KARDAN UNIVERSITY

MAJOR ASSIGNMENT

7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE

A summary of bestselling book by Stephen R. Covey

Name: Hamed
Registration #: 912-1709041
Semester: Fall 2018
Subject Name: Advanced Professional Development
Day of Class: Tuesday
Lecturer: Mr. Atiqullah Rahimi
Submission Date: 04-Feb-2019
Contents
Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 1
What is habit? ......................................................................................................................................... 2
What is effectiveness?............................................................................................................................. 3
Private victory ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Habit 1: Be Proactive – Principle of Personal Visio ............................................................................... 5
Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind TM .............................................................................................. 7
Habit 3 - Put first things first TM – Principles of personal management ............................................... 9
Public Victory ....................................................................................................................................... 12
Habit 4 – Think win/win TM ................................................................................................................ 14
Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood TM ........................................................... 15
Habit 6 – Synergize TM ........................................................................................................................ 16
Habit 7 – Sharpen the saw TM ............................................................................................................. 18
Reference .............................................................................................................................................. 21
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Seven Habits of highly effective people

Overview
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People are so fundamental that they are not only
applicable on individuals but they can also be employed in all aspects of life such as
marriages, families, businesses like private or public organization of any kind. If we want to
bring small reform in any of the aspects mentioned above, then we have to get on to our
behaviour and attitude but if we want to bring a mighty and striking improvement then we
need to shift our paradigm, our way of thinking or change our entire map. Albert Einstein
declared “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we
were at when we created them.”

Paradigm is a scientific term which means the way we see the world, the way we observe our
universe or the way we view our role. For instance you are in a subway in a rather quite
morning and it is filled with no more than one third of its capacity. Passengers are quietly
sitting or some are reading newspaper. Now, understand the feelings of others and project
your comprehension into the scene. Suddenly a man with a large group of his children gets
into the subway and his children with their so loud and so noisy voice yelling back and forth,
throwing things and taking passengers’ newspaper changes the entire climate inside the
subway. In addition, his father despite witnessing how everyone is disturbed, doing nothing
to control his children’s behaviour. After noticing this scene everyone of us will find the
entire situation irritating and disturbing or maybe one of us raise voice and say to their father
that his children are bothering and disturbing a lot of people in order to control them. Now
suppose his father replies by lowering his gaze that they just came from the hospital and his
children mother just died an hour ago so he really doesn’t know what to think and what to do.
Now after coming the consciousness of the situation everyone of us sees the entire situation
differently and our behaviour flows from what we initially intended to something like being
sorry to that person and show sympathy and helpfulness. Therefore, our attitude and
behaviour are a function of our paradigm which means how we see the situation, how we
interpret of what happens to us however it is not the reality but our interpretation out of the
scene that we see.

The key to any situation or state of our lives is to speculate about the lenses of our glasses,
our maps that we are looking through, our paradigms in order to reframe the whole situation
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so that we can interpret it in the new light. We are on essential improvement path, if we can
absorb to get a better map or paradigm.

These seven basic habits represent each a paradigm shift from the traditional way of thinking
from the popular patterns in society to a new level of thinking, role and map.

The Seven Habits shift us all over the following stages:

- Dependence: the pattern under which we are born, counting upon others to take care
of us.
- Independence: way of thinking under which we can make our own decisions and take
care of ourselves.
- Interdependence: the paradigm under which we collaborate to gain something that
cannot be achieved independently.

First let’s understand what a habit is.

What is habit?
It is our habits that form our temper and in the long run reflects our personality or character.
As our thoughts form our action, our action forms habits, our habits reflect our character and
finally our character makes our destiny.
As Dr. Covey has mentioned “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People “ are based on
principles, ideas that seem to make sense to most human beings regardless of social
conditioning. Thus a habit is a principle or idea one’s embody or in another words a principle
internalized by an individual. For example in any business one major principle can be to
value the customer and put all the efforts and approaches in business to satisfy the customer.
Therefore when we embody this principle, we put all our efforts on what to do, how to do and
willingness to do in order to achieve the goal and that is what called a habit. Thus a habit is
the meeting point of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do) and desire (willing or the want
to do). To make something a habit in our lives, we have to have a convergence of all these
three dimensions. If one lacks then it is not a habit.

To breakthrough a new face of personal and interpersonal effectiveness, we must work on all
these three elements. Even though at the initial stages, it is a very hard and painful process
but to attain contentment at the end, we need to subordinate what we are thinking now.
As Horace Mann, the great educator, once said, "Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand
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of it everyday and soon it cannot be broken however, Stephen R. Covey is not agreed with
the last part of his statement. He believes that it can be broken. As habits can be learned and
unlearned. In addition, he also believes that it cannot be fixed quickly as it involves a process
and a tremendous commitment. In order to bring the fruit in ripe, we need to plant it in
spring, water it, weed it, cultivate it and fertilize it during the summer.

