Tag Archives: seven habits

Habit 5 – The Bit We All Missed

28 Thursday May 2020

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I have been studying Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits for a quarter of a century, as have many of those with whom I have connected on LinkedIn. The recent 30th Anniversary Edition hit my hallway floor last Saturday – actually, it hit the outside step as the delivery person stood safely distant –and I am deep within its pages again. I have already discovered a few missed nuggets. Including today.

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood – has been a familiar tenet in the corporate world, I am sure. I have read that chapter many times, and always sworn to try to apply it in testing or inquisitorial conversations. The book itself describes its use in many such instances, using examples from the perspective of the lives of individuals in their personal and working lives to illustrate how verbal conversations can be improved through application of the aforementioned Habit..

Today, I found a bit I missed and, according to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (if my experience is anything to go by), so have a lot of other people. And possibly the reason I missed it is because this nugget was detailed not in Habit 5’s chapter, but in Habit 7’s, on renewal.

He wrote about great literature that ‘(reading in various fields) can expand our paradigms and sharpen our mental saw, particularly if we practice Habit 5 as we read, and seek first to understand.’

That was a AHA! moment. Or indeed a DUH! moment. I’d never thought about that, even if I’d exercised it. ‘Seek First to Understand what we READ’. It isn’t just a conversational model.

Realising that, and recognising its importance, led me to ask the question, “If people read the news with an enquiring rather than an assumptive mindset, would most of the rubbish on social media go away?’

Yes. People would read the allegations, check the facts, research any science or laws applicable, review the political past of the reporter/witness/commentator and eventually, perhaps, come to a less) emotional, ideological or ill-informed conclusion. And then shut the hell up.

(Of course, it might wind them up even more…..)

At the moment, we are witnessing a change in the reportage of the media. They have gone from just reporting, worked through and past analysis, and on to out-and-out commentary. Unfortunately, this is proving to be commentary without real, deep, objective or unbiased analysis.

It’s as if the middle bit is a bar to profit for the printed and commercial media, and a bar to fame and notoriety for the public-broadcaster’s employees who are all vying for a better position, or their own programme. The objective is no longer balanced reportage – it is fame and/or profit through a ‘shock-jock’ style approach..

(The last time newsreaders did something outside simple news-reading for fame, they dressed as sailors and did flick-flacks for Morecombe and Wise.)

Where have the Paul Foots and the Martin Bells and the Michael Buerks gone? They all reported injustice and societal disasters without the need for constant personal attack or self-importance. Even the famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward now seems to be left-biased, and only appears when the right is to be attacked. (I would’ve said criticised but they’ve all gone way past that.)

But more to my point – why have we, the public, stopped putting in the effort and started to just accept what is thrown at us by the media without asking ‘Is this true, exaggerated, misunderstood or made up?’ Why have we omitted that step and then just lost our sanity and sense of calm over what we have not checked is worth that effort?

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand is a sensible, reasoned, objective and intellectually satisfying approach to news, documentaries and other sources of information. The counter to Habit 5, Seeking First to Assume, makes an – well, you know.

Don’t be one of those.

Are your habits making or breaking you?

08 Wednesday Apr 2020

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This has been reproduced from the internet. Unfortunately the original author hasn’t been identified, and is frequently stated to be that prolific philosopher, Anon.

Enjoy

The Habit Poem

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me,
and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men.
And, alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine.
Plus, the intelligence of a man.
You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet.
Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.
Who am I?

I am a HABIT!

 

What Habits do you have that serve you best – and worst?

And what are YOU going to do about the latter?

Start today. Start NOW.

Stretch yourself – be like Pregnancy Pants.

27 Friday Mar 2020

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“Sometimes things can go right only by first going very wrong.” Edward Tenner

And here we are. We exist at a time where the whole world has come to a grinding crawl, with the retail and hospitality industries taking a big hit. Which means that we, the citizens, denied our access to the dopamine of retail therapy and the opportunity to get away from it all suddenly find we have to find some other way of feeling good and ‘finding ourselves’.

