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

When we say that a person has had a great career, what do we mean? That he or she made a lot of money? Moved spectacularly up the corporate ladder? Became famous or renowned in their profession?

And what about you? Are you looking forward to a great career? Would you describe your current career as “great”?

How do you create a great career for yourself? Can you have a great career and still have a great life at the same time, keeping the things you love – family, friends, work, and play – all in balance? 

The answer is, “It depends.”  It depends on how you want to contribute and how you define balance.   

Based on content featured in the soon to be released book Great Work, Great Career, by Dr. Stephen R. Covey and Jennifer Colosimo, in this webcast Jennifer will share critical, insightful principles and practices to help you discover your great career by discovering what your contribution will be and how you will make it.

 Specifically in this free webcast you will learn:

• How to begin identify your strengths, as summed up by your talents, passion, and conscience.
• Tips on how to craft a Contribution Statement.
• How to use your resourcefulness and initiative to get the job you want and overcome obstacles to making your contribution.
• How to create a network of supporters, both co-workers and clients—who can help you achieve your career goals.

 When: Friday, November 20, 2009
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. CT/11:00 a.m. MT/10:00 a.m. PT
Cost: Complimentary

Register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/198135273

Source Code: GCCB

Please join us, we would love to have you attend.

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.

Q: With every working generation, there are changes in what is motivational (e.g., Boomers vs. Gen Xers). As the mix of the generations (and cultures) continues to increase, and new cohorts enter the workforce, what approaches can we use to take advantage of this diversity to build organizational performance?

A: Synergy is celebrating diversity. So, involve people in the question you are asking and let them come up with their recommendations. Initially, start with small groups of three or four people so they are authentic and genuine in their communication and not “politically correct.” Then, let each small group share analyses and recommendations and begin to synergize at a higher level the question you are asking.

The key to this generational question is to be synergistically resolved through deep cooperation and authentic communication. Employ a great deal of empathic listening and restating another person’s point until that person feels understood. This takes a different mind-set and skill set.

How do you use diversity (the mix of generations, cultures etc…) to build organizational performance? I would love to hear from you.

This question and answer with Dr. Covey was featured in the January 2009 issue of Training Magazine.

Join Stephen R. Covey’s  free social learning community at www.stephencovey.com

HOW do you create a great career for yourself? Can you have a great career and still have a great life at the same time, keeping the things you love – family, friends, work, and play – all in balance? 

The answer is YES – look forward to Stephen R. Covey’s new book Great Work Great Career scheduled for release on November 15, 2009. More info coming soon.

As a husband, father, grandfather and most recently a great-grandfather, I am thrilled with my growing family. They are my greatest blessing and my greatest joy.

Even still I’ve wondered over the years what mistakes I have made as a father. Of course, there are mistakes along the way. Looking back I think one of the things I would have done differently as a parent is spending more time developing informal win-win agreements with each of my children. Doing this consistently and over time, covering the different phases of their lives would have been beneficial.

Because I traveled a lot, I felt that I often indulged them and went for lose-win too often. Instead I would have liked to pay the price to take the time to build relationships through win-win agreements.

You may ask, what is a win-win agreement? Start by thinking about your own relationships with your children. What can you do to create more win-win? You may want to try creating win-win agreements with them to involve them more in decision-making, problem-solving and being accountable. Find a problem or issue you want to work on. Talk openly to your child about their needs or desires (their win). Explain what is a win for you. Then come up with ideas for meeting your child’s needs in a way that will also meet your needs. Set up specific expectations, to-dos and outcomes. I would recommend putting this down on paper and having you both sign it so you can always go back to it in case of questions. This also creates accountability. Will you try this with your children?

I am certain the more you create win-win with your children, the more trust you will build with them—and you’ll model for them one of the most important skills they need to thrive in their relationships not only in the family but in all their relationships, now and in the future.

How will you start to create a win-win with your child today?

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

Author: Stephen R. Covey

The answer: Don’t ask them to do more with less.

Instead, ask them to do less of what doesn’t matter and more of what does matter.

Morale has little to do with how hard people work or how tough the job is. People will do extraordinary things and work incredibly hard if they feel their contribution matters. Most of the day job consists of carrying out tasks that somebody has to do. If one person now has to do the tasks of two people, you’re obviously going to burn out that one person. Instead, re-think those two jobs. Which tasks truly add value for the customer? Which don’t? Are you asking people to spend time and energy on things that don’t matter much just because they’ve always been done that way?

Talk with the employee about it. What does the person really want to contribute? What does that person think his or her customer really wants? Then start shedding tasks that interfere with those things.

An emergency nurse in a Chicago hospital who found herself all at once trying to manage one bleeding patient, another who was having a heart attack, and another who couldn’t breathe—well, she quit. Who can blame her? Some situations are just ludicrous.

But another nurse, Angela Crawford, moved back to her homeland of Barbados after many years working in a Canadian hospital. There she found incredibly overworked nurses. But after selling hospital administrators on the continuous improvement philosophy she had learned in Canada, every nursing procedure went under scrutiny. Mentors were assigned to new nurses. Procedures were simplified and bettered. She has sponsored health fairs and other methods for preventing disease, thus reducing the workload.