The process of breaking and embedded habitual tendency can be exemplified in Apollo moon
trip put on by NASA. The rocket launch at the initial minutes required a tremendous amount
of energy to break out the gravity pull of the earth and the atmosphere surrounding the earth
than energy required over the next several days to travel half a million miles. Habits also
have a dramatic gravity pull and it initially requires an enormous amount of effort to
breakthrough. But ones we break then our freedom adopt a whole new dimension filled with
relaxation and comfort.

Like any natural force, gravity pull not only works against us but it can also work with us.
Some of our habits gravity pull restrain us from going where we want to go but it is also
gravity pull that holds the planets in their circle and our universe in best regulation. Therefore
if we use this gravity pull of our habits efficaciously, we can make the cohesiveness and
order necessary to maintain effectiveness in our lives.

What is effectiveness?
The very simple definition for the effectiveness is the P/PC balance where P stands for
production of desired result and PC stands for production of capability. This principle can be
easily understood by reminding the fable of goose and the golden egg written by Aesop
where there is a farmer who is really down in his luck, down in his spirit and totally poor and
one day he comes across his pet goose with a glittering golden egg on his side. At first he
thrilled but then he instantly guessed someone has tricked him so he thought it something
bogus and throw it into the bushes around but on the second thought he decided to appraise
and test it instead and luckily he figures out that the egg is of pure gold. He could not believe
this windfall and his luck. The next day he finds another one and the same thing goes on and
on everyday and this impoverished farmer not only soon becomes wealthy but also impatient.
He wanted all the golden eggs at once without wanting to rush to the nest everyday and
collect the gold one by one so out of his greediness and impatience, he chops off the goose
head and opens it to get all but unfortunately he not only finds none but destroyed the goose
that produced them. This story teaches us that real effectiveness is a function of two things:
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production (the golden egg) and producing asset or capacity or capability to produce (the
goose).
There are mainly three assets; they physical, the financial and the human which is obviously
not only true in business but are true in the families and relationships as well. The balance
between the production and these producing assets is what called effectiveness.
For more illustration of a physical asset, let’s consider a lawn mower which is used over and
over again without doing any maintenance on it. It will definitely work well for a limited
period of time but then it will slowly begin to paralyse until it essentially becomes worthless.
The lack of investment on the PC in preserving and maintaining the asset will cause us to
stop enjoying its P and now we have to spend far more time and money to replace the mower
than if we had spent to maintain and preserve it so in the desire of our short-term outputs, we
often ruin a valuable physical asset. Keeping P and PC in balance makes a remarkable
difference in the effective use of a physical asset. Furthermore, our most important financial
asset is our own capacity to earn. If we don't continually invest in improving our own PC, we
severely limit our options. We're locked into our present situation, running scared of our
corporation or our boss's opinion of us, economically dependent and defensive. Again, it
simply isn't effective. In the human area, the P/PC Balance is equally fundamental, but even
more important, because people control physical and financial assets. Let’s take our marriage
into consideration. Do we make consistent deposits in that relationship? Most important
relationship probably we will have throughout our life along with our children. It is the
emotional bank account. Emotional bank account is like financial bank account in which we
make deposit and we can take withdraws and if we make many deposits in that relationship
the trust level goes higher and higher and the nature of the communication becomes very soft,
effortless, easy and gentle and instantaneous. How many of us have such emotional bank
account with someone to communicate with them almost without words. But if the trust level
is low it doesn’t make any difference how eloquent we may be, how clear we may be, how
skilled we are in communication technique. The essence of the relationship is the trust level;
the emotional bank account that is PC on relationships that is the goose. Same can be
exemplified in the business; the quality of relationship in business, the quality of relationship
with a customer. How does a customer perceive our business, perceive our product and
services? Is there a high degree of trust toward integrity of our claims? Do they come to us
again and again and again? Is the customer pulled towards our product or services without
giving them a push at all.
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The P/PC Balance is the very essence of effectiveness. It's validated in every arena of life.
We can work with it or against it, but it's there. It's a lighthouse. It's the definition and
paradigm of effectiveness upon which the Seven Habits in this book are based.

Private victory
The first three habits which are simply about taking full self-responsibility including being
initiative, decide what we want and live by what you want and do it is all the habits of private
victory which is also referred as inside-out approach to life as these first three habits focuses
on one’s inner-self first and removal and limitations of those forces and factors which acts as
barrier in our own life before we attempt to become effective in our public relationships with
others. Therefore, the first three habits precede the next three habits which lead us from
dependency to independency. The best way to succeed in the long run is by mastering
ourselves and then it will be the time to be effective with others and even influence and lead
others.