Charles R Hobbs, of the original, non-Brian Tracy title TimePower, observed that when we go on holiday, the first thing we do on arrival is recreate the Comfort Zone that is home. First, we check the TV channels, and then we find out the wi-fi password. Is he right? Be honest.

Today, the comfort zones of shopping and the workplace have been denied to many, and to be fair that has resulted in a lot of imagination being utilised to cope with new challenges, which is arguably Mankind’s greatest skill. And as one esteemed philosopher put it, Mankind’s development has been the result of Challenge – Response.

The Challenge today is how to live in a confined space and feel happy, secure and productive for the period of the Lockdown. Of course, the nature of this lockdown is, shall we say, a bit like pregnancy trousers – there’s a bit of leeway that will expand and contract as needs demand.

Notwithstanding the ability or otherwise to do your paid work, we have a twenty-day window to:

  • Discover Kindle e-books, which can be in your lap in seconds and can feed your mind on a subject of interest to you.
  • Access on-line courses which can make you more employable.
  • Do all those jobs around the house that have needed doing. (My kitchen FINALLY looks organised.)
  • Talk to your partner and kids.
  • And your neighbours, whether they work for the NHS or not.
  • Telephone friends, neighbours and workmates using those unlimited minutes you’ve paid for.
  • (Personal favourite) Study The Seven Habits, First Things First and Principle-Centred Leadership and discover new ways of thinking – how to think, not what to think – an important distinction. All available on Kindle and, if you’re clever, very cheaply.
  • Read my blogs more often.

All of the above ideas, and any you can discover for yourself, will mean that you come out of the other side of this a better person, more organised, and possibly even more productive than before.

But, above all, doing something like those things will absolutely, unarguably and without fail MASSIVELY increase your sense of self-esteem – the value you place on yourself.

Go on – don’t just be a public hero like everyone else. Stretch yourself.

Win a Private Victory as well.

Character, Character, Character – and Standards. Now, more than since 1945.

24 Tuesday Mar 2020

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The lockdown of 2020 has begun. Not since 1939 has anything like this been asked of the citizenry of the UK. That year, 40-odd million citizens did right by their country and their fellow Brits by complying with and trusting the advice and orders of those we elected to deal with exactly this kind of situation.

And a few thousand or so took advantage. Spivs, we called them. We decried their disobedience to the rule of law. And then we bought eggs off them.

We find ourselves in the middle of a truly extraordinary – for us – series of events. Which means we are now being called upon to demonstrate more character, as a people, than we have for quite some time.

Now we can stand up, or we can fall down.

It grieves me to say this, but the nature of televisual celebrity suggests that this might not happen. The young of today, fed as they are by the ‘me’ cult of the Kardashians and Made in Chelsea, will either act true to expectations and, as the evidence so far suggests, stamp their feet and demand their rights to do what they please regardless of the truth of principled living.

Or they may surprise us and show the kind of character that the youth of 1939 demonstrated when they knuckled down, volunteered, fought and died in defence of what had gone before.

Note that – they had a life, and Hitler interrupted it. They accepted that intrusion and a nation rose up to the challenge.

We had a life yesterday, and a virus has interrupted it.

I am calling upon everyone to demonstrate the same levels of character that were displayed then, by people just like us who had loved ones to protect, lifestyles to preserve, and an enemy to defeat.

And I will call out any selfish idiots I see.

Now, on a slightly different tack, I’m also going to ask that people do something else they may be tempted to put to one side while they are in isolation.

Maintain, or even Raise Your Standards.

At home, it is easy to let standards slip. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests that the standards people visibly maintain and expect in the workplace don’t apply when they’re at home. Suit wearers get into their baggy sweatpants, don’t shave, watch telly all day eating fast food.

That is the slippery slope to weight-gain, depression and lowered productivity.

