Book Summaries

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

November 20, 2017
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It is a famous book written by Stephen R Covey, (October 24, 1932 – July 16, 2012) who was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death. We will discuss this book today as it was one of the best sellers and has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide since its first publication in 1989. The book, as the name suggests, was mainly focused on those aspects of a person whih makes him the most effective. In his research, Covey found that most of the efficient and successful people on this earth possess seven common habits.
It is interesting to note that success is never an objective or attaining a particular goal. Being effective is the most important aspect of achieving success in any endeavor. Let us discuss these habits one by one as pointed out in the book.

1. Be Proactive
“Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen,” said Covey. There are normally three types of response for achieving success. The first is to become reactive, the second is to be proactive and the third is to be non-active. In simple terms, reactive means to respond to a situation after it has already happened and proactive means to react to a situation before it really happens. It is like calculating a happening in future and act accordingly before it really happens. It also means to take control of the situation and remain prepared to deal with it before it happens.

2. Begin With the End in Mind
This is like playing chess to think 20 steps ahead. Purely based on imagination, this habit is the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see with our eyes.” To dream as a visionary dreams.

3. Put First Things First
Or in other words, the capability to set priorities, in the right manner. This needs clarity and also a mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results not methods. Spend time. Be patient. Visualize the desired result. Visualization means to dream with one’s eyes open. It is to see the future clearly in one’s own mind and steer the team towards that objective with an extremely positive spirit. Covey explained this as to be in complete control of a situation and how one should respond to the circumstances of one’s life.

4. Think Win-Win
It means thinking and acting with a positive set of thoughts. “Win-Win is a frame of mind that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-Win means that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.” A situation everyone thinks they have the best share of the deal. The alternative paradigm of Win-Win are win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose, win, lose or no deal. This relates to the principles of interpersonal leadership. Interpersonal leadership deals with Emotional Bank Accounts instead of Financial Bank Accounts. The root of a big tree is always underground. It is not visible to inexperienced eyes. But the wise know that the tree sustains only due to the strengths of the root under the ground. The invisible root under the ground is the Emotional Quotient which feeds the entire tree. The stronger the root is, the stronger the tree is. So in order to make an institution or organization strong is to focus on the roots as well as the branches. Only watering the branches will kill the tree soon. And the emotional quotient of people in an organization is more complicated than that of the example of a tree. It needs a lot of patience and genuine interest to look after the interest of the employees or the team workers to ascertain the holistic growth of the organization.

5. Seek First to Understand, Then be Understood: it is an extremely interesting and also involves a very deep shift in paradigm. Normally, it is a habit of people to listen and talk more. Even in a discussion or debate people don’t listen with the intent to understand; rather they listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography in other people’s opinions. This creates a lot of confusion resulting in mutual failures. Any effective negotiation needs clarifications and transparency. Trying to understand the opinion of the other party go a long way in creating an assured atmosphere of trust and understanding creating win-win situation and success.

6. Synergize: it means coordinating with everything else. It is the crown of all habits. It is an interpersonal skill which builds up slowly and takes a lot of time establish itself. Once established, it opens multiple doors to success. It includes team building, team work, and helps in developing creativity, innovative ideas, and a unique cordial atmosphere. It is a vital ingredient of leadership too.

7. Sharpen the Saw: This habit is to sharpen all the other six habits from time to time. Covering the bottlenecks for smooth implementation of different ideas in to realities. All the habits must be sharpened and developed. Technology is developing day by day. One has to develop accordingly to keep pace with modern world. There are techniques to master.  The techniques must be learnt and applied. And sharpening the saw is an incessant process. The process has to continue non-stop in a never-ending manner.

The habits mentioned by Covey are only a part of the whole. They are not whole. They are the most effective and most common traits of highly effective and successful people. Adopting and practicing these habits one can chive success. But sharpening of the saw is an extremely important habit to keep one ahead of others.  “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend first four sharpening the axe,” had said Abraham Lincoln which still holds good.

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Biswajit Mishra

The year was 1962. Politically a very important year for India. As well as for the war that took place between China and India, in which India had a surrogated defeat. Many events had followed that year quickly one after another. Every incident that followed had some significance in one way or other. India’s economy was pushed back to a few decades. It was probably the biggest blunder of a decision after the decision of partition that took place in the year 1947 when India gained its freedom on the midnight of 15 August 1947. Destiny does not work according to one’s requirement. It works on its own principles whether you accept it or not. And it leads. It is the sum total of all the actions of a human being for many lives. The year 1962 has much other significance too. India lost the war with China but Daman and Diu, the last foreign-occupied territory of India, was integrated into India. This was the year when Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was elected de facto Prime Minister of India. Thus it was a year of learning and teaching lessons.

In such a year of diversified occurrences of turbulence and achievement, I was born on Savitri Amabasya i.e. on the New moon day named after a pious lady called Savitri. Those who are acquainted with Indian spirituality or those who follow Indian tradition would know about Savitri Mahakavya, a very famous and a legendary epic poem which remain unfinished with 24,000 lines by Shri Aurobindo, an Indian philosopher, yogi, guru, poet, a nationalist and a spiritual reformer.

In any case, till today, the Savitri Amavasya is considered a very pious day for the women of India and they perform a specific puja (worship) with deep austerity for the sake of their husbands. In any case, the birth was not normal. The Medical Science had not developed much in India during the early 60’s and I was told that I took a long time to come out from my mother’s womb (an 11month child, they say). In any case, both I and my mother survived and I was born a healthy child.

My first remembrance of myself is very unconventional. I remember a question that bothered me from my early childhood. I always thought I have a father who is responsible for my birth, and my father has also a father who is responsible for his birth. So forth so on. Then who was the father of the first person who took birth on this earth? And who created the earth? If it was God, then who created God? Then something will start rolling inside me, making me restless. I remember I must be about 5 years old. It normally happened in the evenings after I come back home from the playground. I must be studying in 1st or 2nd grade.

Now when I look back, I think, the query must have started long back… may be from many lives of the past… nobody knows… nobody will ever know… the episodes which started in the early childhood… stopped suddenly, I don’t remember when. It was good. Because whenever that question came I was so much disturbed that I thought I would go crazy. I had completely forgotten about that for many years until I was about 25 when it came back to me again in completely different circumstances. To know that we have to go a few years back when I was 10 or 12 years old. That was the time when I was introduced to Swami Vivekananda. I was in school and we were given 10 paise for pocket expenses. 10 paisa was a big amount back then, I used to have to have good snacks with the money. One day while passing through a small roadside bookshop I saw a book Titled: “Thus Spake Vivekananda”. The photo on the front page attracted me a lot. And coincidentally the cost of the book was 10 paisa! I bought the book by skipping my snack. It was a very interesting book. That was my first book apart from study lessons. With the passage of time, I found many other titles like, “Thus Spake Shri Ramakrishna” “Thus Spake Shri Krishna” and similar ones. Those short books were very interesting for me, and I read almost every single book available in that series. And thus without my knowing, I had put my first step into the world of spirituality.

To be continued…

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