Habit 1: Be Proactive – Principle of Personal Visio

In very simple words, proactive means to take initiative and take responsibility and get out of
blaming circumstances, conditions or conditioning for our own behaviour. If we concentrate
on the word responsibility itself, in fact it is taken from response-ability; ability to choose our
response. Effective people are proactive that is they take responsibility. Their behaviour is a
product of their own decisions and ability to choose responses at any situation based on
values rather than being a product of their conditions, environment or others based on
feelings, moods or thoughts. It is all about being in charge of oneself. It separates us from the
animal world as soon as we give a think about these think. Proactive means to subordinate
feelings, moods or thoughts to value. Everyone of us is accountable for our own life. If any of
us is successful in our life, it is only because of us and if any of us is struggling in our life,
only we are responsible for it. Proactive people concentrate on the things that they can
actually do something about. They do not inflict boundaries on themselves that stops them
from acting. They may not be able to manage their happenings, but they can decide whether
to use those occurrences or be abused by them. Proactive people take initiative to act in the
sphere of the possibility rather than being acted upon. The always have positive energy which
they constantly enlarge and magnify and cause their circle of Influence to increase within
their circle of concern.
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For instance we are planning a picnic with our family and we have taken all the necessary
preparation and planned the places to visit and the activities and entertainments to perform
and we are so excited about it but all of a sudden the weather becomes stormy and it ruins our
entire plan.
Now in such a circumstance, proactive people realize what their purpose really is and they
creatively have a picnic elsewhere and make the best of situation. They carry their own
weather within themselves.
On the contrary to proactivity, there is reactivity. Reactive people in a situation like above
would say we can’t do anything or yelling with the whole spirit of negativism not only tends
to pervade to his/her own mind but also the family. If we determine our lives are a function of
our conditions; it is because we have either consciously decided or chosen by default to
authorise those things to have control over us. We become reactive in making such a choice.
There are mainly three types of determinism accepted broadly, independently or in
combination, to explain the nature of human beings.
Genetic determinism which essentially blames your genetics for having short temper such by
saying, it is in your DNA as one of your ancestors had short tempers so you inherited it from
them and it just goes through the generations or by saying you are an Afghan and that is the
nature of Afghan people.

Psychic determinism substantially says your parents are responsible for your behaviour as
they did it to you. Your upbringing, your childhood experience essentially revealed your
personal tendencies and your character structure. That's why you feel nervous to be in front
of a group. It's the way your upbringing is done by your parents.

Environmental determinism basically blames any other external factor in the environment for
your particular behaviour such as your boss is doing to you, your spouse, your economic
situation or national policies.

The language of reactive people or the people who are determined by the environment or by
their conditions or by their conditioning or their genetic makeup is I can’t do it. It is my
nature and don’t have time etc. The whole spirit of that language is to transfer responsibility.
People who believe their determinism will produce the evidence to support their believes and
increasingly feel victimized and out of control. They are not in charge of their life or their
destiny at all. They are always in the blaming things outside.
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In general, they are just responding directly to stimulus however, between stimulus and
response, human beings unlike animals have the freedom to choose because of self-awareness
(the ability to control thoughts), imagination (the ability to mentally create a new reality),
independent will (the ability to act on the thoughts) and conscience (an inner awareness of
right and wrong). This is the reason why human beings have reign over all things in the world
and why they can make significant advances from generation to generation. In order to make
proactivity as our habit we need to try this exercise for 30 days:

1) We need to work and concentrate only in our smaller circle of influence within our circle
of concern where we have control over it such as education; hobbies, health, spirituality etc.
then we gradually can extent our influence area.
2) We should attempt by making small commitments to ourselves and others, and keep put all
efforts to keep them;
3) We have to be a light, not a judge; be a model, not a critic; be the solution, not the
problem.
If we are thinking that some important problem are out there in our life somewhere then we
should stop ourselves as This thought is itself in nature the problem.

Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind TM

To begin with the end in mind is all about having a clear vision of our destination or in other
words, it aims at knowing where we are going in order to have a better understanding of
where we are now so that we always take the proper steps towards the right direction.

Based on this principle everything has two creation stages. At first stage the creation is done
mentally either by endowment of one’s own imagination and conscience or as a result of
external forces and pressures if we lack self-awareness and proactivity which means either to
write our own script of life or as reactive person, live the scripts others have written for us or
become a subject to the conditioning of other people, society and our afflictive habits and the
second stage of creation is the physical creation.

Begin with the end in mind is all about personal leadership principle which is a top line focus
and it means doing the right things and it is not management which is a bottom line focus and
in general means doing the things right. As management is all dealing with the efficiency in
climbing the success ladder, leadership ascertains whether the ladder is leaning against the
correct wall or not. Even if people climb as fast and persistent as they desire but they will
never reach at the right place thus they will never achieve true success. Therefore, a leader is
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required who first analyse the entire situation, various walls and observe what is on top and
on the other side and then specify which wall to lean the ladder against. For instance, in
clearing a jungle, managers are the ones who direct the workers, sharpening their saws, equip
them with improved technology, carrying out muscle development program for the worker,
setting up working schedules to improve the workers efficiency and productivity however,
leaders are the one who climbs the tallest tree and visualizing the situation and shouting
“Wrong Jungle”. Effectiveness and as well as efficiency is not only depended on how hard
we are trying, in fact, initially we have to understand whether we are in the right jungle or
not. Therefore, management success cannot compensate the failure in leadership.

