The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a business and self-help book written by Stephen Covey. Covey presents an approach to be effective in achieving goals by aligning with what he calls “true north” principles based on an ethics of character that he presents as universal and timeless.
Covey defines effectiveness as the balance of obtaining desirable results with the care of what produces those results. Illustrate this by referring to the fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs. It also states that effectiveness can be expressed in terms of the P / PC relationship, where P refers to obtaining the desired results and PC is concerned about what produces the results.
Author | Stephen R. Covey |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Self-help |
Publisher | Free Press |
Publication date | 1989 |
Media type | |
Pages | 381 |
ISBN | 0-7432-6951-9 |
OCLC | 56413718 |
Dewey Decimal | 158 22 |
LC Class | BF637.S8 C68 2004 |
Followed by | The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness |
Book Summary
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, and principles-centered approach to solving personal and professional problems. With insightful ideas and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step way to live with equity, integrity, service, and human dignity, principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of opportunities created by change.
Book Review
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change pioneered when it was first published in 1990 and remains a bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for better performance in both areas. His anecdotes are as frequent of family situations as of commercial challenges. Before he can adopt the seven habits, he must achieve what Covey calls a “paradigm shift”: a change in the perception and interpretation of how the world works. Covey takes him through this change, which affects the way he perceives and acts with respect to productivity, time management, positive thinking, the development of his “proactive muscles” (acting with initiative instead of reacting), and much more. This is not a kind of quick tips book to start tomorrow. The concepts are sometimes complex, and you will want to study this book, not read it. When you finish, you probably have Post-it notes or handwritten notes in each chapter, and you will feel that you have taken a powerful Covey seminar.
Adaptations
Sean Covey, Stephen’s son, has written a version of the teen book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, which simplifies the 7 habits for younger readers to make them easier to understand. In September 2006, Sean Covey published The 6 Most Important Decisions He Will Make in His Life, a guide for teens, which highlights key moments in a teenager’s life and provides advice on how to deal with them. In September 2008, Covey published The 7 Habits of Happy Children, a children’s book illustrated by Stacy Curtis that further simplifies the 7 habits for children and teaches them through stories featuring anthropomorphic animal characters.
About The Author
Recognized as one of Time magazine’s twenty-five most influential Americans, Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) was an internationally respected leadership authority, family expert, teacher, organizational consultant, and author. His books have sold more than twenty-five million copies in thirty-eight languages, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was named the #1 Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century. After receiving an MBA from Harvard and a doctorate degree from Brigham Young University, he became the co-founder and vice-chairman of FranklinCovey, a leading global training firm.