Today Angela is president of the Barbados Registered Nurses Association. She is known as “the nurse who transformed the Barbados health care system” and eased the heavy burdens of hundreds of her co-workers. 

None of this was in Angela’s job description. Like Angela, you can use your own resources and initiative to help your people do more of what matters and less of what doesn’t. And then watch morale rocket upwards.

How can you start to do less of what doesn’t matter and more of what does matter? What else is going on in your organization? We’d like to hear from you.

You can find these and other ideas for thriving in this challenging new era in our book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times.

Click Here to watch archived webcast

Who would have thought a couple of years ago that giant corporations would be toppling overnight? That gas prices would rise sky high and then collapse again within a few days?  That the economic boom would implode into the worst recession in 50 years?

But even in unpredictable times like these, some companies still perform with excellence. How do they do it? What principles do they follow? This blog is a place where we will discuss exactly that. It is a place where we can share insights and successes.

The book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times, a new book by Stephen R. Covey and Bob Whitman, chairman of FranklinCovey, captures four key principles for getting great performance in good times and bad.

First, winning companies slim down to a few key simple goals with clear targets and careful follow-through. Everybody in the firm knows the goals and what to do about them.

Second, winning companies maintain high levels of trust with their customers, employees, and suppliers. They are totally transparent about their commitments, what they can and can’t deliver. Only the most trustworthy companies survive the kind of turbulence we’re in now.

Third, winning companies do more of what matters. The mantra in tough times is “do more with less,” but the real question is “more of what?”  Winning companies focus on giving more value-not just cutting back.

Finally, winning companies recognize that everyone gets scared when things get uncertain. Instead of allowing themselves to be paralyzed by fear, they channel their anxiety into results. They unleash people’s best ideas and energies instead of suppressing them or micromanaging them.

Over the next few weeks we will talk more in-depth about these each of these principles, principles that we believe can help any company win, no matter how rough the ride gets. What principles have you found that are helping you win in these wild times?

Times have changed. One of the things I often tell people is that you can’t do a job-search the way you used to. Most people have relied heavily on a job application form and a resume. Typically, that just doesn’t work anymore, although those are useful things and most times necessary. In today’s world you have to adopt a new mindset for finding and securing a job-and not just a job but work that you would find meaningful.

The new mindset is: be a solution, not a problem to a prospective employer. When you call or submit your resume, it likely goes into a pile with perhaps hundreds of other resumes or applications. This is a problem for the employer; you are one more person they have to deal with.

However, what if you took the time to really research the company you want to work for? Read and research about what’s going on right now in the company. Find someone you might know to talk to about what they’re dealing with and what they’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t know someone, make a call to find someone in the company who might be willing to spend a few minutes with you. Network with their suppliers or one of their clients to get a better understanding of the company, department or person you want to work for. Between the Internet and networking, you can piece together a picture of what would be of specific value to them. From there you can see if your experience, talent, skills, and passion match up to what they need. Now you can creatively position yourself as a solution and differentiate yourself. Get a conversation started in the company by presenting yourself as a solution to their problems not as a person looking for a job.

The tougher things get the more creative and solution-oriented you have to become. Be a solution, not a problem-and you’ll significantly increase your ability to land a new job.

To learn more about how to advance your career, take charge of your life and become a highly valued employee join my career development webinar series at: https://www.franklincovey.com/tc/publicworkshops/dr-stephen-r-covey-webinars

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

• 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.

When Andrew Cherng, co-founder of Panda Express, read Dr. Stephen R. Covey’s, The 8^th 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.

Leadership principles:

• Helping students take responsibility for their lives.
• Working with others more effectively.
• Doing the right thing even when no one is looking.

The 7 Habits:

• Habit 1: Be Proactive You’re in Charge
• Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind Have a Plan
• Habit 3: Put First Things First Work First, Then Play
• Habit 4: Think Win-Win Everyone Can Win
• Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Listen Before You Talk
• Habit 6: Synergize Together is Better
• Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw Balance Feels Best

What would be different in your business if the children of today/your future employees came to you with these principles already firmly established?

“When we recruit leaders, we like to see people who are able to project their passion, who have self-confidence, and who have the right attitude to really face the unknowns and the uncertainties that we all face every day in our personal or career lives. I saw all those traits in the children at A.B. Combs.” – Peggy Cherng.

Andrew and Peggy Cherng decided to sponsor six schools in their community.

Since then Panda Express has committed to sponsoring three additional schools and many other businesses have seen the potential in The Leader in Me and decided to sponsor schools.

We only get one chance to prepare our students for a future that none of us can possibly predict.  What are we going to do with that one chance?

 For more information, go to www.TheLeaderInMe.org or call (800) 272-6839.

 Author: Judy Yauch, FranklinCovey Education Solutions

According to Dr. Stephen R. Covey a mission statement is like a constitution by which you make all decisions for your life. Highly effective people shape their own future instead of letting other people, their culture, or their circumstance determine it. A mission statement provides direction and clarity for your life, your family, your team and your organization.