To begin with the end in mind is to start by drafting a personal mission statement that
manifests what we want to be (character) and to do (achievement) based on certain values
and principles. This personal mission statement will reflect the uniqueness of each individual
both in content and form. Once we have a greater purpose then we become the essence of our
own proactivity. In order to write a personal mission statement, we must start by
concentrating on the centre of our circle of influence within our circle of our concern. This
centre is consisted of our most fundamental paradigms, our map, our vision, our values and
principles, the endowment of our self-awareness to assure that our paradigms are based on
reality, our conscious endowment to detect our talents, our imagination endowment to
mentally create what we want and give direction and purpose to our life. Our life centre will
be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom and power.

Security shows how we perceive our self-worth, our identity, our emotional tendency and
self-respect.
Guidance is the direction source which guides us in decision making based on inner sets of
standards and criteria.

Wisdom is our life outlook, sense of balance, and understanding of how numerous parts and
principles apply and relate to each other.

Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength or potency to accomplish something. It is
consisted of the capacity to dominate over deeply implanted habits and to till higher and more
effective ones.

A combination of all these three factors at the same time builds the great force of an
honourable personality, a moderate character, an attractively integrated individual.
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Everyone of us has a personal centre or core paradigms through which our life flows. Such as
spouse centeredness, family centeredness, money centeredness, work centeredness,
possession centeredness, pleasure centeredness, friend centeredness, enemy centeredness,
church centeredness, self-centeredness. None of these centres are ideal or optimal for
increasing our effectiveness as a person. Instead we should strive to be principle-centred.
Principles are not reactive as they are not influenced by the moods of others, the economics,
don’t scream at us nor bring us flowers. Principles are omnipresent. This centeredness gives
the power to us which are determined with your degree of knowledge and Meta awareness.
A principle centred person tries to stand detached from an emotionally charged situation and
evaluates the options. Focusing on the balancing of whole works which he/she gives
importance in his/her life, such as the family needs and other needs that may be involved. He
puts his efforts to triumph with the best solution. He proactively chooses what he thinks to be
the right alternative.

He feels relaxed about the decision and whatever he selects to perform; he can concentrate on
it and enjoy it. A principle centred person has a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom
and power that flows from a solid, unchanging core and also has the foundation of a highly
proactive and highly effective life.

To achieve something worthwhile we need to take the following action steps to begin with
end in mind and follow our destination and purpose.

- Become the leader of our own life (Determine what do we want to accomplish or
what do we want to be remembered for.
- Identify where our centre of paradigms lays which means where we draw our sense of
security, guidance, wisdom and power.
- Rescript our paradigms based on our values and purpose. Determine whether
something is helping us or not.
- Write a personal mission statement using visualisation to give ourselves a role map to
follow

Habit 3 - Put first things first TM – Principles of personal management

Habit 3 is all about prioritization of our tasks associated with efficient management of time
by focusing more on relationship rather than just schedules and concentrate on principles
rather than values. It is the second creation which is the physical creation. In fact it is the
fulfilment and actualization of first two habits as in habit 1 we are taught that we are the
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programmer while habit 2 says to write our own program. Here habit 3 tells us to run or
execute the programme we have written. It is the habit of climbing the ladder after it is leaned
against the right wall. While being in the wrong jungle does not make any sense however,
when we are in the right jungle, then it is the effective and efficient management that
determines quality and even the existence of second creation. It is the exercising of showing
tendency toward becoming a principle-centred.

Let’s have a look at one example which will illustrate what we really mean by first things
first. Suppose there is a jar and a number of rocks and pebbles with various sizes and you are
requested to fill that jar with all these rocks and pebbles. Now the only possible way is to put
the big rocks first and gradually the second big ones and eventually the pebbles. If you
attempt starting from pebbles then it will not be possible for big rocks to fit in the jar.
The size of each rock represents the highly importance of something in our life and those
pebbles represents those small issues in our life.
Now list 5 or 6 things which are the most important thing for us in life whether it is
relationship, marriage, family, health, spirituality, etc. after listing prioritize them which is
the toughest part of the thinking process which is called prioritization. Now after
prioritization it is time for physical creation which means it is the time to climb the proper
ladder efficiently by giving your time, effort and managerial skill to get into heart of this
paradigm.
Put first thing first can be planned based on 4 quadrants which is a time management system
that is recommended which helps us do that. We basically spend our time on four different
ways. Being urgent and important are the two factors that define an activity. Urgent is an
activity that comes from the environment and it presses upon us and as soon as it appears, it
requires our immediate attention it has to be done as soon as possible. It might be because it
just takes a few moments to finish or because we have been postponing it and now there is
not much time left to finish the task. Responding a call of the friend or studying for a test that
you have tomorrow are a simple examples of an urgent task. Important is something that
comes within us. It is our value system based on principles. In fact it is our mission. It is our
central strategy to accomplish those high priority goals and plans to implement that strategy.
It is directly related to our long-term goals. The task is important if it gets you near your
biggest goals and closer to the person that we want to be in the future.

