With the national unemployment rate in double digits and talk about layoffs and the economic crisis dominating newscasts and dinner tables everywhere, it’s no secret that today’s employees and job-seekers are more stressed, discouraged, and drained than ever.

To help people find work and career fulfillment in these tough economic times, Stephen Covey, author of the best-seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Jennifer Colosimo, chief learning officer at FranklinCovey, have launched the Great Career iPhone application, which was developed in partnership by FranklinCovey and Signal Patterns based on their new book Great Work, Great Career.

Get the Great Career iPhone application at iTunes at: http://bit.ly/GreatCareer

The Great Career iPhone app can be used in conjunction with the content in Stephen Covey and Jennifer Colosimo’s book or independently. Its specific activities and functionality include:

• Know Your Strengths – Research-based assessments help users to discover personality, strengths and career interests

• Define Your Contribution – A contribution statement builder helps users specifically define how they can match their strengths, talents and passions to an opportunity that matters to an employer.

• Build Your Village – A unique network-building and -nurturing tool; enables users to take specific actions and track them to build and maintain their most important career relationships

• Find Resources – Helps users identify “hidden resources” that can assist them to overcome specific challenges, or take advantage of promising opportunities, in building their career

• Action Center – Tracks, prioritizes and accomplishes all the necessary tasks to build and maintain a great career

• Ask an Expert – Allows users to submit questions to Stephen Covey and Jennifer Colosimo as well as get answers to frequently asked career questions.

Get the Great Career iPhone application at iTunes http://bit.ly/GreatCareer

Click here to get the Great Work, Great Career book.

A:  A “brand” is being known for something.  You might be known in your organization or to a small group in your industry, or more broadly, to the websphere.  As you know from a product focus, the most important thing to strive for in a product brand is trust in the brand.  I believe the same is true for personal brand.  There are many reasons this concept of personal branding has grown in importance.  In the knowledge age, I can’t rely on your job title to tell me what problems you can solve, you have to tell me or build a reputation (brand).  In order to gain any mindshare, you must be able to succinctly represent yourself because the rate of information has accelerated.  Also, while face-to-face networking will never go away, I would suggest social networking gains in importance every year and without the nonverbal cues from face-to-face, who you are needs to be very clear on the web or your network will get confused.

Of course, individual brand is an independent concept.  It is what “I” am known for.  And I am suggested that your brand is in NO WAY a manipulative spin on who you are.  It is, instead, communicating who you are.  It does no good to your career if you have deep technical skills and have led projects resulting in cost savings and increases in employee loyalty if no one knows about it.  In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Covey explains how interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.  This is really important:  Only by knowing myself—my talents, passions, and vision—and by taking responsibility for my choices regardless of the difficulty of the situation—only then am I capable of building win-win relationships and collaborating to resolve difficult challenges.  The confidence in self, my deeply rooted worth, allows me to be open and curious on the surface of my life.  I don’t have to be right all the time because my self-worth isn’t tied to being right or “winning.”  I’m much more curious, knowing that I don’t know everything about anything. 

If you get stuck in independence and don’t progress to interdependence, you might be effective in building a career, but you won’t be highly effective.

How do you use social networking to grow your personal brand?

What steps have you take to progress to interdependence?

We would love to hear from you.

Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Chief Learning Officer at FranklinCovey

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey describes Empathic Listening as reflecting what a person feels and says in your own words to their satisfaction so they feel listened to and understood.  Empathic Listening is  not listening to advise, counsel, replay, refute, solve, fix, change, judge, agree, disagree, question, analyze, or figure out. Whether you are familiar with The 7 Habits and are looking for a refresher or new to them all together, here are a few tips to remember when using Empathic Listening.

It is best to use Empathic listening when:

• Emotion if high.
• The other person does not feel understood.
• You do not understand the other person.
• Trust is low in the relationship.

Here are a few Empathic Listening starters, these should help you get started using Empathic Listening.

