specify the parameters (principles, policies, etc
...

Accountability sets up the standards of performance and the time of evaluation
...

These five elements give Win-Win Agreements a life of their own
...

Traditional authoritarian supervision is a win-lose paradigm
...
If you don't have trust or common vision of desired
results, you tend to hover over, check up on, and direct
...

But if the trust account is high, what is your method? Get out of their way
...

It is much more ennobling to the human spirit to let people judge themselves than to
judge them
...
In many cases people
know in their hearts how things are going much better than the records show
...

Win-Win Management Training
Several years ago, I was indirectly involved in a consulting project with a very large
banking institution that had scores of branches
...
The program involved selecting college graduates and putting them through
twelve two-week assignments in various departments over a six-month period of time so
that they could get a general sense of the industry
...
At the end of the six-month period, they were assigned as assistant
managers in the various branch banks
...
As we began, we
discovered that the most difficult part of the assignment was to get a clear picture of the
desired results
...

The training program dealt with methods, not results; so we suggested that they set up a
pilot training program based on a different paradigm called "learner-controlled
instruction
...
The consequences in this case were promotion to assistant manager, where they
would receive the on-the-job part of their training, and a significant increase in salary
...
"What is it you want them to
understand about accounting? What about marketing? What about real estate loans?"
And we went down the list
...

The trainees were highly motivated by both the opportunity and the increased salary to
meet the criteria as soon as possible
...

So we explained the difference between learner-controlled instruction and systemcontrolled instruction to the trainees
...
Here are the resources, including learning from each other
...
As soon as
you meet the criteria, you will be promoted to assistant managers
...
Shifting the training paradigm had released
unbelievable motivation and creativity
As with many Paradigm Shifts, there was resistance
...
When they were shown the evidence that the criteria had been
met, they basically said, "These trainees don't have the experience
...
"
In talking with them later, we found that what many of them were really saying was, "We
went through goat week; how come these guys don't have to?" But of course they
couldn't put it that way
...

In addition, for obvious reasons (including the $750,000 budget for a six-month
program), the personnel department was upset
...
Let's develop some more objectives and attach criteria to
them
...
" We hammered
out eight more objectives with very tough criteria in order to give the executives the
assurance that the people were adequately prepared to be assistant branch managers and
continue the on-the-job part of the training program
...


142

We had prepared the trainees to expect resistance
...
They have
assured us this time that if you meet these criteria, they will make you assistant
managers
...
They went to the executives in departments
such as accounting and basically said, "Sir, I am a member of this new pilot program
called learner-controlled instruction, and it is my understanding that you participated in
developing the objectives and the criteria
...
I was able to pass three of them
off with skills I gained in college; I was able to get another one out of a book; I learned the
fifth one from Tom, the fellow you trained last week
...
" So they spent a half a day in a department instead
of two weeks
...
The six-month program was
reduced to five weeks, and the results were significantly increased
...
I am always
amazed at the results that happen, both to individuals and to organizations, when
responsible, proactive, self-directing individuals are turned loose on a task
...
The focus is
on results; not methods
...
We use the gofer
delegation discussed in Habit 3, the methods management I used with Sandra when I
asked her to take pictures of our son as he was waterskiing
...
The traditional evaluation
games people play are awkward and emotionally exhausting
...

And if you set it up correctly, people can do that
...
"
My best experiences in teaching university classes have come when I have created a winwin shared understanding of the goal up front
...

Here are the basic requirements for an A, B, or C grade
...
Now you take what we've talked about and analyze it and come up with
your own understanding of what you want to accomplish that is unique to you
...
"
Management philosopher and consultant Peter Drucker recommends the use of a
"manager's letter" to capture the essence of performance agreements between managers
and their employees
...

Developing such a Win-Win Agreement is the central activity of management
...
The manager then can serve like a pace car in a race
...
His job from then on is to remove the oil spills
...
Entire levels of administrations and overhead are eliminated
...

In Win-Win Agreements, consequences become the natural or logical results of
performance rather than a reward or punishment arbitrarily handed out by the person in
charge
...
Financial
consequences include such things as income, stock options, allowances, or penalties
...
Unless people are in a survival mode, psychic compensation is often
more motivating than financial compensation
...
Responsibility has to do with scope and
authority, either of which can be enlarged or diminished
...
So
you don't play games
...

In addition to these logical, personal consequences, it is also important to clearly identify
what the natural organizational consequences are
...

When my daughter turned 16, we set up a Win-Win Agreement regarding use of the
family car
...
We agreed that she would use the car only for
responsible purposes and would serve as a cab driver for her mother and me within
reason
...
These were our wins
...
And
we agreed that she would meet weekly with me, usually on Sunday afternoon, to
evaluate how she was doing based on our agreement
...
As
long as she kept her part of the agreement, she could use the car
...

This Win-Win Agreement set up clear expectations from the beginning on both our parts
...
Now she could handle her own transportation needs and even some of ours
...
And we had a built-in

144

accountability, which meant I didn't have to hover over her to manage her methods
...
We didn't have to get emotionally strung out,
trying to supervise her every move and coming up with punishments or rewards on the
spot if she didn't do things the way we thought she should
...

Win-Win Agreements are tremendously liberating
...
Even if you set them up in the beginning, there is no way
to maintain them without personal integrity and relationship of trust
...
In this context, it defines and directs the
interdependent interaction of which it was created
...
If you talk
win-win but reward win-lose, you've got a losing program on your hands
...
If you want to achieve the goals and reflect the values
in your mission statement, then you need to align the reward system with these goals and
values
...
You'll be in the
situation of the manager I mentioned earlier who talked cooperation but practiced
competition by creating a "Race to Bermuda" contest
...

My first experience with this organization was at a large sales rally where over 800 sales
associates gathered for the annual reward program
...

Out of the 800 people there, around 40 received awards for top performance, such as
"Most Sales," "Greatest Volume," "Highest Earned Commissions," and "Most Listings
...
There was no doubt that those 40 people had won; but there was also the
underlying awareness that 760 people had lost
...
We involved
people at a grass-roots level to develop the kinds of systems that would motivate them
...

At the next rally one year later, there were over 1,000 sales associates present, and about
800 of them received awards
...
There was no need to
bring in the high school bands to artificially contrive the fanfare, the cheerleading, and
the psych up
...

The remarkable thing was that almost all of the 800 who received the awards that year
had produced as much per person in terms of volume and profit as the previous year's

145

40
...
The resulting
synergy was astounding to almost everyone involved
...
But cooperation in the workplace is as important
to free enterprise as competition in the marketplace
...

For win-win to work, the systems have to support it
...

I did some consulting for another company that wanted training for their people in
human relations
...

The president said, "Go into any store you want and see how they treat you
...
They don't understand how to get close to the customers
...
"
So I went to the various stores
...
But that still didn't answer the question
in my mind: What caused the attitude?
"Look, we're on top of the problem," the president said
...
We've told them their job is two-thirds selling and onethird management, and they're outselling everybody
...

Those words raised a red flag
...

He didn't like that
...
But I persisted, and within two days we uncovered the real problem
...
" They'd
stand behind the cash register and cream all the business during the slow times
...
So the managers would give all the dirty
jobs -- inventory control, stock work, and cleaning -- to the salespeople
...
That's why the department heads were top in sales
...
We set up a system whereby the managers only made money when their
salespeople made money
...
And the need for human-relations training suddenly
disappeared
...

In another instance, I worked with a manager in a company that required formal
performance evaluation
...
"He deserved a three," he said, "but I had to give him a one" (which
meant superior, promotable)
...


146

"He gets the numbers," was his reply
...
He neglects people; he runs over them
...
"
"It sounds like he's totally focused on P -- on production
...
But what would happen if you talked with him about the problem, if you
helped him understand the importance of PC?"
He said he had done so, with no effect
...

So often the problem is in the system, not in the people
...
You have to water the flowers you want to grow
...
They can transform unnecessarily competitive situations to cooperative ones
and can powerfully impact their effectiveness by building both P and PC
...
In
education, teachers can set up grading systems based on an individual's performance in
the context of agreed-upon criteria and can encourage students to cooperate in
productive ways to help each other learn and achieve
...
In activities such as bowling, for
example, they can keep a family score and try to beat a previous one
...

A friend once shared with me a cartoon he'd seen of two children talking to each other
...
"
These words brought forcibly to his attention the nature of the problems created when
families are not organized on a responsible win-win basis
...
It makes a person accountable to perform
and evaluate the results and provides consequences as a natural result of performance
...

Processes
There's no way to achieve win-win ends with win-lose or lose-win means
...
" So the question becomes
how to arrive at a win-win solution
...
Although
the words win-win are not used, the spirit and underlying philosophy of the book are in
harmony with the win-win approach
...

In my own work with various people and organizations seeking win-win solutions, I
suggest that they become involved in the following four-step process: First, see the
problem from the other point of view
...

Second, identify the key issues and concerns (not positions) involved
...
And fourth, identify possible
new options to achieve those results
...

But at this juncture, let me point out the highly interrelated nature of the process of winwin with the essence of win-win itself
...

Win-win is not a personality technique
...
It
comes from a character of integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality
...
It is embodied in agreements that effectively clarify and
manage expectations as well as accomplishments
...
And it
is achieved through the process we are now prepared to more fully examine in Habits 5
and 6
...
Think about an upcoming interaction wherein you will be attempting to reach an
agreement or negotiate a solution
...

2
...
Determine what could be done within your Circle of Influence to eliminate
some of those obstacles
...
Select a specific relationship where you would like to develop a Win-Win Agreement
...
Then list, from your own perspective, what results would
constitute a win for you
...

4
...
Give some indication of what you feel the
balance is in each of the Emotional Bank Accounts
...

5
...
Is it win-lose? How does that scripting affect your
interactions with other people? Can you identify the main source of that script?
Determine whether or not those scripts serve well in your current reality
...
Try to identify a model of win-win thinking who, even in hard situations, really seeks
mutual benefit
...


149

Habit 5:
Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood TM
Principles of Empathic Communication
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of
...
After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and
hands them to you
...
"I've worn this pair of glasses for 10 years now and they've really
helped me
...
"
So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse
"This is terrible!" you exclaim
...
"They work great for me
...
"
"I am trying," you insist
...
"
"Well, what's the matter with you? Think positively
...
I positively can't see a thing
...
"And after all I've done to help you!"
What are the chances you'd go back to that optometrist the next time you need help? Not
very good, I would imagine
...