Quadrant 1 includes both urgent and important goals. Life focus on this quadrant is usually
full of stress since the deadlines and pressing problems are always coming and in this
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quadrant the things to do are very urgent and also important that is why the people who have
their lives focused on these activities are continuously working to solve crisis and respond to
deadlines. They become consumed by these quadrant activities since problems are always
appearing one after another and when they have a free time they usually spend it trying to
make themselves forget about their routine activities to relax and waste time.

Another way we spend our time is in quadrant 3 activities which are urgent but not important.
The main reason the people spend the majority of their time in quadrant 3 activities is the
lack of clearly defined long term goals. If you didn’t take time to find your aspirations in life
and the activities related to them you are more likely to spend your time working on average
task that are popular, pressing and appears in front of you. If all you have is a short term
focus you’ll be constantly reacting to things that are urgent but not important and you will be
constantly changing your mind in what you really want to have or do.

Quadrant 4 activities are also related with lack of purpose in life this can be symbolized by
those small pebbles in the jar. The activities here are neither urgent nor important. They
appear time wasters and provide no meaningful value with time. One of the reason that
people move to quadrant 4 is that they are more pressed and beaten up in quadrant one by
urgent and important goals.

People who spend time in almost exclusively in quadrants 3 and 4 basically lead irresponsible
lives. Effective people stay out of quadrant 3 and 4 because urgent or not, they are not
important.

Quadrant 2 activities are the ones you want to spend your time with they can be symbolized
by those big rocks of the jar. They are important but not urgent. They are directly related with
the things you want the most in life and they usually take time to achieve. It deals with things
like your spiritual life, building relationships, preparation, mission statement, prevention,
planning, empowerment, your physical health and other long range planning. All seven habits
are in quadrant 2. As we have to be proactive to act on quadrant 2 as quadrant 3 and 4 acts on
us. Habit 2 to begin in mind in also in quadrant two as it is not urgent to develop a mission
statement. Nothing is pressing us to do it urgently in fact we are proactively acting.

In quadrant 1, deadline and emergencies will always appear and we all occasionally spent
time with quadrant 3 and 4 activities that is why to be able to find time to work on your
quadrant 2 activities you have to be proactive enough to reduce and necessarily say no to
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other less important tasks. Keep in mind that you are always saying no to something if you
reason to apparent urgent things in your life it is probably to the more fundamental highly
important things. Being effective is managing to get these important things done. Organize
your goals to the week ahead gives you a broader view compare to daily planning and making
your goals more quadrant 2 focused will help you manage your time effectively and you can
do it when you have a burning yes inside us about our mission, purpose and the value system.

Six step process.

Step 1: connect to your mission or in other word connect to your overall philosophy or
connect to what your life is about, your vision to your life, how you see yourself, the kind of
contribution, the kind of character and the value system hopefully centred upon principles.
You connect to that first as everything is first connected to that. That is where you have the
burning inside about what your life is about that gives you the courage to say no to quadrant 3
and 4 particularly 3 because there are so much social value system driving quadrant 3 and it
takes an enormous amount of courage.

Step 2: reviewing your roles: it outlines your whole life around roles which basically means
relationships. Study the roles that you have in your life, study what you put down. You
probably put down the roles that you have with your family, the key roles that you have in
your work, as well as our social roles, our community roles.

Step 3: Identify goals: now it is the time to set up goals around each of those roles.
Step 4: Organize weekly: then you organize weekly why not daily because if daily then we by
definition we are in quadrant 1becuase if we organize on daily basis then we are dealing with
urgencies.
Step 5: Exercise integrity: if you educated your consciousness and principles you will have
the inward sense, you will adapt instantly to integrity. Organize weekly using integrity at the
moment of choice

Step 6: Evaluate: you stand back and reflect how it is going roles, goals, execute around