• So, if I am understanding you correctly you are saying…
• What I’m hearing is…
• You seem…
• You must have felt…
• You feel…about…

What tips have you learned as you have used Empathic Listening in your life at home or at work? We would love to hear from you.

The Leader in Me process is based upon Stephen Covey’s bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey’s recent book, The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time, chronicles the process – how extraordinary elementary schools are teaching the same 7 Habits leadership principles which have guided corporate and government boardroom decisions for years.

“The world has entered an era of the most profound and challenging change in human history,” said Stephen Covey. “Studies have identified a significant ‘skills gap’ between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today’s global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world.”

Click here to read entire press release

Click here to watch videos of Elementary school principals, teachers and students talk on The Leader in Me process.

Certainly, independence is vital; however, the problem is that we live in an interdependent reality. Our most important work, the problems we hope to solve or the opportunities we hope to realize require working and collaborating with other people in a high-trust, synergistic way-whether at home or at work. Having an interdependent mindset, skills and tools are vital, especially now as we work through challenges unlike anything most of us have ever seen in our life time.

The principles found in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People are all about helping people learn how to understand and build interdependence. The more we really understand and practice the habits, the more we will build the core skills and character necessary to successfully respond to the many challenges that will inevitably come our way. As a result, we will be able to manage our fears and insecurities, and take charge of our lives-which, in turn, can reduce our fears and insecurities.

Are you focusing on practicing interdependence? What differences have you seen in your life?

Join my free social learning community at www.stephencovey.com

Author: Stephen R. Covey

 Here is a sample of one from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Signature Program. Mike Bechtel, one of FranklinCovey’s senior delivery consultants, has provided some great ways to use the video Circle of Influence.

Best Practice: Set-up

Before showing this video, ask participants to take notes as they watch. They’ll learn the difference between the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. Then, they’ll hear the story of Ben, a worker at a university who worked his way up through the ranks simply by putting his energy into the things he could influence. Ask them to list the things that were in each of Ben’s circles.

Best Practice: Debrief

Use two flip charts to gather conclusions from the group. “What was in Ben’s Circle of Concern? What was in his Circle of Influence? How did those choices impact those around him?” Ask for volunteers to share a situation that causes concern that most of the group could identify with-traffic, financial issues, relationships, etc. Then draw two circles on a flip chart, and have the group decide what things are in each circle.

Additional Thoughts

How do we use these two circles to become more proactive? Once we’ve decided what items are in each circle, we have to make two choices:

 1. Put energy into the things that are in the Circle of Influence.

2. Don’t put energy into the things that are in the Circle of Concern.

The result? Whichever circle you put your energy in will grow. It’s that simple! Some people might feel that their Circle of Influence is just a tiny speck in the center of a huge Circle of Concern. But the principles still hold: no matter how small the circle is, that’s where we want to focus our energy. When we do, growth is inevitable and the Circle of Concern will shrink.

Click Here to access the 232 other video tip sheets.

For me, this has been really hard. When I get to work I tend to be heads-down and not resurface for a long time. I would eat at my desk, or not eat at all. But what I’ve found, over time, is that the harder I work, the greater my stress becomes. It’s a vicious circle that you can’t escape.

But when I take five or ten minutes to read an interesting news story completely unrelated to work, run an errand at lunch, or call a family member or friend for a few minutes, my mind clears and I find that I have even more energy to get my projects done. Once I even went to a nearby Costco, grabbed a hot dog for lunch and walked the aisles for 20 minutes. It opened my mind and kept me fresh for the remainder of the day.

Regardless of what you do, find some time every day just for you. Whether alone or with others, find something other than work, to experience for a few moments.

Hopefully these five tips will keep your stress levels low, increase your productivity, and improve your life-no matter how crazy it becomes.

Author: Matt Murdoch, FranklinCovey

 At FranklinCovey we are passionate and serious about preparing future leaders. For the last 18 months FranklinCovey has been working on an exciting new offering for elementary schools. It is called The Leader in Me, and it is designed to prepare children to be leaders in our changing society.

