Stephen Covey passed away recently
His most famous book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (affiliate link), sold 15+ million copies and has been on Amazon’s top 100 best seller list for almost 5 years. It is worth buying if you don’t have a copy.
Concepts are simple, but powerful:
#1 Be Proactive
#2 Begin with the End in Mind
#3 Put First Things First
#4 Think Win/Win
#5 Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
#6 Synergize
#7 Sharpen the Saw
It’s no surprise that we find these principles relevant. After all, it almost reads like a consulting handbook with all the talk of prioritization, leveraging teams, and continuous improvement.
#2 Beginning with the End in Mind
There is typically so much going on at the client site that this axiom is critical. When you are planning a meeting, think about what you are trying to get done. When putting together a presentation and storyboard, what should the client’s reaction be? As a senior manager use to ask me, “What does success look like?”
#5 Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
I have difficulty with this one, as do many consultants. Sometimes we are not the best listeners because we get the problem (too smart for our own good?), have opinions, and want to push to an answer.
A few ways that people can tell that “we” are not listening: 1) We don’t make eye contact because we are thinking of something else 2) We keep interrupting the speaker, or putting words in his/her mouth 3) We feel the need to have the last word in the conversation. Collectively, we need to break these bad habits and reinforce the good ones.
Habits – not vision, strategies, or principles. . .
Habits. . .
Covey emphasized the importance of habits. Something that you have to practice and cultivate. A learned process. Hence the tie-in with the expensive planners as a way to continually reinforce good habits. Put it in front of your face every day.
Franklin Covey Consulting?
I went to the Franklin Covey website today for the first time. I knew they sold planners and productivity stuff, but was a bit surprised to see so much training and consulting-type work. Who would have known? See the case study below. Pretty robust.
Case study: The largest non-casino hotel in the US had serious customer satisfaction and loyalty issues. The teams conducted workshops to prioritize issues and set goals. Then they drove accountability into each of the 75 distinct departments and implemented change. You can see the 10 minute video here. Solid.
The customer satisfaction scores rose dramatically. They did a great job of measuring the results after the project ended – something all clients and consultants need to do more of.
Related articles
- Author Stephen Covey Leaves Behind A $1.4 Billion Empire (forbes.com)
- Stephen Covey, author of ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,’ dead at 79 (news.blogs.cnn.com)
Source: Franklin Covey website