Public Victory
This includes the next three habits which leads us from independency to interdependency and
only on a well-built foundation of independency, we can develop an effective
interdependency. That means that private victory lead up to public victory. In addition,
interdependency is a selection only made by independent individuals. As the habits of public
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victory is all about building effective relationship with others, the most important thing in any
relationship is to be always you and show off your true personality rather than just agreeing
with someone only for the sake of fitting.
Interdependency is like an emotional bank account where we deposit with courtesy, honesty,
kindness, openness and keeping commitment as any little form of disrespect will lead to a
major withdrawal. We need to make deposit into our emotional bank account by considering
six significant factors.
1- Understanding the individual: understanding the individual for the sake of making a
deposit on him is of utmost importance as what we consider a deposit would not be
considered a deposit by that individual or it might be seen as withdrawal to that
individual. For instance, going out with someone for a walk or drive in order make an
initial deposit in building a relationship with him/her, does not mean that he/she also
like to go for a walk or drive and consider it as deposit.
2- Attending to little things. In most relationship and accompanies, little things are often
big things for instance, showing kindness, smile, sincerity is all those little things that
matters most in any form of relationship and associations. On the other hand, any
form of small insolence will lead to a major withdrawal.
3- Keeping commitments: As people’s hopes orbits around promises so standing firm on
one’s word is a significant in deposit in building an effective relationship with others.
On the contrary breaking a promise is considered as a major withdrawal for the
emotional bank account.
4- Clarifying expectations: inconsistent, implicit or obscure expectation results in many
problems and leads to misconceptions, disappointment and trust withdrawal. Thus it is
essential to make all the expectations explicit in any form of relationship before it
leads to misconception, personality conflict and communication breakdown.
5- Showing personal integrity: Integrity is the foundation of various sorts of deposits
while absence of integrity fiddles away all other endeavours of making deposits. As
honesty is coordinating our words to reality, integrity means to bring reality to our
words by standing firm on our words and actualize expectations.
6- Apologizing sincerely when you make a withdrawal: it needs a huge character
strength and effort to apologize from depth of heart rather than out of pity.
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Habit 4 – Think win/win TM

The most impressive manner to deal with other people is to form a win/win relationship
which centralizes most on results, not methods. The substantial paradigms of human
interaction are:

1- Win/Win: A win-win approach is a careful exploration of both your own position,

and that of your opposite number, in order to reach to a mutually acceptable
conclusion that satisfies you both as much as possible. If you both walk away content
with what you've achieved from the deal, then that's a win/win.
2- Win/Lose: This term refers to a distributive approach whereby one party’s gain is
another party’s loss by involving the use of power, position, authority, credential and
personality.
3- Lose/Win: It is an unassertive and cooperative approach. It is the opposites of
win/lose paradigm where one party sacrifices the fulfilment of his or her own needs in
order to satisfy the needs of another person or a group. This approach tends to avoid a
disruption.
4- Lose/Lose: It is a bitter an adversarial approach as the interacted parties extremely
dislike each other and they are not interested in winning. Instead, they may seek to
maximize the losses of the other party even by hurting his/her own interests.
5- Win: it is a selfish approach where we are focusing only on one’s own interests and
showing weak or no desire to take into account other’s desires.
6- Win/Win-or-No-Deal: The other closest option as effective as win/win approach is the
no deal approach. It basically refers to a general agreement to disagree agreeably
especially when both sides are heading to different directions.

Habit 4 generally focusing on a mutual and beneficial cooperation. This is the basic
principle to a successful interaction.

The habit of win/win thinking can be formed on five following dimensions.

1- Character: we must build three significant character traits in order to gain the win/win
paradigm.
Integrity: it is all about living upon one’s own goals, values and principles. It is also
about being trustworthy, sincere, ethical and honest. In addition, integrity means to
stand firm on one’s promises and commitments.
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2- Maturity: it is the balance between courage and consideration. In other words, when
you are strong enough to withstand adverse condition by considering and keeping
respect for others. High courage and consideration is a mandatory for win/win
approach. Abundance mentality: having the mentality that there are enough chances
and opportunities out there for everyone on the contrary to scarcity mentality which
people perceive there is less opportunity and chances out there. Abundance mentality
is one of the characteristic required in win/win thinking.
3- Relationships: it is all about depositing in the emotional bank account. The more you
deposit the higher the degree of credibility to enable us to concentrate on the issue
rather than personality conflicts. If both parties are equally committed to a win/win
approach then there will be a great cooperation and coordination but in case if one
party is not thinking win/win then we have to act proactively enough to convince the
other side that you honestly thinking win/win. The relationship can be the key to the
success of the entire
4- Agreements: These give clarity and guidance to win/win approach by focusing on
results and outcomes rather than the manners to be followed and by determining the
parameters for the outcomes and the resources needed to achieve results.
5- System: The system in an organization such as training, planning, budgeting,
communication, information and compensation all should support win/win approach.
6- Processes: it is all about focusing more on problems, interests, objective criteria rather
than personality, positions.

Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood TM

Naturally we all have an inclination to hurry in giving advices or try to resolve things without
sparing some time to diagnose or at least put an effort to perceive why the other person feels
the way he/she does. This habit is all about giving up this tendency. Therefore, it suggests
seeking first to understand your listener and then trying to be understood. Therefore, this
habit emphasizes to be an effective and empathic listener first. Most people are not intending
to understand their speaker. In fact they either interrupt the speaker’s word or they are just
preparing to reply while the speaker is conveying his/her message. However, effective
listener means that means you have to be motivated, show interest and sincerity in your
speaker and postpone your evaluation without forming any opinion until he/she finishes
his/her talk and avoid any interruption during the speaker’s conversation and try to
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understand not only the meaning of the message but try to understand and be sensitive to the
speaker’s feelings, thoughts, situation, facial expressions and as well as nonverbal gestures.
This should not be considered as a technique; in fact this skill should be one of the bases of
our character and use them for depositing into emotional bank accounts. If you lack being an
effective listener, no one is going to be open to take your advice.
When you wholeheartedly listening and trying to understand a person who have a problem,
you will be astonished how rapidly and how fully he/she opens up to you. Therefore, you
need to always remember the principle to first diagnose and then attempt to solve the
problem. Indeed, this is the indication of all true professionals. For instance, an attorney
officer before opening any case initially collects all the facts to conceive the entire situation,
including laws and records or an architect engineer first studies all the forces, momentums
and stresses applying over a bridge before attempting to draw it. Eventually, the mystery
behind a good judgment is; understanding first.
Once you understand your speaker, then it is time to try to be understood. To be understood
requires consideration and as well as courage which is called maturity and it is the balance
between courage and consideration. In other words, maturity is when you are strong enough
to withstand adverse condition by considering and keeping respect for others. High courage
and consideration is a mandatory for win/win approach. The Greek had a philosophy
portrayed in three words which are ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is a character based
argument where the speaker brings forward himself/herself as honest, credible and
trustworthy and ethical.
Pathos is based on feelings which are to appeal to listeners’ emotions and feelings.
Logos is an argument based on facts, reasons and evidence that means it appeals to the
listeners’ sense of what is logical. These three words comprised of the core of seeking first to
understand and making effective presentations.

Habit 6 – Synergize TM
Synergy is also referred to principle of creative cooperation and it just don’t happen on its
own The strike of synergy comes from exercising all of the habits that we have up to this
point. It is in fact a building process form being proactive, developing with begin with end in
mind; an idea where am I heading as well as first things first which are the core for synergy
foundation and then we move on to have the habit of thinking win/win towards the goal that
we want to achieve and on the process, we will seek to understand then to be understood.
When all these things are in place it is then that we are able to have a third alternative which
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is called synergy to solve our toughest problems and challenges to create that element of
synergy. A third alternative basically means a new way to look at the problem a new solution
to consider on how we address the problem or how we move this particular opportunity
forward.

Synergy means that we cannot literally produce something that of us could have produced
before nor even adding what each can produce separately. It is more than the sum of their
parts.
To illustrate what do we mean by the sum is greater than its parts, let’s have a look at some
examples. Studies have shown that one draft horse can pull 3600 kg however two draft horses
pull 10900kg. now the question is how this could be and the answer is due to idea of synergy
when you bring two things together they can do more than just to come up with combined
results of that element of synergy. Another way to look synergy is to look at an apple which
is out of reach; you can get it on your own so you think about synergy and creative
cooperation away that you can use that getting on somebody’s shoulders to actually reach that
apple.

Synergy is the idea of solving toughest problems by bringing people together to communicate
to identify what are the opportunities how can we cope about solving that. Communication in
a synergetic relationship is built on trust and on level of cooperation. The higher the trust is
the more opportunity for synergetic communication as well as the higher level of cooperation.
The lowest level of communication is due to low trust which is characterized by being
defensive, protective and use legalistic language which is consisted of all the bases and spells
out qualifiers and escape clauses in the even things go wrong and sour. The middle level of
communication is respectful communication where fairly mature people communicate and
interact and the highest level of communication is synergistic (win/win) communication.
In the process of bringing people together one of the skills that we are going to learn which is
so essential to the process is the appreciating the differences of people. Appreciating the
differences is the core of synergy and these differences mean any kind of differences as the
mental, the emotional and the psychological differences between people. Truly effective
person has the humility to recognize their own perceptual limitations and to realize the rich
resources available through interaction with other people. If two people have the same
opinion then one person is unnecessary. Often we see differences as barriers, walls and
people with different opinions, and different ideas as obstacle things that are getting into our
way. It is the idea of creating the synergy to look at that difference not as barrier but as an
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opportunity in order to learn more from them and how you can get those ideas and be able to
capture those to solve your real tough problems and those great opportunities that we have
before us.

It is about completing, not competing which means it requires an abundant mindset rather
than scarcity mindset. It is a win/win approach by sharing thoughts rather than win/lose
approach by single thinking excluding others.

It is the essence of principle centred leadership. Few people experience synergy in their lives
because most people have been conditioned into defensive or protective communications so
synergy is more effective and many people have not truly experienced. Synergy can be
disheartening unless one has a high tolerance for ambiguity. It is sometimes comfortable with
being uncomfortable The effective leaders will be better equipped to solve the toughest
problems and take advantages of the opportunities when they apply these greatest capacities
of synergy and be creative to address those issues. However, ineffective leadership is all
about compromise, fight or just fleeting out of the situation and ignoring the problem.
Ineffective leaders believe the whole is less than the sum of the parts. They try to replicate
other people in their own image. Differences in others are looked upon as threats and they
believe to surround people who are just like them.

