The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen R. Covey Simon and Schuster 1989
Vision First
Pg. 67 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.
If the only vision we have of ourselves comes from the social mirror – from the current social paradigm and from the opinions, perceptions, and paradigms of the people around us – our view of ourselves is like the reflection in the crazy mirror room at the carnival.
Pg. 96 “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
Pg. 99 “Begin with the end in mind” is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things.
Take the construction of a home, for example. You create it in every detail before you ever hammer the first nail into place. . . . . You work with ideas. You work with your mind until you get a clear image o what you want to build.
The same is true with parenting. 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.
Leadership is doing the right things
Pg. 101 Management is a bottom line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish? In the words of both Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
You can quickly grasp the important difference between the two if you envision a group of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. They’re the producers, the problem solvers. They’re cutting through the undergrowth, clearing it out.
The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing in improved technologies and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for machete wielders.
The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, “Wrong jungle!”
But how do the busy, efficient producers and managers often respond? “Shut up! We’re making progress.”
If teachers became leaders we could . . .
Pg. 102 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, “Stephan, 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. I was deep into management, buried by pressing challenges and the details of day-to-day logistics. So I decided to withdraw from management. I could get other people to do that. I really wanted to lead my organization.
It was hard. . . . . But I persisted. I was absolutely convinced that I needed to provide leadership. And I did. Today our whole business is different. We’re more in line with our environment. We have doubled our revenues and quadrupled our profits. I’m into leadership.”
I’m convinced that too often parents [or educators ed. note] are also trapped in the management paradigm, thinking of control, efficiency and rules instead of direction, purpose, and family feeling.
Pg. 198 “If you’re going to bow, bow low,” says Eastern wisdom. “Pay the uttermost farthing,” says the Christian ethic. To be a deposit, an apology must be sincere. And it must be perceived as sincere. Leo Roskin taught, “It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.”
Why teachers are most important in education
Pg. 201 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 that to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”
I take that to mean that I could devote eight, ten, or twelve hours a day, five, six, or seven days a week to the thousands of people and projects “out there” and still not have a deep, meaningful relationship with my own spouse, with my own teenage son, with my closest working associate. And it would take more nobility of character – more humility, courage, and strength – to rebuild that one relationship that it would to continue putting in all those hours for all those people and causes.
In twenty-five years of consulting with organizations, I have been impressed over and over again by the power of that statement. . . It truly takes more nobility of character to confront and resolve those issues than it does to continue to work for the many projects and people “out there.”
Pg. 265 As a teacher, I have come to believe that many truly great classes teeter on the very edge of chaos. Synergy tests whether teachers and students are really open to the principle of the whole being greater that the sum of its parts.
There are times when neither the teacher nor the student knows for sure what’s going to happen.
The Importance of Teacher as a “Real” Person.
Pg. 267 As Carl Rogers taught, “That which is most personal is most general.” The more authentic you become, the more genuine in your expression, particularly regarding personal experiences and even self-doubts, the more people can relate to your expression and the safer it makes them feel to express themselves. That expression in turn feeds back on the other person’s spirit, and genuine creative empathy takes place, producing new insights and learning’s and a sense of excitement and adventure that keeps the process going.