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FranklinCovey Blog | Stephen Covey
Be Proactive – The Most Important Habit
I am often asked if there is one habit out of the 7 Habits that is more important than the others. Of course, if you ask me all the habits are important and they form an inter-connected whole or a continuum. I believe for maximum effectiveness, you have to build from one to the other and apply them consistently. From that perspective, Habit 1: Be Proactive provides the foundation for all the other habits. Habit 1 is, undoubtedly, the foundation for leadership at home or at work because it begins with the mindset “I am responsible for me, and I can choose.”All the other habits are dependent upon being proactive and choosing to master and practicing principle-centered living.
The key to being proactive is remembering that between stimulus and response there is a space. That space represents our choice- how we will choose to respond to any given situation, person, thought or event. › Continue reading
Tell us your story and Win a Free Seat to Stephen Covey’s Career Development Webinar
- Secure their job.
- Advance in their career.
- Become a highly-valued and respected employee.
“The current economic downturn has affected so many people who have found themselves unemployed or nervous about keeping their job and are in need of career and professional development to find and protect their job. And, many are finding they must recreate themselves to start a new career. But, even in this difficult time, everyone can be proactive, and I look forward to sharing my knowledge to help them secure their future.” — Stephen R. Covey
Are you concerned about your job and your role at work? Does there seem to be a major road block on your career path? Have you lost your job and are not sure which direction to go next? Post a comment and tell us your current situation and how and why these webinars would benefit you and on Aug 3 we will choose 50 people to attend for free. So tell us your story…
Click Here for contest details.
More about the webinar series:
These webinars will give you the mindset and skill-set to not only survive these tough times, but to personally thrive in them-and help others to do the same. This is a profound learning opportunity that may just help you to make breakthrough improvements or become the person you’ve always wanted to be. Each webinar stands alone, so you can attend one, two, or all three webinars for maximized learning. Learn more.
Contest ended Aug. 25, 2009.
Leading the 21st Century Workforce
Have you ever wanted something to change but didn’t know how to start? We have all been in the position of making a choice; the choice to walk away or to work within our Circle of Influence.
When Andrew Cherng, co-founder of Panda Express, read Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s, The 8th Habit, he found something intriguing in the back of the book-a CD with video clip from A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mr. Cherng already knew, firsthand, how powerful the 7 Habits could be. But, could children as young as kindergarten be taught the timeless principles? Andrew and Peggy Cherng decided to visit the school.
The theme at A.B. Combs is leadership. It permeates everything they do and every choice they make. They do not believe that every child will be or should be a CEO. Rather they focus on leadership principles with the 7 Habits as their foundation. › Continue reading
Trust: an early indicator of economic recovery
Stephen M.R. Covey, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything, is sharing the power of trust in a 13 city North American speaking tour.
In a recent interview with The Orange County Register Covey addressed the economic worldwide crisis of confidence and how he sees trust as the remedy.
- When leaders ignore or forget their principles, they behave in ways that cause others to lose trust and they loose moral authority, causing social and economic impact. Trust is not a soft social virtue but is a hard-edged economic driver. Financial markets work because of capital and liquidity, but these two elements are not enough. Currently, the government has stepped in to help out with liquidity, but trust cannot be artificially created. › Continue reading
Five tips to reduce your stress: TIP #2
Have some of your colleagues been laid off recently? Are you being asked to pull up the slack and do more with less?
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. › Continue reading
Discover Your Purpose – Building Your Mission Statement
I was introduced to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People 25 years ago as a freshman in college. The book wasn’t even written yet. I found the lecture series on tape in my campus bookstore, and bought them hoping for some solid advice as I embarked upon my college career.
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. › Continue reading
Stephen Covey on Raising Happy Kids – USA Weekend
Dr. Stephen R. Covey, best-selling author and Contributing Editor to USA Weekend, was recently featured in the newspaper supplement, which is in print in more than 600 newspapers. The article, “How to raise a happy child,” featured advice from Covey. In his latest book, The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time, Covey applies his 7 Habits as they relate to education, parenting, elementary schools and kindergartner students. The habits help children to develop personal leadership and character.