But how often do we diagnose before we prescribe in communication?
"Come on, honey, tell me how you feel
...
"
"Oh, I don't know, Mom
...
"
"Of course I wouldn't! You can tell me
...
I'm
only interested in your welfare
...
"
"Come on, honey
...
"

150

"What?" you respond incredulously
...
If you'd apply yourself like your older sister does, you'd do better and then you'd
like school
...
You've got the ability,
but you just don't apply yourself
...
Get a positive attitude about it
...
Tell me how you feel
...
But we often fail
to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first
...
This principle is the key to effective interpersonal communication
...
Reading and writing are both forms of
communication
...
In fact, those are the four basic types of
communication
...
The ability to do them well is absolutely critical to your effectiveness
...
We spend most of our waking hours
communicating
...
But what about listening? What training or education have
you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another human
being from that individual's own frame of reference?
Comparatively few people have had any training in listening at all
...

If you want to interact effectively with me, to influence me -- your spouse, your child,
your neighbor, your boss, your coworker, your friend -- you first need to understand me
...
If I sense you're using some technique, I
sense duplicity, manipulation
...
And
I don't feel safe enough to open myself up to you
...
Your
example flows naturally out of your character, of the kind of person you truly are -- not
what others say you are or what you may want me to think you are
...

Your character is constantly radiating, communicating
...

If your life runs hot and cold, if you're both caustic and kind, and, above all, if your
private performance doesn't square with your public performance, it's very hard for me
to open up with you
...
Who knows what will happen?
But unless I open up with you, unless you understand me and my unique situation and
feelings, you won't know how to advise or counsel me
...

You may say you care about and appreciate me
...
But
how can you appreciate me when you don't even understand me? All I have are your
words, and I can't trust words
...

Unless you're influenced by my uniqueness, I'm not going to be influenced by your
advice
...
You have to build the skills of empathic listening
on a base of character that inspires openness and trust
...

Empathic Listening
"Seek first to understand" involves a very deep shift in paradigm
...
Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen
with the intent to reply
...
They're filtering
everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's
lives
...
Let me tell you about my experience
...
They
prescribe their own glasses for everyone with whom they interact
...
"
A father once told me, "I can't understand my kid
...
"
"Let me restate what you just said," I replied
...

"Let me try again," I said
...

"I thought that to understand another person, you needed to listen to him," I suggested
...
There was a long pause
...

"Oh, yeah! But I do understand him
...
I went through the
same thing myself
...
"
This man didn't have the vaguest idea of what was really going on inside his boy's head
...

That's the case with so many of us
...
We want to be understood
...

When another person speaks, we're usually "listening" at one of four levels
...
We may practice pretending
...

Uh-huh
...
"
We may practice selective listening, hearing only certain parts of the constant chatter of a
preschool child
...
But very few of us ever practice the
fifth level, the highest form of listening, empathic listening
...
That
kind of listening is skill-based, truncated from character and relationship, and often
insults those "listened" to in such a way
...
If you
practice those techniques, you may not project your autobiography in the actual
interaction, but your motive in listening is autobiographical
...

When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand
...
It's an entirely different paradigm
...
You
look out through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their
paradigm, you understand how they feel
...
Sympathy is a form of agreement, a form of judgment
...
But people often feed on
sympathy
...
The essence of empathic listening is not that you
agree with someone; it's that you fully, deeply, understand that person, emotionally as
well as intellectually
...
Communications experts estimate, in fact, that
only 10 percent of our communication is represented by the words we say
...
In empathic
listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your
eyes and with your heart
...
You listen for behavior
...
You sense, you intuit, you feel
...

Instead of projecting your own autobiography and assuming thought, feelings, motives,
and interpretation, you're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart
...
You're focused on receiving the deep communication of
another human soul
...
You can work your fingers to the bone to make a deposit, only to have it turn into a
withdrawal when a person regards your efforts as manipulative, self-serving,
intimidating, or condescending because you don't understand what really matters to him
...
It's deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person "psychological air
...
Survival would be your only motivation
...
This is one of the greatest insights in
the field of human motivations: Satisfied needs do not motivate
...
Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is
psychological survival -- to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be
appreciated
...

And after that vital need is met, you can then focus on influencing or problem solving
...

I taught this concept at a seminar in Chicago one time, and I instructed the participants to
practice empathic listening during the evening
...

"Let me tell you what happened last night," he said
...
I met with the principals, their
attorneys, and another real estate agent who had just been brought in with an alternative
proposal
...
I had been working on this deal for over six
months and, in a very real sense, all my eggs were in this one basket
...
I
panicked
...
The final stop was to say, 'Could we delay this decision just a little
longer?' But the momentum was so strong and they were so disgusted by having this
thing go on so long, it was obvious they were going to close
...
'
"I just said to the man, 'Let me see if I really understand what your position is and what
your concerns about my recommendations really are
...
'
"I really tried to put myself in his shoes
...


154

"The more I sensed and expressed the things he was worried about, the results he
anticipated, the more he opened up
...
Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said, 'You've got the deal
...
"I still am this morning
...
When it comes right down to it, other things being relatively equal, the
human dynamic is more important than the technical dimensions of the deal
...
It's so much easier
in the short run to hand someone a pair of glasses that have fit you so well these many
years
...
You can't achieve maximum
interdependent production from an inaccurate understanding of where other people are
coming from
...

Empathic listening is also risky
...
You become vulnerable
...
That
means you have to really understand
...
They give you the changeless inner
core, the principle center, from which you can handle the more outward vulnerability
with peace and strength
...
It's the mark of all true professionals
...
You wouldn't have any
confidence in a doctor's prescription unless you had confidence in the diagnosis
When our daughter Jenny was only two months old, she was sick on Saturday, the day of
a football game in our community that dominated the consciousness of almost everyone
...
Sandra and I would like to
have gone, but we didn't want to leave little Jenny
...
He wasn't our personal physician, but he was the one on
call
...
It was right at a critical time in the game,
and she could sense on officious tone in his voice
...
"What is it?"
"This is Mrs
...
"
"What's the situation?" he asked
...
I'll call in a prescription
...

"Do you think he realizes that Jenny is just a newborn?" I asked her
"I'm sure he does," Sandra replied
...
He's never even treated her
...
"
"Are you willing to give her the medicine unless you're absolutely sure he knows?"
Sandra was silent
...

"Call him back," I said
...

So I did
...
"Doctor," I said, "when you called in
that prescription, did your realize that Jenny is just two months old?"
"No!" he exclaimed
...
It's good you called me back
...
"
If you don't have confidence in the diagnosis, you won't have confidence in the
prescription
...
An effective salesperson first seeks to understand the
needs, the concerns, the situation of the customer
...
It's a totally different approach
...
He also learns how to relate
people's needs to his products and services
...

Diagnosing before you prescribe is also fundamental to law
...
A good lawyer almost writes the opposing attorney's case before
he writes his own
...
Can you imagine someone in a company saying, "This
consumer research stuff is for the birds
...
" In other words, forget
understanding the consumer's buying habits and motives -- just design products
...

A good engineer will understand the forces, the stresses at work, before designing the
bridge
...
A good student will
understand before he applies
...
The key to good judgment is understanding
...


156

Seek first to understand is a correct principle evident in all areas of life
...

Four Autobiographical Responses
Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways
...

These responses come naturally to us
...
But how do they affect our ability to really understand?
If I'm trying to communicate with my son, can he feel free to open himself up to me when
I evaluate everything he says before he really explains it? Am I giving him psychological
air?
And how does he feel when I probe? Probing is playing 20 questions
...
It's also logical, and the language of logic is
different from the language of sentiment and emotion
...
Constant probing is one of the main
reasons parents do not get close to their children
...
"
"Well, what's been happening lately?"
"Nothing
...
"
"And what are your plans for the weekend?"
"I don't know
...
Your house is a motel where he eats and sleeps, but he never shares,
never opens up
...
"
We are so deeply scripted in these responses that we don't even realize when we use
them
...
But as they begin to see how
they normally respond and learn how to listen with empathy, they can see the dramatic

157

results in communication
...

Let's take a look at what well might be a typical communication between a father and his
teenage son
...

"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"What's the matter, Son?" (probing)
...
I don't get a thing out of it
...
I felt the same way when I was your age
...
But those classes turned out to
be the most helpful to me later on
...
Give it some time" (advising)
...

"No, I'm not
...
He's quit school
...
And he's making lots of
money
...
"
"It may look that way now
...
You don't want to be an auto mechanic
...

"I don't know
...
"
"Look, Son, have you really tried?" (probing, evaluating)
...
Sure I've tried
...
"
"That's a highly respected school, Son
...

"Well, the other guys feel the same way I do
...

"I know you've sacrificed, Dad
...
" "Look, maybe if you spent more
time doing your homework and less time in front of TV
...

"Look, Dad
...
Oh, never mind! I don't want to talk about this anyway
...
Obviously, he wanted to help
...

"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" (I want to talk with you, to get your
attention
...
I don't get a thing out of it
...

"Well, you just can't see the benefits yet, son
...
"
(Oh, no! Here comes Chapter three of Dad's autobiography
...
I don't really care how many miles he had to trudge through the snow to school
without any boots
...
) "I remember thinking what a waste
some of the classes were
...
Just hang in there
...
" (Time won't solve my problem
...
I wish I could just spit it out
...
" ( He wouldn't like me if I were an auto
mechanic
...
I have to justify what I said
...
Look at Joe
...
He's working on cars
...
Now that's practical
...
But several years down the road, Joe's going to wish he'd
stayed in school
...
)
"You don't want to be an auto mechanic
...
"
"I don't know
...
" (He's not a failure
...
)
"Look, Son, have you really tried?" (We're beating around the bush, Dad
...
)
"I've been in high school two years now
...
It's just a waste
...
Give them a little credit
...
Now we're
talking credibility
...
)
"Well, the other guys feel the same way I do
...
I'm not a
moron
...
Maybe I am a moron
...
) "You can't quit when you've come this far
...
But it's just not worth it
...
)
"Look, maybe if you spent more time doing your homework and less time in front of
TV
...
I was
dumb to try
...
It's just no good
...
"
Can you see how limited we are when we try to understand another person on the basis
of words alone, especially when we're looking at that person through our own glasses?
Can you see how limiting our autobiographical responses are to a person who is
genuinely trying to get us to understand his autobiography?
You will never be able to truly step inside another person, to see the world as he sees it,
until you develop the pure desire, the strength of personal character, and the positive
Emotional Bank Account, as well as the empathic listening skills to do it
...
This is the skill taught in "active" or
"reflective" listening
...
It is, however, a first-stage skill because it at least
causes you to listen to what's being said Mimicking content is easy
...
You're hardly even using
your brain at all
"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You've had it
...
"
You have essentially repeated back the content of what was being said
...
You've at least showed you're paying
attention to his words
...

The second stage of empathic listening is to rephrase the content
...
"
This time, you've put his meaning into your own words
...

The third stage brings your right brain into operation
...