Habit 7 – Sharpen the saw TM

Sharpening the saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset that you have and that
is you yourself. It is also called the principle of balanced self-renewal which is a process of
improving, repairing and making something more successful. For better understanding of
this concept let’s take into account an example. Most of us have the experience of cutting
something with a dull knife and blade and most of the time we succeed in cutting the element
that we want but at the same time we left some cutting edge marks, splintered, leave some
dark spot or in general something that is not refined. It is the idea of sharpening the saw and it
is the idea of taking time to have a well refined cut. If you want a tool to last long, you need
to take care of that. We are not actually sharpening saw as we think about that concept.
Indeed, the saw is truly about sharpening yourself to be more effective in the roles that we
play or the other areas of influence that we will have with the individuals. The habit sharpen
the saw regularly means personal PC (production capability). The only person that you have
direct control and immediate control is yourself, so the greatest assets to consistently develop,
to preserve and to enhance on your own capabilities and no one can do it to you. You have to
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do it for yourself. You have to cultivate this habit. Habit 7 becomes an overall frame to make
the other habits even more effective and it is the only habit that cultivates all the last six
habits. There are four dimensions to the human personality.

Physical: the first dimension here is the physical dimensions. The element that involves
caring effectively for our physical bodies by making sure of eating the right types of foods,
we are getting rest and relaxation as well as exercising on regular basis at least 30 minutes
per day as exercise helps in development of habit 1; muscles of proactivity. Because what
happens we begin to value physical exercise we begin value to physical dimensions and when
we place more value on it that outweighs that thought of “I don’t have time” or “I am too
busy”. So when we begin to value that piece, in fact it is the shift in paradigm, how we think
about exercise not as far as adding into our schedule it should be a part of what we do and as
a result it will increase our self-esteem, self-confidence and commitment to even do more.

Spiritual: it is highly related to habit two which is to begin with end in mind and it really goes
to what is called your mission/purpose statement. To begin with end in mind does not mean
with a narrow objective. It is looking at you and thinking what is it that you want to
accomplish. What difference do you want to make. The way we can grow that element of
goal and mission is by taking time daily to reflect how we are doing, why we are doing as our
personal mission statement is the core value of our spiritual strength renewal. It is our
mission statement that defines what the purpose of our life is. There are different ways to
renew our spiritual strength such as prayer, meditation, take time to communicate with
nature. For some people plunging literature or music work as well. The main idea is that it
needs to be refreshed occasionally in our own life to find inner peace and calmness.
Spirituality renewal falls in quadrant two activity which is consisted of activities not so
urgent but tremendously important in our life.

The mental dimension: Most of us shape our mind the way to waste time right after
graduating from school. That means we spend more time in watching TV, social media,
hanging around or in general more active in quadrant 3 and quadrant 4 activities. Mental
renewal is all about keeping our mind alert, active and engage in something effective and
efficient rather than quadrant 3 and quadrant 4 activities that makes our mind dull. Learning
and education is one of those quadrant 2 activities that are vital for mental renewal. Reading
is one also one of mental enhancement activities as then one who does not read is the same as
the one who cannot read. Another great way to sharpen our mental saw is through writing.
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This will influence all our relationships and it’ll better the quality and effectivity of our day.
Furthermore, work puzzles, doing math and engaging in challenging assignment is all tools to
sharpen our mental saw.

The social/emotional dimension: sharpening our social/emotional saw requires effective

communication as well as creative cooperation which come by exercising the skills required
for habit 4, 5 and 6.

It is demonstrated through leadership and our relationship with others. Social and emotional
are tied together with some key distinctions. Indeed we cannot really separate these two as
there is almost an element of coming along a continual and that continual maybe emotional
self-awareness as in what we do or what we feel we do, it is our emotions which plays a part
to that in causing those. Social emotional is to understand how emotions and feelings are
playing a role in our lives. Often time we took those emotions and put them inside a box and
want to keep them down and we do not want to see them influence us. However, emotions
are a part of who we are. It is coming with the better understanding of what we are feeling
and why so that we begin to do something with that. How do we use our emotions to be more
effective in developing relationships with others? And how do we do that to those
relationships to build our capacity as leaders. There is also a social awareness element which
is all about how we can better understand the reactions of others. How do we read others’
emotional and social awareness pieces from that perspectives and how somebody else is
feeling.
The only element that links the two together and includes the behaviours that we use to bring
these two elements of self-understanding and understanding others is our interpersonal
relationship.
Sharpening our social/emotional saw also comes by proving meaningful services to people
particularly when our services provision brings differences and change in the life of people as
we view our life as constructive. There should be kept a balance in sharpening our all four
dimensions and neglecting any area puts a negative impact on other dimensions as they are
highly interrelated to each other and improving in one direction, increases the ability to
improve in other dimensions.

Our mission statement should reflect the recognition of each of these four dimensions in
order to keep the balance to some extent.
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Reference
Covey, S. R. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. USA: Free Press.

Covey, S. R. (2017, October 11). Brandi Laverty. Retrieved from Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj9pDRoBnVo&t=6939s