Covey suggested the following to parents in the article:
- Parents can help their children be successful by affirming their children’s worth and potential in a way that inspires them to feel it is so. Children don’t derive their sense of self from being compared with other people. True success comes from character and not just from being rich and famous.
- A family mission statement is vital and should deal with the four parts of life – - mind, body, heart and spirit. It should also focus serving others, whether it’s working at a food bank or helping friends who come from dysfunctional families.
From the Desk of Stephen R. Covey: The High Cost of Low Trust
Most organizations have no clue of the enormous cost of low trust, and because most executives have no means of measuring its bottom-line impact, they have little motivation to seriously address it. To compound the problem, many employees feel like helpless victims of the problems in their organizations and see no clear way to influence their leaders. Learn specific, powerful things you can do that will profoundly impact the level of trust in your relationships, your team, your family, and your organization.
Q: Is trust really necessary in business today? Can you do business without it?
A: You absolutely cannot do business without trust. It is not only important, it is absolutely vital. For instance, even transacting with somebody when you are buying gasoline, you trust that you are getting quality fuel; you trust that the prices are within the market; and you trust that your money will be accepted by that person. There are just so many elements to the simplest transaction that require trust. But we are like fish that discover water last and are sometimes unaware of those implicit elements. Trust is the lifeblood of all relationships, of all transactions, and is so foundational and fundamental to everything in life.
Q: What are evidences of a low-trust environment?
A: Low-trust environments are filled with hidden agendas, a lot of political games, interpersonal conflict, interdepartmental rivalries, and people bad-mouthing each other behind their backs while sweet-talking them to their faces. With low trust, you get a lot of rules and regulations that take the place of human judgment and creativity; you also see profound disempowerment. People will not be on the same page about what’s important. Ultimately, the culture will become driven by urgency rather than importance because everyone is in it for themselves and for their own agenda.
Q: What is low trust costing us?
A: Low trust has a huge tax associated with it. It creates a culture of toxicity, just like you have toxins in your body. Imagine what it costs a body to be full of poison. And that is what a low-trust culture is-it is full of poison. You see people embracing and promulgating what I call the six metastasizing emotional cancers. Metastasize means they send their cancer cells through the body, mind, heart, and spirit of a person. They can also spread through relationships.
The six metastasizing cancers are criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing, contending, and cynicism. By competing, I don’t mean the healthy competition you find in the marketplace or in the basketball arena, but the kind of competition where you are competing for your own internal sense of worth.These emotional cancers are the forces that literally undermine and eventually destroy relationships. However, trust makes all things possible.
See other blogs by Stephen R. Covey at www.stephencovey.com
Sneak Peak of Conversation on Trust
Hi! I’m Annie Oswald and I’m the Director of Alternate Distribution Channels at FranklinCovey Co. Alternate Distribution Channels is just a fancy name for getting FranklinCovey audio, book, and video products into the hands of people all over the world.
Today I’m excited to announce a great new audio from FranklinCovey that we are creating. This is like an Advance Reader’s review but for audio. The audio is Dr. Stephen R. Covey and Stephen M. R. Covey Present A Conversation.
This audio program features two generations, a unique combination of father and son bestselling authors, discussing and sharing some humorous and always profound professional and personal experiences.
I think that as a listener you will be transported. You may even feel like a fly on the wall listening in to this personal meeting between two great business leaders, authors, speakers, and intellectual minds, I know I did. I listened as they made the case that there is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world.
From their insights I learned more about the importance of trust in creating building and maintaining effective relationships in all aspects of life: our homes, our families, each other, our companies and ourselves. › Continue reading
The Upside to the Downturn
“It’s 1929 all over again. We’re headed for disaster. It’s the end of the world as we know it. . . . ”
The headlines are a bit depressing, aren’t they?
At FranklinCovey we think the opposite. The headlines are fascinating.
Dr. Stephen R. Covey says, “We’ve never had such opportunity as we do today.” In Maurna Desmond’s interview with Dr. Covey (Fortune, Dec. 19), he observes that this is the chance, the opening, the break people have been looking for.
When companies close their doors, competitors can jump in and go crazy. When you’re let go, you’re free to change everything in your life. › Continue reading