Work as hard at home as you do at work. I’m not suggesting you wear business attire in your house (although why not?), but you can at least dress as if you’re going to be seen in public, ensure you’re clean and well-presented, and only grow a beard if you really mean it. (Ladies excepted.)

Then ‘normal’ will be a lot easier to achieve when it’s all over.

Bon chance, mon amis.

Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered. Or Beguiled?

23 Monday Mar 2020

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When I have promoted my works and offer training in the realms of personal development, I often find resistance not to the time or costs, but to the very idea of the material. I wrote in Police Time Management why I think this is in respect of that particular field of knowledge, but today I listened to a lecture by the late, great Jim Rohn and I think he hit the nail on the proverbial.

He spoke of the Sermon on the Mount and described how the response was reported in the Bible as being divided into three types – the perplexed, the mockers and the believers. Hence my title this morning.

Let’s have a think about all three, and their motivations.

The Perplexed. They don’t know what you’re talking about. These people are the ones in the Unconscious Incompetence bracket of Noel Burch’s model. They don’t know what they don’t know and are equally unable to comprehend that what they don’t know will serve them. They’ve likely already concluded it’s too hard to understand so they don’t bother trying.

The Mockers. These are the ones who know it all, or think they do. They don’t see that there is an alternative way of thinking to the one they’ve already decided is best. And rather than articulate that because they know it to be a stupid position or can’t face the work involved, they attack the idea. It’s easier than knuckling down and listening.

The Believers. Now, here we have to be careful because there are actually three strands. There are the Believers who believe regardless of the efficacy of the argument, so they’ll believe no matter what is said, if they are convinced by the speaker. Then there are Believers who are the Consciously Incompetent, who know that there is something that they don’t know – and want to know it. And the final subset are the ones who’ve had the training and have applied it to the degree that they know it to be good stuff.

That last set is very present on LinkedIn, but there’s something they could do that they aren’t doing. They aren’t letting anyone else know that the stuff is good.

Some possible reasons. They are naturally well-organised ‘time-managers’ and don’t realise that others need this input. Or perhaps they think it’s a great secret and don’t want anyone to know because it makes them appear really effective. Or they think that the cost of training their peers and staff in such material isn’t cost-effective.

So they are Believers but not Advocates. I like the by-line I use for my LinkedIn page – Advocate of the Seven Habits – because it underlines my willingness to communicate something I believe in. I would ask others to do the same, but not only in terms of their chosen profession.

I would encourage people to look at the provision of training in the sub-skills of ‘work’ – sector specific or in a more general sense – like communications, self- and time-management, administration practices, even mindfulness (ugh) if it makes their staff more productive and less stressed.

As the greats have said (and I paraphrase) – Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll produce enough fish for his employer to sell at a massive profit through enhanced effectiveness and efficiencies.

Go on. Train your staff or just buy them a book about ‘stuff’. Many have, and many have benefited as a consequence.

Be the right kind of Believer.

The Magic Formula – A Cure for Today?

20 Friday Mar 2020

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There is a magic formula that the successful use, specifically and particularly when faced with a challenge that comes at them sideways and out of the blue. Of course, we are faced with such a challenge at the moment, and a lot of people, including members of my family, are feeling the effects of the measures being taken by people to avoid the dreaded lurgy. Which, according to MSWord’s spellcheck, is  a word.

Businesses are laying off people left and right, and given that a lack of custom does tend to thwart a business’ efforts to stay solvent, I can understand this. Of course, said businesses – the less scrupulous – will take the money offered by the government to keep them afloat, while not using it to keep staff in a job. And, of course, if you’ve laid off your staff carefully and before said money becomes available, you can avoid paying them at all. I hope that HMG makes sure that the money they hand out is properly accounted for.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, major grocery retailers are looking at the problems created by ‘now’ and are adjusting their practices to suit.

The major movers, ladies and quintleflick (not a word), are applying the formula.

Unfortunately, as the majority of us are not educated in leadership and management, a lot of people aren’t applying it. If only they knew what it was. Of course, while all clever kids know that x= minus b times the square root of b squared minus 4ac all over 2a, they aren’t taught this formula in school. And it could save a lot of stress.