"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You're feeling really frustrated
...
The fourth stage includes both the second and the third
...


160

"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!"
"You're really frustrated about school
...
You're using both sides of your brain to
understand both sides of his communication
...
As you authentically seek to understand, as you rephrase content and reflect
feeling, you give him psychological air
...
As he grows in his confidence of your sincere desire to really listen
and understand, the barrier between what's going on inside him and what's actually
being communicated to you disappears
...
He's not thinking
and feeling one thing and communicating another
...

"Boy, Dad, I've had it! School is for the birds!" (I want to talk with you to get your
attention
...
" (That's right! That's how I feel
...
It's totally impractical
...
"
"You feel like school's not doing you any good
...
I'm just not learning anything that's going to help me
...

He's dropped out of school and he's working on cars
...
Now that's
practical
...
" (Well
...
He's really making money now
...
"
"You think Joe's going to feel he made the wrong decision
...
Just look at what he's giving up
...
"
"Education is really important
...
"
"It's important to your future
...
And, you know what? I'm really worried
...
"
"Well, not really
...
She'll probably find out anyway
...
And, Dad, they said I'm reading on a fourth-grade
level
...
And we'll
never get to the problem if we're so caught up in our own autobiography, our own
paradigms, that we don't take off our glasses long enough to see the world from another
point of view
...
I guess I figure if I'm going to flunk, I might as well quit
...
"
"You feel torn
...
"
"What do you think I should do, Dad?"
By seeking first to understand, this father has just turned a transactional opportunity into
a transformational opportunity
...
By setting aside his own
autobiography and really seeking to understand, he has made a tremendous deposit in
the Emotional Bank Account and has empowered his son to open, layer upon layer, and
to get to the real issue
...
The son is opening his father's
autobiography and asking for advice
...
As long as the response is logical, the father can effectively ask questions
and give counsel
...

"Well, I can see some things you might want to consider
...
Maybe they have some kind of
tutoring program over at the tech school
...
It takes two nights and all day Saturday
...

"That's too much of a price to pay
...
"
"You don't want to let them down
...
If I really thought that tutoring course would help, I'd be down
there every night
...
"
"You really want the help, but you doubt if the course will make a difference
...
He's opening his father's autobiography again
...

There are times when transformation requires no outside counsel
...

At other times, they really need additional perspective and help
...
Layer upon layer -- it's like peeling an
onion until you get to the soft inner core
...
They want to open up
...
And they will, if they feel
their parents will love them unconditionally and will be faithful to them afterwards and
not judge or ridicule them
...
It isn't even always necessary to talk in order to
empathize
...
That's one very important
reason why technique alone will not work
...
Isolated technique only gets in the way
...
We need to have the skills
...
People resent any attempt
to manipulate them
...

"I read this book about listening and empathy and I thought about my relationship with
you
...
But I want to
...
I may
blow it at times, but I'm going to work at it
...
I hope you'll help me
...

But if you're not sincere, I wouldn't even try it
...
The
technique, the tip of the iceberg, has to come out of the massive base of character
underneath
...
It may
take a little more time initially but it saves so much time downstream
...
You can't say, "I'm in too much of a hurry
...
Just take this treatment
...
There was a
soft breeze blowing, and so I had opened two windows -- one at the front and one at the
side -- to keep the room cool
...

Suddenly, the breeze started picking up and blowing my papers about
...
Finally,
I realized it would be better to take 10 seconds and close one of the windows
...

A discerning empathic listener can read what's happening down deep fast, and can show
such acceptance, such understanding, that other people feel safe to open up layer after
layer until they get to that soft inner core where the problem really lies
...
And whatever investment of time it takes to do that will
bring much greater returns of time as you work from an accurate understanding of the
problems and issues and from the high Emotional Bank Account that results when a
person feels deeply understood
...
You will also begin to appreciate the impact that these differences can have as
people try to work together in interdependent situations
...
And both of us can be right
...

You may be scripted in the Abundance Mentality; I may be scripted in the Scarcity
Mentality
...

Our perceptions can be vastly different
...
"
Now, with all our differences, we're trying to work together -- in a marriage, in a job, in a
community service project -- to manage resources and accomplish results
...
It's the first step in the process of win-win
...

This principle worked powerfully for one executive who shared with me the following
experience
...
This institution flew in their lawyers from San
Francisco, their negotiator from Ohio, and presidents of two of their large banks to create
an eight-person negotiating team
...
They wanted to significantly increase the level of service and the
cost, but they had been almost overwhelmed with the demands of this large financial
institution
...
We will respond to those needs and concerns
...
'
"The members of the negotiating team were overwhelmed
...
They took three days to
come up with the idea
...
'
And he went down the contract, rephrasing the content, reflecting the feeling, until he
was sure and they were sure he understood what was important to them
...
That's
right
...
yes, you've got it now
...
and they listened
...
They
weren't fighting for air
...

"At the conclusion of the discussions, the members of the negotiating team basically said,
'We want to work with you
...
Just let us know what the price is
and we'll sign
...
Knowing how to be understood is the
other half of Habit 5, and is equally critical in reaching win-win solutions
...
Seeking
to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage
...
So it becomes important in interdependent situations for
us to be understood
...
I suggest these three words contain the essence
of seeking first to understand and making effective presentations
...
It's the trust that you inspire, your Emotional Bank Account
...
It means that you are in alignment with the emotional

165

trust of another person's communication
...

Notice the sequence: ethos, pathos, logos -- your character, and your relationships, and
then the logic of your presentation
...
Most
people, in making presentations, go straight to the logos, the left-brain logic, of their
ideas
...

I had an acquaintance who was very frustrated because his boss was locked into what he
felt was an unproductive leadership style
...
"I've talked to him about it, he's aware of it,
but he does nothing
...

"I did," was the reply
...
Did you create the
change you wanted? Did you build the relationship in the process? What were the results
of your presentation?"
"I told you, he didn't do anything
...
"
"Then make an effective presentation
...
You've got
to get into his frame of mind
...
That will take some
homework
...

"Well, then," I said, "just smile about it and learn to live with it
...
"It compromises my integrity
...
That's in your Circle of Influence
...
The investment seemed too great
...
He
approached me one day and said, "Stephen, I can't get to first base in getting the funding
I need for my research because my research is really not in the mainstream of this
department's interests
...
"I know you're sincere and the research you

166

want to do would bring great benefits
...
Show that you understand them in depth
...
"
"Well, I'll try," he said
...
He was willing, and so we dress rehearsed
his approach
...
"
He took the time to do it slowly, gradually
...
"
When you can present your own ideas clearly, specifically, visually, and most important,
contextually -- in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns -you significantly increase the credibility of your ideas
...
You really understand
...

Habit 5 lifts you to greater accuracy, greater integrity, in your presentations
...
They know you're presenting the ideas which you genuinely believe, taking
all known facts and perceptions into consideration, that will benefit everyone
...
Many
factors in interdependent situations are in your Circle of Concern -- problems,
disagreements, circumstances, other people's behavior
...

But you can always seek first to understand
...

And as you do that, as you focus on your Circle of Influence, you really, deeply
understand other people
...

It's the Inside-Out approach
...
Because you really listen, you become influenceable
...
Your circle begins to expand
...

And watch what happens to you
...
To touch the
soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground
...
The next time you communicate with
anyone, you can put aside your own autobiography and genuinely seek to understand
...
You
can sense their hearts, you can sense the hurt, and you can respond, "You seem down
today
...
That's all right
...

Don't push; be patient; be respectful
...
You can empathize all the time with their behavior
...

And if you're highly proactive, you can create opportunities to do preventive work
...

Spend time with your children now, one-on-one
...
Look
at your home, at school life, at the challenges and the problems they're facing, through
their eyes
...
Give them air
...
Have dinner or do something together you
both enjoy
...
See life through each other's eyes
...
As well as seeking
to understand each other, we often take time to actually practice empathic listening skills
to help us in communicating with our children
...

I may act as if I am a son or daughter requesting a special privilege even though I haven't
fulfilled a basic family responsibility, and Sandra plays herself
We interact back and forth and try to visualize the situation in a very real way so that we
can train ourselves to be consistent in modeling and teaching correct principles to our
children
...
"
The time you invest to deeply understand the people you love brings tremendous
dividends in open communication
...
The communication becomes so
open that potential problems can be nipped in the bud
...

In business, you can set up one-on-one time with your employees
...
Set up human resource accounting or Stakeholder Information Systems
in your business to get honest, accurate feedback at every level: from customers,
suppliers, and employees
...
You save tremendous amounts of time, energy, and money when you
tap into the human resources of a business at every level
...

And you also give the people who work for you and with you psychological air
...


168

Seek first to understand
...
It's a powerful
habit of effective interdependence
...
Our differences are no longer stumbling blocks to communication
and progress
...


Application Suggestions
1
...
Try
to understand and write down the situation from the other person's point of view
...
How valid were your assumptions? Did you really understand
that individual's perspective
...
Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you
...
How did you do? How
did it make that person feel
...
The next time you have an opportunity to watch people communicate, cover your ears
for a few minutes and just watch
...

4
...
("I'm sorry, I just realized I'm not really trying
to understand
...
Base your next presentation on empathy
...


169

Habit 6:
Synergize TM
Principles of Creative Cooperation
I take as my guide the hope of a saint in crucial things, unity --in important things,
diversity -- in all things, generosity
-- Inaugural Address of President George Bus
**
When Sir Winston Churchill was called to head up the war effort for Great Britain, he
remarked that all his life had prepared him for this hour
...

When properly understood, synergy is the highest activity in all life -- the true test and
manifestation of all the other habits put together
...
What results is almost miraculous
...

Synergy is the essence of Principle-Centered Leadership
...
It catalyzes, unifies, and unleashes the greatest powers within people
...

What is synergy? Simply defined, it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts
...
It is not only a part, but the most catalytic, the most empowering, the most
unifying, and the most exciting part
...
You don't know what new dangers
and challenges you'll find
...
Without doubt, you
have to leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown
wilderness
...
You open new possibilities, new
territories, new continents, so that others can follow
...
If you plant two plants close together, the roots
commingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if
they were separated
...
The whole is greater than the sum of
its parts
...

The challenge is to apply the principles of creative cooperation, which we learn from
nature, in our social interactions
...


170

The very way that man and a woman bring a child into the world is synergistic
...

We obviously value the physical differences between men and women, husbands and
wives
...
It may seem as if you
are casting aside Habit 2 (to Begin with the End in Mind); but, in fact, you're doing the
opposite -- you're fulfilling it
...

And that is the end that you have in mind
...

Many people have not really experienced even a moderate degree of synergy in their
family life or in other interactions
...
As a
result, they are never really open to Habit 6 and to these principles
...
Ineffective people live day
after day with unused potential
...