 The process is based upon the experience of educators and students at A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1999, this school was struggling with low academic performance and lack of engagement among faculty and parents. After searching for a solution, the administrators and teachers began learning principle-based leadership skills, including The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®, and then began teaching them to their students. In a short amount of time, end-of-grade tests improved dramatically. At the same time, the school saw significant and sustained increases in students’ self-confidence, dramatic drops in discipline problems, and impressive increases in teacher and administrator job satisfaction. 

 Following the success of A.B. Combs, other schools began implementing similar programs with very similar results. English Estates, an elementary school in Florida, was named the most academically improved school in its district after only one year of implementation.  Internationally, an elementary school in Canada reports that parent satisfaction with what is being taught has leaped from 67 to 98 percent.  The success stories continue to come to us.  Schools across the United States-along with schools in Guatemala, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and Europe are beginning to excitedly report comparable outcomes.

 This process of teaching students principles was the start of The Leader in Me. Currently we are seeing schools around the globe who are interested in using The Leader in Me process to prepare the next generation for the future by emphasizing personal leadership in every student. The Leader in Me offers this solution to all schools by providing the tools and necessary support through trainings, a web community that includes lesson plans and forums, videos, student activity guides, teachers’ resource books, and much more.

 FranklinCovey is eager for this opportunity to help children around the world prepare for the future.  To learn more, visit www.theleaderinme.org. 

Author: Sarah Noble, The Leader In Me Project Leader, FranklinCovey

You’re not alone.

I mean, there are still other people in your organization, right?

Tip#2: Embrace Others

Odds are, when you’re working fast and furious, there is probably someone, somewhere in your organization that may have some downtime, or they’re worried about not being aligned with strategic projects. Find them. Grab them. Capitalize on their skills. And have them chip in. People are generally happier when they’re engaged and contributing. Sure, quality might slip a bit and it might take longer for you to get that project done. But there is a huge feeling of relief when you delegate a task to someone and you go back to your office and are able to tackle something else. And there is an even better feeling when they come back to you and the project is finished and better than if you did it yourself.

 In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey outlines the principle of abundance. What this means is that there is always enough work for me and you, and the person in the office down the hall. Don’t be afraid to relinquish a bit of control over your projects. It will only benefit you and the people you bring into your circle. Your projects will get done better than before and you’ll be helping other people become engaged.

In my next post I’ll cover Tip #3: Plan or Perish.

Author: Matt Murdoch, FranklinCovey

I liked everything I heard, but some habits and ideas resonated with me more than others. Habit 2, Begin With the End in Mind was a habit that made theoretical sense to me, but it’s application (writing a personal mission statement) just seemed a little too ‘touchy-feely’ to me. It wasn’t that I was against the idea. I mean, ‘if you’re the kind of person that is in to that self-exploratory stuff, that’s great, but that kind of thing just isn’t my style.’ I will be honest, I kind of glossed over Habit 2.

Big mistake.

You see, I loved Habit 3, Put First Things First. After learning all about getting organized and putting the big rocks in the jar first, I went out and got a planning system, filled it with stuff (including a color-coded class-schedule) and proceeded to become dangerously efficient. It wasn’t too long however, before I learned that you can’t put first things first without knowing what your first things are! A planning system without the groundwork of a personal mission statement does lead to greater efficiency, but also greater ineffectiveness. As educator Neal Maxwell said, it’s like ’straightening deck chairs on the Titanic’

So, I began the process of hammering out a first draft of my mission. It has been through several revisions in the last 20 years or so, but has served as an invaluable tool in helping me stay focused on what matters most. It has given me the confidence and power to comfortably say “no” to really good, but unimportant things that would lead me to places I really don’t want to go. I have found Stephen Covey’s statement to be correct, ‘It’s easy to say no when you have a deeper yes burning within’.