The formula is E+R=O.*

E is the Event. This is the thing that happens to us or, as one of my participants forced me to decide, the situation in which we find ourselves. (That covered people born with disabilities –  they didn’t ‘happen’, their situation just ‘was’.) The Event is something outside of your control. You didn’t plan it, plan for it, expect it and probably didn’t anticipate the possibility. Cue a pandemic caused by eating a bat, allegedly.

R is the Response. It’s what you do about what’s happened, and that includes how you decide to feel about what’s happened. Excitement, despair, challenge – all reactions that are up to you. Maybe not in the first instance, but at least after you’ve paused to think about them.

O is the Outcome. The Outcome is what you want to have happened at the end of it all.

E is unchangeable. That being the case, the only way to change the value of O is entirely within the Response provided to E. Your Outcome is wholly dependant on the quality and thinking behind your Response to E.

The question is – is your Response wholly based in fear, or is it considered, thoughtful and ecological? Is it self-serving or will it serve us all? Is it destructive and aimed solely at self-preservation, or is it a unique answer to a problem? An answer the like of which gets written about in leadership and management literature next year?

Yes, folks. You Response to what is happening to you today could be so imaginative that you find yourself being immortalised in print. It could make you proud, or ashamed. Or just content, which is just enough for your integrity to remain intact.

Or you could just be a selfish tw4t. Your choice.

Businesses – the people you’re sacking, you’ll want back in three or four months. Treat them well and they will come. Treat them badly, and see whether all your selfish efforts backfire.

Have a good weekend, folks.

 

*From an idea by Dr Robert Resnick, as publicised in The Success Principles’ by Jack Canfield, but also the result of Habit One – Be Proactive, by Stephen Covey.

An easy way to Leave a Legacy.

16 Monday Mar 2020

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First of all a quick correction. Last week I implied that Ernest Hemingway was the source of a quote leading me to write that I’m not all used up yet, so I refuse to die. It was in fact George Bernard Shaw’s quote I was vandalising. Doh!

He said, “This is the true joy in life, being recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake; Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for a moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

That seems to be a great mantra for life, particularly now as the better of us watch as the lesser of us hoard toilet rolls, pasta and hand-sanitiser – the latter reflecting an unwillingness to routinely wash hands, if my experience of seeing empty sanitiser shelves by full soap shelves is anything to go by.

Life is one chance to leave a lasting legacy. For some it need only mean raising healthy, good children so as to pass on the family line. For others it means making sure they are remembered for doing something memorable and lasting – which can be done with good or bad intent. Some of us will never know what we did that lasted in the memory.

There is an old tenet that suggests that we all remember a teacher that meant something to us in terms of how they made us better. And for most of us who had such a teacher we never got to tell them.

I was lucky. A couple of months ago a new school was opened and elder statesmen from the old buildings assembled, along with ex-pupils. Sat in front of me was the maths teacher and deputy Head who took me, with his teaching method, from a 50% maths examinee to an A grade at O Level (the old GCSEs). I can’t even remember specifically what else he did or said – I know there was something that made me change my attitude slightly but it was really subtle. But at the end of the proceedings that night I was able to tell him, “You know everyone had that one teacher -well, you were mine.”

He had no idea who I was, but that’s the beauty of teaching – so many unremembered souls that can be affected by what you do.

Anyway, here’s today’s suggestion. You may not be a teacher in the formal sense, but everything you do is seen by someone. Everything you say is heard.

So say good things and do good things and be a good example.

Someone is watching. Including your kids.

Put the extra ten packs of toilet rolls back on the shelf.

Age = Wisdom, Youth = Vitality. Let the young have both, instead.

12 Thursday Mar 2020

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A few weeks ago I wrote this blog on why I thought material of the kind espoused in The Seven Habits and my own book was ignored by so many for so long, suggesting that people tend to arrive at an age when they suddenly seek meaning rather than stuff.