They may have memories of some unusual creative experiences, perhaps in athletics,
where they were involved in a real team spirit for a period of time
...

To many, such events may seem unusual, almost out of character with life, even
miraculous
...
These things can be produced regularly, consistently,
almost daily in people's lives
...

Almost all creative endeavors are somewhat unpredictable
...
And unless people have a high tolerance for ambiguity and
get their security from integrity to principles and inner values they find it unnerving and
unpleasant to be involved in highly creative enterprises
...

Synergy in the Classroom
As a teacher, I have come to believe that many truly great classes teeter on the very edge
of chaos
...

There are times when neither the teacher nor the student know for sure what's going to
happen
...
Then comes brainstorming where the
spirit of evaluation is subordinated to the spirit of creativity, imagining, and intellectual
networking
...
The entire
class is transformed with the excitement of a new thrust, a new idea, a new direction
that's hard to define, yet it's almost palpable to the people involved
...
I'll never forget a university class I taught in leadership philosophy and style
...
A spirit of humility and reverence fell upon the class -reverence toward this individual and appreciation for his courage
...
Others began to
pick up on it, sharing some of their experiences and insights and even some of their selfdoubts
...
Rather
than present what they prepared, they fed on each other's insights and ideas and started
to create a whole new scenario as to what that class could mean
...
In fact, I was almost mesmerized by it because it
seemed so magical and creative
...
It wasn't
just a flight of fancy; there was a sense of maturity and stability and substance which
transcended by far the old structure and plan
...
We became so excited about
what was happening that in about three more weeks, we all sensed an overwhelming
desire to share what was happening with others
We decided to write a book containing our learnings and insights on the subject of our
study -- principles of leadership
...
People worked much harder than they ever would have in the
original class structure, and for an entirely different set of reasons
Out of this experience emerged an extremely unique, cohesive, and synergistic culture
that did not end with the semester
...
Even today, many years later, when we see each other, we talk
about it and often attempt to describe what happened and why
...
I think it was largely because the people were
relatively mature
...
They were hungry for
something new and exciting, something that they could create that was truly meaningful
...
In addition, the chemistry was right
...

I've also experienced, as I believe most people have, times that were almost synergistic,
times that hung on the edge of chaos and for some reason descended into it
...
They defend themselves against it and cut themselves off from
synergy
...

As I think back on many consulting and executive education experiences, I can say that
the highlights were almost always synergistic
...
Then others became more authentic, open, and honest, and the synergistic
communication process began
...

As Carl Rogers taught, "That which is most personal is most general
...
That expression in turn feeds back on the
other person's spirit, and genuine creative empathy takes place, producing new insights
and learnings and a sense of excitement and adventure that keeps the process going
...
Then whole new worlds of
insights, new perspectives, new paradigms that insure options, new alternatives are
opened up and thought about
...

Synergy in Business
I enjoyed one particularly meaningful synergistic experience as I worked with my
associates to create the corporate mission statement for our business
...

At first the communication was respectful, careful and predictable
...
The mission statement
agenda gave way to a collective free association, a spontaneous piggybacking of ideas
...

Everyone could sense it
...
As it matured, we returned to the task of putting
the evolved collective vision into words, each of which contains specific and committedto meaning for each participant
...

The synergistic process that led to the creation of our mission statement engraved it in all
the hearts and minds of everyone there, and it has served us well as a frame of reference
of what we are about, as well as what we are not about
...
Several months ahead, I met with the committee responsible to
prepare for and stage the two-day meeting which was to involve all the top executives
...
Past meetings had been generally respectful exchanges, occasionally
deteriorating into defensive win-lose ego battles
...

As I talked with the committee members about the power of synergy, they could sense its
potential
...
They
requested various executives to prepare anonymous "white papers" on each of the high
priority issues, and then asked all the executives to immerse themselves in these papers
ahead of time in order to understand the issues and the differing points of view
...

We spent the first half-day in the meeting teaching the principles and practicing the skills
of Habits 4, 5, and 6
...

The release of creative energy was incredible
...
People
became very open to each other's influence and generated new insights and options
...
The white paper proposals became obsolete
...
A new common vision began to form
...
They
know the possibility of having other such mind-expanding adventures in the future
...
However, the essential purpose behind creative work can be recaptured
...

Snergy and Communication
Synergy is exciting
...
It's phenomenal what openness and
communication can produce
...

After World War II, the United States commissioned David Lilienthal to head the new
Atomic Energy Commission
...

This very diverse group of individuals had an extremely heavy agenda, and they were
impatient to get at it
...

But Lilienthal took several weeks to create a high Emotional Bank Account
...
He facilitated the kind of
human interaction that creates a great bonding between people, and he was heavily
criticized for taking the time to do it because it wasn't "efficient
...
The respect among the members of the commission
was so high that if there was disagreement, instead of opposition and defense, there was
a genuine effort to understand
...
You have a
perspective, a frame of reference I need to look at
...

The following diagram illustrates how closely trust is related to different levels of
communication
...
Such communication produces only win-lose or lose-lose
...

The middle position is respectful communication
...
They have respect for each other, but they want to avoid the possibility of
ugly confrontations, so they communicate politely but not empathically
...

Respectful communication works in independent situations and even in interdependent
situations, but the creative possibilities are not opened up
...
Compromise means that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1/2
...
The communication isn't defensive or protective or angry or manipulative;
it is honest and genuine and respectful
...
It produces a
low form of win-win
...
The synergistic position of high
trust produces solutions better than any originally proposed, and all parties know it
...
A miniculture is formed to
satisfy in and of itself
...

There are some circumstances in which synergy may not be achievable and no deal isn't
viable
...

Fishing for the A Third Alternative
To get a better idea of how our level of communication affects our interdependent
effectiveness, envision the following scenario
...
This is important to him; he's been planning it all year
...

His wife, however, wants to use the vacation time to visit her ailing mother some 250
miles away
...

"The plans are set
...
We should go on the fishing trip," he says
...
"This is our only opportunity to have enough time to do that
...
The boys would be
miserable sitting around grandmother's house for a week
...

Besides, your mother's not that sick
...
"
"She's my mother, too
...
"
"You could phone her every night
...
Remember?"
"That's not for five more months
...

Besides, she needs me, and she wants me
...
Besides, the boys and I need you, too
...
"
"Your husband and sons are more important than your mother
...
They may decide to split up -- he takes the boys fishing at the lake while she
visits her mother
...
The boys sense it, and it affects
their enjoyment of the vacation
...
And consciously or
unconsciously, he produces evidence to fulfill his prophecy of how miserable the week
will be for everyone
...
If her mother were to become seriously ill
and die, the husband could never forgive himself, and she couldn't forgive him either
...
It could be a
source of contention for years and could even polarize the family
...

The husband and wife see the situation differently
...
Or it can bring them closer
together on a higher level
...
Their
communication is on a higher level
...
Because they Think Win-Win, they believe in a Third
Alternative, a solution that is mutually beneficial and is better than what either of them
originally proposed
...

And the combination of those ingredients -- the high Emotional Bank Account, thinking
win-win, and seeking first to understand -- creates the ideal environment for synergy
...
" Middle in this sense does not mean compromise; it
means higher, like the apex of the triangle
...
He understands how she wants to relieve her sister, who has had the
primary responsibility for their mother's care
...

And the wife deeply understands her husband's desire to have the family together and to
provide a great experience for the boys
...

So they pool those desires
...
They're
together on one side, looking at the problem, understanding the needs, and working to
create a Third Alternative that will meet them
...
"I could take over the home responsibilities for the weekend and

177

arrange for some help at the first of the week so that you could go
...

"Or maybe we could locate a place to camp and fish that would be close to your mother
...

And the boys wouldn't be climbing the walls
...
"
They synergize
...
It's better than the solutions either of them originally
proposed
...
It's a synergistic solution that builds P and PC
...
They get what they both really want and
build their relationship in the process
...
But look at the difference in results
...

And instead of getting a foot off the brake, most people give it more gas
...

The problem is that highly dependent people are trying to succeed in an interdependent
reality
...

They may talk win-win technique, but they don't really want to listen; they want to
manipulate
...

Insecure people think that all reality should be amenable to their paradigms
...
They don't realize
that the very strength of the relationship is in having another point of view
...
Unity, or oneness, is complementariness, not
sameness
...
and boring
...

I've come to believe that the key to interpersonal synergy is intrapersonal synergy, that is
synergy within ourselves
...
By internalizing those principles, we develop the
Abundance Mentality of win-win and the authenticity of Habit 5
...
People who are scripted deeply in logical, verbal, left-brain thinking will
discover how totally inadequate that thinking is in solving problems which require a
great deal of creativity
...
It's not that the right brain wasn't there; it just lay dormant
...

When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative, and visual right brain, and the
analytical, logical, verbal left brain, then the whole brain is working
...
And this tool is best suited to the reality
of what life is, because life is not just logical -- it is also emotional
...
During the break, the president of the company
came up to me and said, "Stephen, this is intriguing
...
My wife
and I have a real communication problem
...

As we sat down together, we exchanged a few pleasantries
...
I know you feel I should be a more
sensitive, considerate husband
...

"Well, as I've told you before, it's nothing specific
...
" Her dominant right brain was dealing with sensing and with the gestalt,
the whole, the relationship between the parts
...
"
"Well, it's just a feeling
...
"I just
don't think our marriage is as important to you as you tell me it is
...
"
"It's hard to put into words
...
"
"Honey," he said to her, "that's your problem
...

In fact, it's the problem with every woman I know
...

"Do you live where you want to live?"
"That's not it," she sighed
...
"

179

"I know," he replied with a forced patience
...
Do you live where
you want to live?"
"I guess
...
Just give me a quick 'yes'
or 'no' answer
...
"
"Okay
...
Do you have the things you want to have?"
"Yes
...
Do you do the things you want to do?"
This went on for a little while, and I could see I wasn't helping at all
...

"It's the story of our marriage," she sighed
...
"Do you have any children?" I asked
...
"
"Really?" I asked incredulously
...
"One plus one usually equals two
...
Now that's synergy
...
So
how did you do it?"
"You know how we did it," he replied
...

Valuing the Differences
Valuing the differences is the essence of synergy -- the mental, the emotional, the
psychological differences between people
...

If I think I see the world as it is, why would I want to value the differences? Why would I
even want to bother with someone who's "off track"? My paradigm is that I am objective;
I see the world as it is
...

That's why they call me a supervisor -- I have super vision
...
I will be limited by the paradigms of my own conditioning
...
That person values the differences
because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality
...

Is it logical that two people can disagree and that both can be right? It's not logical: it's
psychological
...
You see the young lady; I see the old woman
...
We see the same black lines, the
same white spaces
...

