Book Review of - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People- Stephen R. Covey Overview of the content

Author: Stephen R. Covey

Title: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Publisher: Free Press

Place: New York

Date of Publication: 1988

Number of Pages: 381

Covey’s work on self-improvement titled ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ is grounded in the author’s view that one’s worldview is wholly based on individual assessments. For altering any situation, there is a need to adopt change within oneself, which necessitates a shift in perspective (Hussain, 2017).

This work may be considered a phenomenon of contemporary personal development texts. The author differentiates character ethic from personality ethic. The former deals with fixed individual principles whereas the later refers to human relations methods and quick-fix ideas which form the crux of most self-help texts penned in the last century. According to the author, superficial success which fails to manifest internal mastery cannot be considered success. The terms he uses for internal and external success are ‘private’ and ‘public’ victory, respectively, with the former necessarily preceding the latter to be counted as success. This represents his personal life-focused strategy (Butler-Bowdon, 2011).

In Covey’s opinion, people’s worldviews are grounded completely in individual perspective. As mentioned earlier, situational change necessitates self-evolution, which in turn necessitates perspective shifts. The author scrutinized success-related literature spanning more than two centuries and noticed a salient evolution in humanity’s definitions of success with time. This particular book’s beauty, in essence, lies in the fact that improving one practice causes a synergistic increase in one’s capacity of improving others. Renewal enables one to follow a mounting spiral of evolution and progress, of ongoing improvements (Hussain, 2017). Rather than concentrating on doing away with bad habits, the book’s emphasis is on cultivating good ones. A majority of individuals need to cultivate and hone good habits through learning; i.e., good habits aren’t intrinsically present and typically require more conscious efforts as compared to bad practices. Altering habits modifies one’s views of others and vice versa (Mark, 2016).

Evaluation of book

Though Covey’s book has already completed its silver jubilee, it continues to be extensively referenced in the twenty-first century. The focal point of this work is, largely, an ordinary individual’s professional and personal practices, as these form one’s personality. All individuals have certain habits, both bad and good, and a certain collection of these habits scarcely affect one’s everyday life. Quite frequently, individuals do not realize these habits of theirs; they simply view them as constant personality traits or might be totally ignorant of their existence. Others may clearly get to witness them and if one fails to stop and study them closely, one may end up fully, though unintentionally, cultivating dangerous habits (Mark, 2016).

The author begins...

Private success is imperative before one endeavors towards public victory as change implementation within a group first requires self-change. This forms the preparatory stage for the next three habits outlined by the author, which aim at boosting one’s management and leadership ability. All 7 habits described work synergistically, complementing one another in a number of ways. One can easily study them if one takes them as components of the following key habits: organized planning and acting on one’s plans (Mark, 2016).
The first part of the book, titled ‘Paradigms and Principles’, deals with character and personality ethics, fundamental and ancillary greatness. Further, the author describes the potential of an archetype wherein his 7 habits exemplify several key, basic human efficacy tenets (Al-Shidhani, 2011).

The second part, titled ‘Private Victory’, addresses three habits, namely proactivity, commencing by taking the end result into account, and working on a priority basis. The first habit, proactivity, deals with individual vision. Self-awareness sets one apart and helps one study one’s perceptions of self (in other words, one’s self-paradigm). The proactive theory comprises of elements like creativity, autonomy and conscience. The second habit deals with commencing tasks by taking the end into consideration. This section describes personal leadership doctrines. While leaders lead a rather busy and hectic life, their efficiency and effectiveness is contingent on their keeping required goals at the forefront, always. The third habit which deals with prioritizing provides the base for individual management. According to the author, the most important thing should never be controlled by the least important one. The third part, titled ‘Public Victory’, deals with three additional habits, revolving around interdependence (Al-Shidhani, 2011).

Covey’s work essentially deals with cultivating a core value set such that deriving resolutions to issues becomes easy, and greatly increases one’s effectiveness in every area of life. Therefore, the 7 habits help draw out life’s basic truths, ensuring their perpetual accessibility such that anytime one encounters challenges, one can resolve them rationally and consistently (Hamm, 2007).

As the author considers worldview’s bases to be perceptions, with situational change necessitating self- and perceptional- change, he first scrutinized more than two centuries’ works that dealt with "success" and noted a salient evolution in mankind’s definitions of success. Earlier, character ethic (which deals with the principles of humbleness, bravery, uprightness, loyalty, sobriety, fairness, patience, diligence, artlessness, decorum, and the biblical Golden Rule) proved to be the basis for success. However, beginning somewhere in the 1920s, society’s attitude towards success underwent a shift to "personality ethic" (in which success is governed by one’s practices, personality, outlook and public image) (Hussain, 2017).

Nowadays, everybody seeks quick fixes. Any individual,…