Today, I put a new spin on this not by looking at why the older ‘do’, but on why the younger ‘do not’.

Reading Stephen Covey’s anthology of first drafts and first thoughts, from the book ‘Primary Greatness’, I read this sentence.

“I maintain that humility is the mother of all virtues, because humility helps us centre our lives on principles.”

Young people are – or want to appear to be – confident individuals. They are fit, recently educated, fashionable, invincible. They tend, therefore and without judgment on my part, to be incredibly egotistic. They are finding their way and have yet to realise that life isn’t one long party – or that if it is a party, it eventually ends when they discover the responsibilities they didn’t possess in their teens and twenties.

Perhaps this is as it should be. Perhaps later wisdom is intended to be delayed until people are ready for it, or until their proverbial wild oats are sown. I have no idea, because I am not the font of all wisdom. By any stretch!

This is why, perhaps, the young resist the wisdom literature. They don’t need it because they know better. They see things ‘as they are’ through interested, open eyes – whereas we old fuddy-duddies see things through experience gained by making mistakes. And having made mistakes we older ones seek to redress them, whereas the young are still learning from theirs.

But imagine if the young were taught that you can be humble and still have fun? That you can leave a legacy of forty or fifty years foundation rather than just for that night or weekend? That they are still learning, and that they could direct and control that learning if they just gave more thought to the longer-term. To their whole lives instead of the now.

Covey goes on to add, “I would then say that courage is the father of all virtues.”

Of course, another influence on the young is the peer group. Which means that Covey’s second quote reveals something which the young tend to lack. Not physical courage – they seem to have that in abundance, as a rule. But courage born of a properly considered and congruent values system, where they act in accordance with their conscience and what they know, deeply, to be true – and yet what those around them are trying to convince them is just ‘boring old stuff’.

This is what should be taught in school, not environmentalism and ‘social justice’ and ‘rights of the individual’ (without responsibilities of and towards the individual).

Kids need to be shown that courage does not mean lack of consideration. That wisdom is not a downer but a path to ‘better’. There are schools out there that do this, but they’ve had to initiate and fund this training themselves.

Wouldn’t it be better if it was a state-funded part of the curriculum? Instead of Welsh.

My one and only COVID-19 blog.

11 Wednesday Mar 2020

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As we delve ever deeper into the Coronavirus challenge, the call for character increases. This may not be as obvious a statement as ‘following the science’ and other twee clichés designed to assuage the panic of the populace, but it is nevertheless true.

It is true because some of us, those with ‘underlying health concerns’ are obliged to listen to the daily news reports that obsess with telling us that our personal Armageddon is closing in on us either geographically (I’m 6 miles away from the nearest) or numerically (“here’s today’s news on deaths and new cases”). The unconscious message is ‘You’ll be next!” Oh, great.

Character is required because we are being challenged, and because we are being challenged to deal with unknowns which for the majority lie firmly within their Circle of Concern, and equally firmly outside, or at least on the very outer edge of their Circle of Influence. The answer to this challenge lies within the competence of the NHS and the Doctors and Nurses who have to (a) deal with it and (b) be exposed to it so that the rest of us aren’t. For them, most of all, character shines out because they could all, justifiably, think selfishly and stay at home. We are very reliant upon the competence and character of the health workers. We need them to focus in their Circle of Influence so that our Circle of Concern can shrink a little.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the politicians, who equally possess COVID-19 in their Circle of Concern..

At a time where the country needs to pull together, to fight off this challenge and defeat it, all I see on the news is point-scoring. The Opposition cannot wait, when asked about the virus, to start banging on about cuts in services and austerity measures (which they caused) and blaming the government for everything.

That’s really helpful. Thanks.

Of course, what makes it worse in 21st Century thinking is the immediacy and the accessibility of the media. I don’t recall wide-spread and overt criticism of the government at the outset of WW2: there seemed to be, if reports are to be believed, a sense of common purpose and community about that particular threat.