And unless we value the differences in our perceptions, unless we value each other and
give credence to the possibility that we're both right, that life is not always a dichotomous
either/or, that there are almost always Third Alternatives, we will never be able to
transcend the limits of that conditioning
...
But I realize that you see something else
...
value your perception
...

So when I become aware of the difference in our perceptions, I say, "Good! You see it
differently! Help me see what you see
...
It's not going to do me any good
at all to communicate with someone else who sees only the old woman also
...
I value that difference
...
I give you
psychological air
...
I create an environment for synergy
...
R
...
Reeves
...
They adopted an activity
curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying
...

The duck was excellent in swimming, better in fact than his instructor, and made
excellent grades in flying, but he was very poor in running
...
This was kept up
until his web feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming
...

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but had a nervous breakdown
because of so much makeup in swimming
...


181

He also developed charley horses from over-exertion and he got a C in climbing and a D
in running
...
In climbing class he
beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way of getting
there
...

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration
would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum
...

Force Field Analysis
In an interdependent situation, synergy is particularly powerful in dealing with negative
forces that work against growth and change
...

Driving forces generally are positive, reasonable, logical, conscious, and economic
...
Both sets of forces are very real and must be taken into account in
dealing with change
...

You may really want to change that level
...
Your logical reasons for doing that are
the driving forces that act to raise the level
...
Your efforts are opposed by restraining
forces --by the competitive spirit between children in the family, by the different scripting
of home life you and your spouse have brought to the relationship, by habits that have
developed in the family, by work or other demands on your time and energies
...
But as long as the
restraining forces are there, it becomes increasingly harder
...

The resulting up and down, yo-yo effect causes you to feel, after several attempts, that
people are "just the way they are" and that "it's too difficult to change
...
You unfreeze them,
loosen them up, and create new insights that actually transform those restraining forces

182

into driving ones
...

As a result, new goals, shared goals, are created, and the whole enterprise moves
upward, often in ways that no one could have anticipated
...
The people involved in it are enmeshed in
each other's humanity and empowered by new, fresh thinking, by new creative
alternatives and opportunities
...
And all that did was to exacerbate the
problem because the interpersonal communication deteriorated as it went through the
legal process
...

"Would you be interested in going for a win-win solution that both parties feel really
good about?" I would ask
...

"If I can get the other party to agree, would you be willing to start the process of really
communicating with each other?"
Again, the answer was usually "yes
...
Problems that had been legally
and psychologically wrangled about for months have been settled in a matter of a few
hours or days
...

And, in most cases, the relationships continued even though it had appeared in the
beginning that the trust level was so low and the rupture in the relationship so large as to
be almost irreparable
...

Both parties felt totally justified in the rightness of their position and perceived each other
as unethical and completely untrustworthy
...
First, early communication
problems resulted in a misunderstanding which was later exacerbated by accusations and
counteraccusations
...

Once these two things became clear, the spirit of Habits 4, 5, and 6 took over, the problem
was rapidly resolved, and the relationship continues to prosper
...
The bank wanted to foreclose because he was not
complying with the principal and interest payment schedule, and he was suing the bank
to avoid the foreclosure
...


were

met
...
The streets were beginning to look like
weed fields, and the owners of the few homes that had been built were up in arms as they
saw their property values drop
...
Tens of thousands of dollars in legal
costs had already been spent by the bank and the developer and the case wasn't
scheduled to come to court for several months
...

He arranged a meeting with even more reluctant bank officials
...
M
...
The tension and
mistrust were palpable
...
They were only to listen and he alone would speak
...

For the first hour and a half, I taught Habits 4, 5, and 6
...
Initially the bank
officials said nothing, but the more we communicated win-win intentions and sought
first to understand, the more they opened up to explain and clarify
...
Over the attorney's objections the bank officials opened up even more,
even about personal concerns
...
At that point, they were sufficiently open to
listen to the developer's concerns, which we wrote down on the other side of the
blackboard
...

The shared sense of both chronic and acute pain combined with a sense of genuine
progress kept everyone communicating
...

The very first recommendation made by the developer was seen as a beginning win-win
approach by all
...
M
...
Despite subsequent complicating developments, the legal fight
was aborted and the building project continued to a successful conclusion
...
Some situations
absolutely require it
...
If it is used too early,
even in a preventive sense, sometimes fear and the legal paradigm create subsequent
thought and action processes that are not synergistic
...
It's in the relationship that creative powers are maximized, just
as the real power in these Seven Habits is in their relationship to each other, not just in
the individual habits themselves
...
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
...

Synergy works; it's a correct principle
...
It is effectiveness in an interdependent reality -- it is teamwork, team building, the
development of unity and creativity with other human beings
...

Your own internal synergy is completely within the circle
...
You can value the difference
between them and use that difference to catalyze creativity
...
You don't have to take insults personally
...

You can exercise the courage in interdependent situations to be open, to express your
ideas, your feelings, and your experiences in a way that will encourage other people to be
open also
...
When someone disagrees with you, you can
say, "Good! You see it differently
...
And you can seek to understand
...
There's almost always a Third Alternative, and if you work
with a win-win philosophy and really seek to understand, you usually can find a solution
that will be better for everyone concerned
...
Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do
...
Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem,
valuing the different views you are likely to hear
...
Make a list of people who irritate you
...

3
...
What
conditions would need to exist to support synergy? What can you do to create those
conditions
...
The next time you have a disagreement or confrontation with someone, attempt to
understand the concerns underlying that person's position
...


186

Part Four -- RENEWAL
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw TM
Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal
Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things
...
there are no little things
...

"What are you doing?" you ask
...
"I'm sawing down this tree
...
"How long have you been at it?"
"Over five hours," he returns, "and I'm beat! This is hard work
...

"I'm sure it would go a lot faster
...
"I'm too busy sawing!"
Habit 7 is taking time to Sharpen the Saw
...

Four Dimensions of Renewal
Habit 7 is personal PC
...

It's renewing the four dimensions of your nature -- physical, spiritual, mental, and
social/emotional
...
Philosopher Herb Shepherd describes the healthy
balanced life around four values: perspective (spiritual), autonomy (mental),
connectedness (social), and tone (physical)
...
Sound motivation and organization theory embrace these
four dimensions or motivations -- the economic (physical); how people are treated
(social); how people are developed and used (mental); and the service, the job, the
contribution the organization gives (spiritual)
...
It means exercising
all four dimensions of our nature, regularly and consistently, in wise and balanced ways
...
Taking time to sharpen the saw is a definite Quadrant II
activity, and Quadrant II must be acted on
...
Personal PC must be pressed upon until it becomes second
nature, until it becomes a kind of healthy addiction
...
We must do it for ourselves
...

We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to
recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw in all four ways
...

Exercise is one of those Quadrant II, high-leverage activities that most of us don't do
consistently because it isn't urgent
...

Most of us think we don't have enough time to exercise
...
We're talking about three to six hours a week -- or a minimum of
thirty minutes a day, every other day
...

And you don't need any special equipment to do it
...
But it isn't necessary to sharpen the saw
...

Endurance comes from aerobic exercise, from cardiovascular efficiency -- the ability of
your heart to pump blood through your body
...
It can only be exercised
through the large muscle groups, particularly the leg muscles
...

You are considered minimally fit if you can increase your heart rate to at least 100 beats
per minute and keep it at that level for 30 minutes
...

Your maximum heart rate is generally accepted to be 220 less your age
...
6 = 108)
...

Flexibility comes through stretching
...
Before, it helps loosen and warm the
muscles to prepare for more vigorous exercise
...

Strength comes from muscle resistance exercises -- like simple calisthenics, push-ups, and
sit-ups, and from working with weights
...
If you're involved in physical labor or athletic
activities, increased strength will improve your skill
...

I was in a gym one time with a friend of mine who has a Ph
...
in exercise physiology
...
He asked me to "spot" him while he did some bench
presses and told me at a certain point he'd ask me to take the weight
...

So I watched and waited and prepared to take the weight
...
And I could see it begin to get harder
...
He would
start to push it up and I'd think, "There's no way he's going to make it
...

Then he'd slowly bring it back down and start back up again
...

Finally, as I looked at his face, straining with the effort, his blood vessels practically
jumping out of his skin, I thought, "This is going to fall and collapse his chest
...
Maybe he's lost control and he doesn't even know what he's
doing
...
Then he'd start back up again
...
"I'm
trying to build strength
...
Then nature overcompensates and within 48 hours, the
fiber is made stronger
...
It's the same principle that works with emotional muscles as well,
such as patience
...

Now my friend wanted to build muscular strength
...
But not all
of us need to develop that kind of strength to be effective
...

The essence of renewing the physical dimension is to sharpen the saw, to exercise our
bodies on a regular basis in a way that will preserve and enhance our capacity to work
and adapt and enjoy
...
There's a tendency,
especially if you haven't been exercising at all, to overdo
...
It's best to start slowly
...


189

If you haven't been exercising, your body will undoubtedly protest this change in its
comfortable downhill direction
...
You may even hate it
...
Do it anyway
...
"Oh good! It's raining! I get to develop my willpower as well as my body!"
You're not dealing with quick fix; you're dealing with a Quadrant II activity that will
bring phenomenal long-term results
...
Little by
little, your resting pulse rate will go down as your heart and oxygen processing system
becomes more efficient
...
You'll
have more afternoon energy, and the fatigue you've felt that's made you "too tired" to
exercise in the past will be replaced by an energy that will invigorate everything you do
...
As you act based on the value of physical wellbeing instead of reacting to all the forces that keep you from exercising, your paradigm of
yourself, your self-esteem, your self-confidence, and your integrity will be profoundly
affected
...
It's highly related to
Habit 2
...
It's a very private area of life and a supremely important one
...
And
people do it very, very differently
...
As I read and meditate, I feel renewed, strengthened, centered, and
recommitted to serve
...
There are others who find it in the way they communicate with nature
...
When you're able to
leave the noise and the discord of the city and give yourself up to the harmony and
rhythm of nature, you come back renewed
...

Arthur Gordon shares a wonderful, intimate story of his own spiritual renewal in a little
story called "The Turn of the Tide
...
His enthusiasm waned; his writing efforts were fruitless
...

Finally, he determined to get help from a medical doctor
...

When Gordon replied that he could, the doctor told him to spend the following day in the
place where he was happiest as a child
...
He then wrote out four prescriptions and
told him to open one at nine, twelve, three, and six o'clock
...

"You won't think I'm joking when you get my bill!" was the reply
...
As he opened the first prescription, he
read "Listen carefully
...
How could he listen for three
hours? But he had agreed to follow the doctor's orders, so he listened
...
After a while, he could hear the other sounds that weren't
so apparent at first
...
He began to
listen to the sounds -- and the silence -- and to feel a growing peace
...
" "Reaching
back to what?" he wondered
...