Such clarity is critically important in today’s turbulent climate. We frequently work with organizations that have less people, less resources, more confusion, and more noise-they are simply expected to do as much or more with far fewer resources. In order to survive such an environment, we need a compass to help us stay focused and on course in order to make critical decisions and accomplish key priorities. A mission statement is that compass.

So, pay the price. Build your mission. Start now. One day, many years from now, when you are precisely where you want to be, you will be very glad you did.”

You can get started by using FranklinCovey’s Mission Statement Builder tool at: http://franklincovey.com/msb

This tool will help you discover your mission and values but will help you find the right words to put your mission down on paper. Once you build your mission statement please come back and tell us about your experience and share thoughts and insights.

Click here to register for a free webcast I will be conducting on discovering your purpose and writing your mission statement. Your source code is B5W.

Author: James Cathcart, FranklinCovey Consultant

Click here to read more from James Cathcart.

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had great female and male mentors and it seems my skill set and capabilities have been, to this point anyway, valued.  So I’ve got luck.  I also believe, “Luck favors the prepared.”  And the prepared don’t whine. Given the historical, societal, environmental challenge and opportunities you uniquely face, you have immense choice regarding what to say and how to behave right now. According to Victor Frankl, a Nazi war camp survivor highlighted in the Signature course The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the greatest human freedom is the ability to choose our reaction in the face of any circumstances. Imagine that instead of Susan B. Anthony saying, “Suffrage is the pivotal right,” and working her entire life to obtain voting rights for women in the United States, she had simply invested her time in complaining to the women in her knitting circle! Executive Mamas focus on what they can do, not on what they cannot.

Blame or finger-pointing and lack of personal responsibility

Keep the gloomy game going.

They keep stealing your hidden genius and potential wealth-

Giving them to a dimwit on the sidelines with

No leadership, heart, or financial skills.

Dear one,

Wise Up.

- Hafiz, fourteenth-century Sufi poet

Author: Jennifer Colosimo, Vice President of Sales and Delivery Effectiveness at FranklinCovey

In 1989 I noticed a new book in a New Jersey airport bookstore.  It was called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was a “road warrior,” a traveling consultant from Utah, and was mildly interested to find a book written by a fellow Utah native, Stephen R. Covey.  But I didn’t buy it.

That was exactly 20 years ago.

Since then Dr. Covey’s book has been called “the most influential business book of the century” (by the Wall Street Journal).  It stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 5 years.  A “must-read” now translated into 38 languages, The 7 Habits is now in 20 million copies (and is arguably the most pirated business book in the world). Google “7 Habits” and you’ll get 14 million hits. 

In the early 1990s I started seeing this book everywhere.  When in 1995 I saw it on the desk of a high-ranking official in Saudi Arabia, I realized it was time for me to pick up a copy.

But I still put off reading it.

Meanwhile Dr. Covey was seemingly training the world in basic, unchanging principles that lead inexorably to success. More than half the employees of Fortune 500 companies were trained.  Towns, churches, and schools read the book together.  Presidents, prime ministers, and kings read the book.  Of course, above all, Oprah read it and featured it on her show.

In 1996 I sat in a dark auditorium in Orlando, Florida, with 8,000 other people to hear Dr. Covey speak. “I am a lighthouse,” he intoned in the darkness, telling a famous parable from the book, the story of a ship on the night ocean that tried to order a lighthouse to get out of its way.  His point-you can choose your course in life, but you can’t choose the consequences of your choice.

So I read the book-probably the last person on Earth to do so. I learned to focus on truly important things, not just urgent things. To listen-really listen-to other people for the first time. To think “win-win.” To get off the road, which was killing me, and find a real mission and purpose in my professional life. And to raise really super children (of course, I may be biased).

How has The 7 Habits impacted the world in the last 20 years? Hard to tell-not enough. Not nearly enough.

But I know how it’s impacted me. 

How has the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People impacted you? We’d like to hear from you.

Author: Breck England