But here we are, needing character and what do we have?

Whining opposition politicians, and people stockpiling toilet paper and taking all the sanitizer off the store shelves while happily mingling in crowds. Isn’t that a little odd?

I’ll admit that as a result of this ‘countdown’ news reportage I am disheartened. There seems to be no positivity available to us. It’s all doom and gloom, where the updates are- ‘10% have had it’ rather than ‘90% will have a runny nose’. It is demoralising.

It’s the 2020 version of ‘Let’s learn German.’

So character is called for. Some stoicism, some resignation, but above all the taking of the opportunity to become better people by demonstrating patience, consideration, common sense and all those other traits which we know serve us better than selfishness, panic and disrespect.

And in a worst case scenario, demonstrating love for those we love. Time is always running out, but occasionally something happens to make us realise that with just a little more clarity.

Love you, folks. Take care.

And if you MUST self-isolate, get a copy of The 7 Habits and the Workbook, and use the time to Get Better in more ways than one!

Leadership, schmeadership.

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

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In 2013 I was honoured to be approached – I was going to say headhunted but perhaps that’s a bit self-indulgent – to provide a service to schools via a homelessness charity whereby I would train teenagers in (essentially) the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. It was a Win-Win-Win for trainers, the charity and the schools involved and it was through them I enjoyed teaching a hall of 106 13-year-olds in one go.

I no longer fear crowds.

Anyhow, despite the headhuntedness, there was a selection process in which prospective trainers would give a lesson (tick), be interviewed (tick) and socialise with other people (tick). But the source of this article was the result of a round-table exercise the applicants underwent, where we discussed how we would focus on teaching the children leadership. So me being em, I took a tangential view.

I said (and I paraphrase) “It’s laudable that we teach children how to lead themselves and other people, but what about the less able kids who may never be in charge of anything? Why don’t we also teach them how to be great followers?”

I got the gig.

Leadership has become a buzzword for hierarchical management. One LinkedIn correspondent said it all when he described how administration became management became ‘leadership’ – all while teaching exactly the same ‘stuff’. It was only a slight exaggeration. Today I read about ‘leadership in a remote environment’ as an opportunistic (?) take on the magic word, but it essentially meant ‘how do we manage the production of what we produce, remotely?’ Management.

But there are books on another, related subject – Followership. They are rare and, oddly, can be very expensive.

But that’s missing a trick because once you strip away the layers of leadership, everyone else is a Follower to varying degrees. And that subject doesn’t get the level of attention it deserves.

In my training of the 106 kids from a relatively poor area of Wales, some of them expressed what ‘we professionals’ might mis-interpret as a lack of ambition. They wanted to be mechanics, taxi-drivers, and the like. Albeit their ambisions may change up a gear as they aged, instead of planting in them some long-distant dream, I just said this.

“Whatever you want to be and do, just be or do the best that you can while you’re doing it. Work hard for your bosses and enjoy what you do.” Followership, in a nutshell.

Of course, when new employees are trained they are often given the pep talk and the warning chat. I think it would be better if they were educated about what they were doing in the context of those they served, with imagination used to identify stakeholders outside the organisation as well as within. We’ve all heard the story about the bricklayer ‘building the cathedral’, but how often is that translated into the average workplace?

Incidentally, why is the Labour Party having a dig at the expression ‘low-skilled worker’? What is wrong with having a low level of skill if what you are doing has a noble purpose and provides value to others beyond your activity? A streetsweeper is ‘low-skilled’ but imagine if he wasn’t there doing his best for us? A low-skilled care worker changing your Nan’s bed – valuable and noble work. Noble service does not necessarily require high pay. And high-paid people are not necessarily providing noble service.

It’s about time we showed as much appreciation those who follow rather than just those who lead – because without followers, what would the leaders actually be for?

 

For more on the subject of Followership, I write about that very subject in my book, The Three Resolutions, available at Amazon now.

Book Cover Front