He thought about his past, about the many little moments of joy
...
And in remembering, he found a growing warmth inside
...
Until now, the prescriptions had
been easy to take
...
" At first he
was defensive
...
But then the thought occurred to him that those motives weren't good
enough, and that perhaps therein was the answer to his stagnant situation
...
He thought about past happiness
...

"In a flash of certainty," he wrote, "I saw that if one's motives are wrong, nothing can be
right
...
As long as you feel you are serving others, you do the
job well
...
"
When six o'clock came, the final prescription didn't take long to fill
...
He knelt and wrote several words with a piece of broken shell; then
he turned and walked away
...

Spiritual renewal takes an investment of time
...

The great reformer Martin Luther is quoted as saying, "I have so much to do today, I'll
need to spend another hour on my knees
...

Someone once inquired of a Far Eastern Zen master, who had a great serenity and peace
about him no matter what pressures he faced, "How do you maintain that serenity and
peace?" He replied, "I never leave my place of meditation
...

The idea is that when we take time to draw on the leadership center of our lives, what life
is ultimately all about, it spreads like an umbrella over everything else
...


191

This is why I believe a personal mission statement is so important
...
In our daily spiritual renewal, we can visualize and "live out" the events of the
day in harmony with those values
...
McKay taught, "The greatest battles of life are fought out daily
in the silent chambers of the soul
...
And
you'll find that the Public Victories -- where you tend to think cooperatively, to promote
the welfare and good of other people, and to be genuinely happy for other people's
successes -- will follow naturally
...

But as soon as we leave the external discipline of school, many of us let our minds
atrophy
...
Instead, we spend our time watching TV
...
That's as much time as many people put into their jobs, more than most put into
school
...
And when we watch, we're
subject to all the values that are being taught through it
...

Wisdom in watching television requires the effective self-management of Habit 3, which
enables you to discriminate and to select the informing, inspiring, and entertaining
programs which best serve and express your purpose and values
...
We had a family council at which we talked about it and looked at
some of the data regarding what's happening in homes because of television
...

I'm grateful for television and for the many high-quality educational and entertainment
programs
...
But there are many programs that simply waste our time and minds and many that
influence us in negative ways if we let them
...
We need to practice Habit 3 and manage ourselves effectively to
maximize the use of any resource in accomplishing our missions
...
Sometimes that involves the external discipline of the classroom or
systematized study programs; more often it does not
...

It is extremely valuable to train the mind to stand apart and examine its own program
...
Training, without such

192

education, narrows and closes the mind so that the assumptions underlying the training
are never examined
...

There's no better way to inform and expand your mind on a regular basis than to get into
the habit of reading good literature
...

You can get into the best minds that are now or that have ever been in the world
...
"The person who doesn't read is no better off than the person who can't
read
...
If we use
our own autobiography to make early judgments before we really understand what an
author has to say, we limit the benefits of the reading experience
...
Keeping a journal of our
thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and
context
...

Organizing and planning represent other forms of mental renewal associated with Habits
2 and 3
...
It's exercising the visualizing, imagining power of your mind to see
the end from the beginning and to see the entire journey, at least in principles, if not in
steps
...
Sharpening the saw in the first three
dimensions -- the physical, the spiritual, and the mental -- is a practice I call the "Daily
Private Victory
...

There's no other way you could spend an hour that would begin to compare with the
Daily Private Victory in terms of value and results
...
It will greatly improve the quality, the effectiveness, of every other hour of
the day, including the depth and restfulness of your sleep
...

In the words of Phillips Brooks:
Some day, in the years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or
trembling under the great sorrow of your life
...
Now it is
being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall
miserably fail or gloriously conquer
...

The Social/Emotional Dimension
While the physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions are closely related to Habits 1, 2,
and 3 --

193

centered on the principles of personal vision, leadership, and management -- the
social/emotional dimension focuses on Habits 4, 5, and 6 -- centered on the principles of
interpersonal leadership, empathic communication, and creative cooperation
...

Renewing our social/emotional dimension does not take time in the same sense that
renewing the other dimensions does
...
But it definitely requires exercise
...

Suppose that you are a key person in my life
...
Suppose we need to communicate
together, to work together, to discuss a jugular issue, to accomplish a purpose or solve a
problem
...
You see
the young lady, and I see the old woman
...
I come to you and I say, "I can see that we're approaching this
situation differently
...
Would you be willing to do that?" Most people would be willing to
say "yes" to that
...
"Let me listen to you first
...

When I can explain your point of view as well as you can, then I focus on communicating
my point of view to you so that you can understand it as well
...
We work
together to produce Third Alternative solutions to our differences that we both recognize
are better than the ones either you or I proposed initially
...
It's highly related to our sense of personal security
...
If we are emotionally insecure, even though we
may be intellectually very advanced, practicing Habits 4, 5, and 6 with people who think
differently on jugular issues of life can be terribly threatening
...
It doesn't come from our circumstances or our position
...
It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in
our own mind and heart
...


194

I believe that a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth
...

Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in
no other way
...
There is security in knowing that win-win solutions do exist, that life is not always
"either/or," that there are almost always mutually beneficial Third Alternatives
...
There is security that
comes when you authentically, creatively, and cooperatively interact with other people
and really experience these interdependent habits
...
One important source is your work, when you see yourself in a
contributive and creative mode, really making a difference
...
And that's not the concern;
the concern is blessing the lives of other people
...

Viktor Frankl focused on the need for meaning and purpose in our lives, something that
transcends our own lives and taps the best energies within us
...
Hans Selye, in
his monumental research on stress, basically says that a long, healthy, and happy life is
the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally
exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others
...

This is the true joy in life -- that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a
mighty one
...
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I
live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can
...
For the harder I work the more I live
...
Life is no brief
candle to me
...

N
...
" And there are so many ways to serve
...

Scripting Others
Most people are a function of the social mirror, scripted by the opinions, the perceptions,
the paradigms of the people around them
...

We can choose to reflect back to others a clear, undistorted vision of themselves
...
We can help script
them as principle-centered, value-based, independent, worthwhile individuals
...
It increases us because it increases the opportunities for effective
interaction with other proactive people
...
He or she scripted you
...

What if you were a positive scripter, an affirmer, of other people? When they're being
directed by the social mirror to take the lower path, you inspire them toward a higher
path because you believe in them
...
You
don't absolve them of responsibility; you encourage them to be proactive
...
It's a beautiful story about
a medieval knight who meets a woman of the street, a prostitute
...

But this poet knight sees something else in her, something beautiful and lovely
...
He gives her a new name -Dulcinea -- a new name associated with a new paradigm
...
She writes him off as a
wild-eyed fantasizer
...
He makes continual deposits of unconditional
love and gradually it penetrates her scripting
...
Little by little, she begins to change her life-style
...

Later, when she begins to revert to her old paradigm, he calls her to his deathbed and
sings that beautiful song, "The Impossible Dream," looks her in the eyes, and whispers,
"Never forget, you're Dulcinea
...
In academic terms, it labeled a
class of "bright" kids "dumb" and a class of supposedly "dumb" kids "bright
...

When the administration finally discovered the mistake five-and-a-half months later, they
decided to test the kids again without telling anyone what had happened
...
The "bright" kids had gone down significantly in IQ test points
...
The
teachers' paradigms had become a self-fulfilling prophecy
...
The teachers had treated
them as though they were bright, and their energy, their hope, their optimism, their
excitement had reflected high individual expectations and worth for those kids
...
"For
some reason, our methods weren't working," they replied
...
" The information showed that the kids were bright
...
So they worked on methods
...
Apparent learner disability was
nothing more or less than teacher inflexibility
...
The more we can see people in terms of their unseen potential, the more we
can use our imagination rather than our memory, with our spouse, our children, our coworkers or employees
...
We can help them become independent, fulfilled people
capable of deeply satisfying, enriching, and productive relationships with others
...
Treat a man as he can
and should be and he will become as he can and should be
...

Although renewal in each dimension is important, it only becomes optimally effective as
we deal with all four dimensions in a wise and balanced way
...
I have found this to be true in organizations as well as in
individual lives
...
The mental or psychological dimension deals with the recognition, development,
and use of talent
...

When an organization neglects any one or more of these areas, it negatively impacts the
entire organization
...

I have found organizations whose only thrust is economic -- to make money
...
They sometimes even publicize something else
...

Whenever I find this, I also find a great deal of negative synergy in the culture,
generating such things as interdepartmental rivalries, defensive and protective
communication, politicking, and masterminding
...
We can't live
without eating, but we don't live to eat
...
They are, in a sense, some kind of social experiment
and they have no economic criteria to their value system
...

I have found many organizations that develop as many as three of the dimensions -- they
may have good service criteria, good economic criteria, and good human-relations
criteria, but they are not really committed to identifying, developing, utilizing, and
recognizing the talent of people
...

Organizational as well as individual effectiveness requires development and renewal of
all four dimensions in a wise and balanced way
...

Organizations and individuals that give recognition to each of these four dimensions in
their mission statement provide a powerful framework for balanced renewal
...

Synergy in Renewal
Balanced renewal is optimally synergetic
...
Your physical health affects your mental health; your spiritual strength
affects your social/emotional strength
...

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People create optimum synergy among these
dimensions
...
And although the habits are sequential, improvement in one habit
synergetically increases your ability to live the rest
...
The more effectively you
manage your life (Habit 3), the more Quadrant II renewing activities you can do (Habit
7)
...
The more you improve in any of the habits
that lead to independence (Habits 1, 2, and 3), the more effective you will be in
interdependent situations (Habits 4, 5, and 6)
...

As you renew your physical dimension, you reinforce your personal vision (Habit 1), the
paradigm of your own self-awareness and free will, of proactivity, of knowing that you
are free to act instead of being acted upon, to choose your own response to any stimulus
...
Each Daily Private Victory
makes a deposit in your personal intrinsic security account
...

You increase your ability to live out of your imagination and conscience instead of only
your memory, to deeply understand your innermost paradigms and values, to create
within yourself a center of correct principles, to define your own unique mission in life, to
rescript yourself to live your life in harmony with correct principles and to draw upon
your personal sources of strength
...

As you renew your mental dimension, you reinforce your personal management (Habit
3)
...
As you become involved in
continuing education, you increase your knowledge base and you increase your options
...
That's true financial independence
...
It's intrinsic
...
It is the Quadrant II focus time necessary
to integrate these habits into your life, to become principle-centered
...
It's the source of intrinsic security
you need to sharpen the saw in the social/emotional dimension
...
It gives you the foundation to work for genuine
understanding and for synergetic win-win solutions, to practice Habits 4, 5, and 6 in an
interdependent reality
...

To make meaningful and consistent progress along that spiral, we need to consider one
other aspect of renewal as it applies to the unique human endowment that directs this
upward movement -- our conscience
...
"
Conscience is the endowment that senses our congruence or disparity with correct
principles and lifts us toward them -- when it's in shape Just as the education of nerve
and sinew is vital to the excellent athlete and education of the mind is vital to the scholar,
education of the conscience is vital to the truly proactive, highly effective person
...
It requires regular feasting on
inspiring literature, thinking noble thoughts and, above all, living in harmony with its
still small voice
Just as junk food and lack of exercise can ruin an athlete's condition, those things that are
obscene, crude, or pornographic can breed an inner darkness that numbs our higher
sensibilities and substitutes the social conscience of "Will I be found out?" for the natural
or divine conscience of "What is right and wrong?"
In the words of Dag Hammarskjold,
You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with
falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your
sensitivity of mind
...

Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the
vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling
animals who live primarily for survival and propagation
...
" They are reacting, unaware of the unique
endowments that lie dormant and undeveloped within
...
The Law of the Harvest governs; we will
always reap what we sow -- no more, no less
...

I believe that as we grow and develop on this upward spiral, we must show diligence in
the process of renewal by educating and obeying our conscience
...

Moving along the upward spiral requires us to learn, commit, and do on increasingly
higher planes
...
To
keep progressing, we must learn, commit, and do -- learn, commit, and do -- and learn,
commit, and do again
...
Make a list of activities that would help you keep in good physical shape, that would
fit your life-style and that you could enjoy over time
...
Select one of the activities and list it as a goal in your personal role area for the coming
week
...
If you didn't make your goal,
was it because you subordinated it to a genuinely higher value? Or did you fail to act
with integrity to your values
...
Make a similar list of renewing activities in your spiritual and mental dimensions
...
Select one item
in each area to list as a goal for the week
...

4
...


200

Inside-Out Again
The Lord works from the inside out
...
The world
would take people out of the slums
...
The world would mold men by changing their
environment
...
The world would
shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature
...
In doing so, it is my hope that you will relate to the underlying principles it
contains
...
We lived for a full year in Laie on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii
...

After an early morning run on the beach, we would send two of our children, barefoot
and in shorts, to school
...
It was very quiet, very beautiful, very serene -- no phone, no
meetings, no pressing engagements
...
As I opened it, my eyes fell upon a single paragraph that powerfully
influenced the rest of my life
...
It basically contained the simple idea that there
is a gap or a space between stimulus and response, and that the key to both our growth
and happiness is how we use that space
...
Though I had been nurtured in
the philosophy of self-determinism, the way the idea was phrased -- "a gap between
stimulus and response" -- hit me with fresh, almost unbelievable force
...
"
I reflected on it again and again, and it began to have a powerful effect on my paradigm
of life
...
I began to stand in
that gap and to look outside at the stimuli
...

Shortly thereafter, and partly as a result of this "revolutionary" idea, Sandra and I began
a practice of deep communication
...

We rode slowly along for about an hour, just talking
...
We seldom saw
another vehicle, and the cycle was so quiet we could easily hear each other
...

The sandy beach and a freshwater river coming off the island totally absorbed the interest
of the children, so Sandra and I were able to continue our talks uninterrupted
...

At the very first of the year, we talked about all kinds of interesting topics -- people,
ideas, events, the children, my writing, our family at home, future plans, and so forth
...

As we were deeply immersed in these communications, we also observed them and
observed ourselves in them
...

We began an exciting adventure into our interior worlds and found it to be more exciting,
more fascinating, more absorbing, more compelling, more filled with discovery and
insight than anything we'd even known in the outside world
...
" We occasionally hit some raw nerves and had some
painful experiences, embarrassing experiences, self-revealing experiences -- experiences
that made us extremely open and vulnerable to each other
...
When we did go into the deeper, more
tender issues and then came out of them, we felt in some way healed
...

We gradually evolved two unspoken ground rules
...
" As soon as
we unfolded the inner layers of vulnerability, we were not to question each other, only to
empathize
...
It was also too controlling and too logical
...
We wanted to cover more and more of it, but we grew to respect the need to let
each other open up in our own time
...
Then we would either begin the next day where we left off or
wait until the person who was sharing felt ready to continue
...
But because we had the time and the
environment conducive to it, and because we were so excited to observe our own
involvement and to grow within our marriage, we simply knew that sooner or later we
would deal with all those loose ends and bring them to some kind of closure
...
Then, because of our
subjective involvement, we found that the space between stimulus and response was no

202

longer there
...
But our deep desire and our implicit agreement
was to prepare ourselves to start where we left off and deal with those feelings until we
resolved them
...
My father
was a very private individual -- very controlled and very careful
...
I find both sets of tendencies in me, and when I
feel insecure, I tend to become private, like my father
...

Sandra is more like my mother -- social, authentic, and spontaneous
...
All of this and much more
came out during those deep visits
...

Another of those difficult times had to do with what I perceived to be a "hang up" Sandra
had which had bothered me for years
...
She would not even consider
buying another brand of appliance
...

This was a matter of considerable agitation to me
...
But when it did come up, it was like a stimulus that
triggered off a hot button response
...

I usually resorted to my dysfunctional private behavior
...
There were times when I did slip and say something negative,
and I had to go back and apologize
...
If she had only agreed that her response
was irrational and purely emotional, I think I could have handled it
...

It was sometime in early spring when the Frigidaire issue came up
...
The ground rules had been deeply established -- not to
probe and to leave it alone if it got to be too painful for either or both
...
We didn't end up on the beach that day;
we just continued to ride through the canefields, perhaps because we didn't want to look
each other in the eye
...
It had never been so
critical as to rupture the relationship, but when you're trying to cultivate a beautiful
unified relationship, any divisive issue is important
...
It was truly
synergistic
...
She started to talk about her father, about how he had worked
as a high school history teacher and coach for years, and how, to help make ends meet, he
had gone into the appliance business
...

Sandra had an unusually deep and sweet relationship with her father
...
It was a beautiful time they enjoyed together almost daily for
years
...

This communication between father and daughter had taken place in a spontaneous way
during very natural time, when the most powerful kind of scripting takes place
...
Perhaps Sandra had forgotten about all of this until the
safety of that year of communication when it could come out also in very natural and
spontaneous ways
...
I also gained insight and a whole new level of respect
...

I remember both of us becoming tearful on that day, not so much because of the insights,
but because of the increased sense of reverence we had for each other
...
To deal
only with the superficial trivia without seeing the deeper, more tender issues is to
trample on the sacred ground of another's heart
...
Our communication became so powerful
that we could almost instantly connect with each other's thoughts
...
During the many years since, we have continued to
go regularly on our Honda trail cycle, or in the car if the weather's bad, just to talk
...
We try to
communicate with each other several times every day, even when I'm traveling
...

Thomas Wolfe was wrong
...

Intergenerational Living
As Sandra and I discovered that wonderful year, the ability to use wisely the gap
between stimulus and response, to exercise the four unique endowments of our human
nature, empowered us from the Inside-Out
...
We loved each other, and we had attempted to
work through our differences by controlling our attitudes and our behaviors, by
practicing useful techniques of human interaction
...
Until we worked and communicated on the level of our essential
paradigms, the chronic underlying problems were still there
...
The delicious fruits -- a rich winwin relationship, a deep understanding of each other, and a marvelous synergy -- grew
out of the roots we nurtured as we examined our programs, rescripted ourselves, and
managed our lives so that we could create time for the important Quadrant II activity of
communicating deeply with each other
...
We were able to see on a much deeper level that, just as
powerfully as our own lives had been affected by our parents, the lives of our children
were being influenced and shaped by us, often in ways we didn't even begin to realize
...

I have drawn particular attention in this book to those scripts we have been given which
we proactively want to change
...
Real self-awareness helps us to appreciate those
scripts and to appreciate those who have gone before us and nurtured us in principlebased living, mirroring back to us not only what we are, but what we can become
...
An effectively
interdependent family of children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins can
be a powerful force in helping people have a sense of who they are and where they came
from and what they stand for
...

And that can be a tremendous benefit as you nurture your family
...

Grandparents who show a great interest in their grandchildren are among the most
precious people on this earth
...
Even now, in her late 80s, she takes a deep personal interest in every
one of her descendants
...
I was reading one the other day on a
plane with tears streaming down my cheeks
...
" She's constantly reaffirming
...
And many people feel the importance of that
relationship
...
Each of us has
roots and the ability to trace those roots, to identify our ancestors
...
As someone once observed, "There are
only two lasting bequests we can give our children -- one is roots, the other wings
...
I believe it means becoming what my friend and associate, Dr
...
Instead of transferring those scripts to the next generation, we
can change them
...
Yet there's plenty of evidence to indicate that you will tend to live out that
script
...
You can choose not only
not to abuse your children, but to affirm them, to script them in positive ways
...
You
can visualize yourself living in harmony with that mission statement in your Daily
Private Victory
...

A tendency that's run through your family for generations can stop with you
...
And your own change can
affect many, many lives downstream
...
Sadat stood between a past
that had created a "huge wall of suspicion, fear, hate and misunderstanding" between
Arabs and Israelis, and a future in which increased conflict and isolation seemed
inevitable
...

While others attempted to resolve the tense situation by hacking at the leaves, Sadat drew
upon his earlier centering experience in a lonely prison cell and went to work on the root
...

He records in his autobiography:
It was then that I drew, almost unconsciously, on the inner strength I had developed in
Cell 54 of Cairo Central Prison -- a strength, call it a talent or capacity, for change
...
My
contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place had taught me that he who
cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will
never, therefore, make any progress
...
It doesn't come from hacking at the
leaves of attitude and behavior with quick-fix personality ethic techniques
...
In the words of Amiel:
Moral truth can be conceived in thought
...
One can will to
live it
...
Deeper even than consciousness there is our being itself -- our very

206

substance, our nature
...
So long as we are able to distinguish any space whatever between Truth and us
we remain outside it
...
To become divine is then the aim of life
...
It is no longer outside us, nor in a sense even in us,
but we are it, and it is we
...

Most of us have tasted this fruit of true unity from time to time in the past, as we have
also tasted the bitter, lonely fruit of disunity -- and we know how precious and fragile
unity is
...
It isn't quick fix
...
It begins with the desire to center our lives on correct principles, to break
out of the paradigms created by other centers and the comfort zones of unworthy habits
...
But if we start with the Daily Private
Victory and work from the Inside-Out, the results will surely come
...

Again, I quote Emerson: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier -- not that the
nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased
...
for ourselves, and for our posterity
...
I believe that correct principles are
natural laws, and that God, the Creator and Father of us all, is the source of them, and
also the source of our conscience
...

I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation
or education, but require the power of God to deal with
...
To the degree to which we align ourselves with correct
principles, divine endowments will be released within our nature in enabling us to fulfill
the measure of our creation
...
We are spiritual beings having a human experience
...
But the struggle is
worthwhile and fulfilling
...


207

Again, T
...
Eliot expresses so beautifully my own personal discovery and conviction:
"We must not cease from exploration
...
"

208

Appendix
Appendix A
Possible Perceptions Flowing out of Various Center
These are alternative ways you may tend to perceive other areas of your lif
**
If your center is Spouse
...

FAMILY: Good in its place
...
A common project
...

WORK: Necessary to earn money to care for spouse
...


**
If your center is Family
...

FAMILY: The highest priority
...

WORK: A means to an end
...


**
If your center is Money
...

FAMILY: Economic drain
...

WORK: Necessary to the acquisition of money
...


**
If your center is Work
...

FAMILY: Help or interruption to work
...

MONEY: Of secondary importance
...

WORK: Main source of fulfillment and satisfaction
...

POSSESSIONS: Tools to increase work effectiveness
...


**
If your center is Possessions
...
Assistant in acquiring possessions
...
Showcase
...
Another possession to control
...

POSSESSIONS: Status symbols
...

SPOUSE: Companion in fun and pleasure or obstacle to it
...

MONEY: Means to increase opportunities for pleasure
...
"Fun" work OK
...
Means to more fun
...

SPOUSE: Possible friend or possible competitor
...

FAMILY: Friends or obstacle to developing friendships
...

WORK: Social opportunity
...
Means of entertaining or providing social
pleasure
...

PLEASURE: Mutual, unifying activity or unimportant
...
Only friends are "our" friends
...

CHURCH: Activity to enjoy together
...

SELF: Self-worth is spouse based
...

PRINCIPLES: ideas which create and maintain relationship with spouse
...

PLEASURE: Family activities or relatively unimportant
...
Threat to strong family life
...
Source of family strength and unity
...

CHURCH: Source of help
...
Subordinate to family
...

**
If your center is Money
...

FRIENDS: Chosen because of economic status or influence
...
Threat to economic security
...
Hand in your pocket
...

PRINCIPLES: Ways that work in making and managing money
...

PLEASURE: Waste of time
...

FRIENDS: Developed from work setting or shared interest
...

ENEMIES: Obstacles to work productivity
...
Imposition on your time
...

SELF: Defined by job role
...
Need to adapt to work
conditions
...

PLEASURE: Buying, shopping, joining clubs
...
Usable
...
Others with more possessions or recognition
...
Source of unfair criticism or good things in life
...
Defined by social status, recognition
...

**
If your center is Pleasure
...

FRIENDS: Companions in fun
...
Guilt trippers, destroyers
...
Guilt trip
...

PRINCIPLES: Natural drives and instincts which need to be satisfied
...

PLEASURE: Enjoyed always with friends
...

FRIENDS: Critical to personal happiness
...

ENEMIES: Outside the social circle
...

CHURCH: Place for social gathering
...
Afraid of embarrassment or rejection
...

**

211

This is the way you may tend to perceive other areas of your life
...

FRIEND OR PLEASURE: Rest and relaxation time before the next battle
...
Possibly defined by
common
enemy
...
Source of personal problems
...

CHURCH: Source of self-justification
...
Immobilized by enemy
...
Source of your enemy's wrongness
...

FRIEND OR PLEASURE: "Innocent" pleasures as an opportunity to gather with other
church members
...

ENEMY OR FRIENDS: Other members of the church
...

CHURCH: Highest priority
...

SELF: Self-worth is determined by activity in the church, contributions to the church, or
performance of deeds that reflect the church ethic
...
Subordinate to the church
...

FRIEND OR PLEASURE: Deserved sensate satisfactions
...
" "My needs
...

ENEMIES: Source of self-definition, self-justification
...

SELF: Better, smarter, more right
...

PRINCIPLES: Source of justification
...

**
If your center is Principles
...
True
re-creation as an important part of a balanced integrated life-style
...
Confidants -- those to
share with, serve, and support
...

CHURCH: Vehicle for true principles
...

SELF: One unique, talented, creative individual in the midst of many unique, talented,
creative individuals who, working independently and interdependently, can accomplish
great things
...
When
honored, preserve integrity and thus lead to true growth and happiness
...

Suppose that you are the director of marketing for a major pharmaceutical firm
...

Your unprioritized list includes the following:
1
...

2
...

3
...

4
...

5
...

6
...

7
...

8
...

9
...

10
...
M
...

Take a few minutes now and use what you have learned from Habits 1, 2, and 3 that
might help you to effectively schedule your day
...
But you will be able to see the power of Quadrant II,
principle-centered paradigm even in the context of one nine-hour period of time
It is fairly obvious that most of the items on the list are Quadrant I activities
...

If you were a third-generation time manager, using prioritized values and goals, you
would have a framework for making such scheduling decisions and would perhaps
assign a letter such as A, B, or C next to each item and then number 1, 2, 3 under each A,
B, and C
...
Finally, based on
all of these factors, you would schedule the day
...
They schedule when they will do what, and based on various
assumptions which are made and explicitly identified, they would accomplish or at least
begin most of the items in that day and push the remainder onto the next day or to some
other time
...
M
...
They usually plan to spend the next hour or two talking to the
sales manager, handling those correspondence items which are most important and
urgent, and checking out the rumor regarding the last batch of product X which
apparently didn't pass quality control
...
M
...

After lunch, the afternoon is usually spent attending to the unfinished matters just
mentioned and/or attempting to finish the other most important and urgent
correspondence, making some headway into the overflowing "IN" basket, and handling
other important and urgent items that may have come up during the course of the day
...
Both of those are obviously
more Quadrant II activities, having to do with long-term thinking and planning
...

What approach did you take as you scheduled those items? Was it similar to the thirdgeneration approach? Or did you take a Quadrant II, fourth-generation approach? (refer
to the Time Management Matrix on page 151)
...
This is only one
possible scenario; others could be created, which may also be consistent with the
Quadrant II paradigm, but this is illustrative of the kind of thinking it embodies
...
You would know that the only way to make
Quadrant I manageable is to give considerable attention to Quadrant II, primarily by
working on prevention and opportunity and by having the courage to say "no" to
Quadrants III and IV
...
M
...
We will assume the 2 P
...
executive board meeting did not
have an agenda for the attending executives, or perhaps you would not see the agenda
until you arrived at the meeting
...
As a result, people tend to come
unprepared and to "shoot from the hip
...
These meetings generally result
in wasted time and inferior results and are often little more than an ego trip for the
executive in charge
...
" Because
"work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion" in accordance with Parkinson's
Law, there usually isn't time to discuss them
...

So you might move into Quadrant II by first attempting to get yourself on the agenda so
that you can make a presentation regarding how to optimize the value of executive board
meetings
...
This presentation
would focus on the importance of always having a clearly specified purpose for each
meeting and a well-thought-out agenda to which each person at the meeting has had the
opportunity to contribute
...

The presentation would also stress the importance of having minutes sent out
immediately following the meeting, specifying assignments given and dates of
accountability
...

Now this is what might be done by looking at one item on the schedule -- the 2 P
...

executive board meeting -- through a Quadrant II frame of reference
...
It also requires consideration in order to
avoid the kind of crisis atmosphere that often surrounds a board meeting
...

Returning the FDA call
...
This might be difficult to delegate, since another organization is involved
that may have a Quadrant I culture and an individual who wants you, and not some
delegatee, to respond
...
If you
find the nature of the problem uncovered in the phone call is persistent or chronic, then
you may approach it from a Quadrant II mentality in an effort to prevent such problems
in the future
...

Lunch with the general manager
...
This may also take 30 to 60 minutes in the morning to adequately
prepare for, or you may simply decide to have a good social interaction and listen
carefully, perhaps without any plan at all
...


215

Preparing the media budget
...
This may
take a full hour sometime during the day -- to go over desired results, guidelines,
resources, accountability, and consequences
...
If you haven't
taken this approach before, you may need to spend more time to train them in what this
approach involves, what "completed staff work" means, how to synergize around
differences and what identifying alternative options and consequences involves
...
Instead of diving into the "IN" basket, you would
spend some time, perhaps 30 to 60 minutes, beginning a training process with your
secretary so that he or she could gradually become empowered to handle the "IN" basket
as well as the correspondence under item number five
...

Your secretary could be trained to go through all correspondence items and all "IN"
basket items, to analyze them and to handle as many as possible
...
In this way, within a few months
your secretary or executive assistant could hand 80 to 90 percent of all the "IN" basket
items and correspondence, often much better than you could handle them yourself,
simply because your mind is so focused on Quadrant II opportunities instead of buried in
Quadrant I problems
...
A possible Quadrant II approach to item
number four would be to think through the entire relationship and performance
agreement with that sales manager to see if the Quadrant II approach is being used
...

Possibly you could train your secretary to handle the matter without your involvement
and bring to your attention only that which you need to be aware of
...
They can
begin to understand that they can actually solve the problem better with your secretary
than with you, and free you for Quadrant II leadership activity
...

Catching up on medical journals
...
But your own long-term professional competence and confidence
may largely be a function of staying abreast of this literature
...

Members of the staff could study different journals and teach the rest the essence of what

216

they learn at future staff meetings
...

Preparing for next month's sales meeting
...
You
could assign them to bring a completed staff work recommendation to you be a specified
date within a week or 10 days, giving you enough time to adapt it and have it
implemented
...

Rather than prepare the sales meeting yourself, you could delegate that task to a small
group of people who represent different points of view and different kinds of sales
problems
...
If they are not used to this kind of assignment, you may spend some of
that meeting challenging and training them, teaching them why you are using this
approach and how it will benefit them as well
...

Product "X" and quality control
...
The Quadrant II approach would be to study that
problem to see if it has a chronic or persistent dimension to it
...

The net effect of this Quadrant II day at the office is that you are spending most of your
time delegating, training, preparing a board presentation, making one phone call, and
having a productive lunch
...

As you go through this analysis, you may be thinking this approach seems idealistic
...
I admit it is
idealistic
...
And to be highly effective is an ideal to work toward
...
Even the best-laid plans in Quadrant II
sometimes aren't realized
...

Undoubtedly it will take considerable patience and persistence, and you may not be able
to take a Quadrant II approach to all or even most of these items at this time
...

Again, I acknowledge that in a family setting or a small business setting, such delegation
may not be possible
...


Sky, Land, River

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