Such clarity is critically important in today’s turbulent climate. You may work within an organization with fewer people, fewer resources, more confusion, and more noise-you may be expected to do as much or more with far fewer resources. In order to survive in such an environment, you need a compass to help stay focused and on course in order to make critical decisions and accomplish key priorities.

Benefits of a Mission Statement:

• Gives you a greater sense of meaning and purpose.
• Guides your day-to-day decisions.
• Helps you design your life, your family, your team or your organization instead of having it designed for you.
• Provides focus.
• Clarifies what is most important.

If you don’t have a mission statement or are ready to revamp, we can help you get started today. FranklinCovey’s mission statement builder provides an introspective path to creating your mission statement as you answer thought-provoking questions you will uncover your core values and highest goals.

Click here to use FranklinCovey’s Mission Statement Builder to get started today.

Once you write your mission statement come back and tell us about your experience or share your mission with us. We would love to hear from you.

 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

 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.

• Parents should not compare their children with other children. Too many parents don’t love their children unconditionally and they are focused on the success of money, recognition and achievement rather than on character and contribution.

• Good grades in school are the byproduct of living by correct principles and becoming one’s own personal leader.

• Parents should have their kids teach them what they’re learning in school. They should be excited and enthusiastic so kids start to feel, ‘Wow, my parents are really learning. I’m their teacher. I’m a good student.’ Teens tend to be resistant at first, but if parents start slowly with their favorite subject, they will become top students. But it takes time, which a lot of parents don’t give.

• Parents can help children deal with stress by saying no to things that aren’t urgent. They can listen to their children with true intimacy and let them express themselves fully, without judgment, advice or prying, which will remove a lot of stress from their lives.

Watching TV and computer use should be limited. Every child can watch TV for one hour a day, or seven hours a week but rarely on school nights. Children should use computers for their homework, but not extensively for games.

This is timely advice for parents and for anyone who wishes to make a difference in the life of a child.  To see Covey’s interview with USA Weekend, click here.

Click here to read more articles by Stephen R. Covey

 Author: Debra Lund, Public Relations Director, FranklinCovey

 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

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.

Trust is the one thing which, if removed will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love.

 On the other hand, if nurtured, trust has the potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. Yet it is the least understood, the most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time.

Trust impacts us 24/7, 365 days a year.

I have to admit I’m not an avid business audio listener (I shouldn’t admit that publicly-business audios are my business) but I loved this.

 Check our store in a few weeks for more details.

 Author: Annie Oswald

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.

It’s not a time to mope but a time to get creative. “People are too much a product of their conditions, and not of their decisions,” Dr. Covey says. There are two sides to losing a job, only one of them negative.   The positive side is that you’re suddenly free to create your own future.

Just look at Steve Demeter of San Francisco, who used to work on ATMs for a big bank. When he got interested in programming applications for the iPhone, he created Trism, a game he sold on the Internet for $5 per download and made $250,000 profit in two months.

At 29, Steve is a millionaire.

Have you heard stories like this? Do you have any stories you could share with us? Maybe it’s your own story. We’d like to hear from you about people who are choosing to succeed instead of fail in an economic downturn. 

While there’s a lot of pain associated with the economic crisis, we are much more interested in the possibilities for change.  What do you think, share your comments and stories with us?

Author: Breck England

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

In writing this week about Barack Obama we’re not trying to capitalize on his popularity (although we love Ben and Jerry’s new ice-cream flavor “Yes PeCan”).

But the new President of the United States undeniably seems to know something about greatness.

Somehow he has earned the loyalty of a lot of people. During his campaign 10,000 young people crowded into a Washington, D.C., rally and gladly tossed $15 into a pot to sign up as volunteers. Greeters with laptops took their e-mail addresses. This scene was repeated hundreds of times across the U.S.

After the election Obama’s change.gov Web site was wildly popular, streaming video of actual transition meetings, asking visitors for their opinions, and encouraging them to sign up for service projects. Millions visited and got involved.

Clearly, something new is going on here.

It might have to do with the power of synergy.

Obama fits no mold. His background is a model of diversity—his mother was from Kansas, his father from Kenya. He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. He has brothers, sisters, and cousins of many races living on all continents. Obama is the product of a remarkable cross-cultural synergy.

He is not about stale arguments, old wars, and worn-out biases. He appears to transcend all that.

Of course, time will tell. It always does.

But you can sense that we might be entering an era of the “Third Alternative,” what Dr. Stephen R. Covey has always called the greatest human achievement. The Third Alternative bypasses “my way” or “your way” in solving problems—it’s all about our way, a new way, a better way no one ever thought of before.

We suddenly face a drastically changed world with challenges no one has ever seen, so it’s going to need solutions no one has ever seen. President Obama has asked the world to send him great ideas for solving the problems we face together.

Why not take a minute and send us your great ideas—your “Third Alternatives”? Let’s all join the conversation!

In an interview I recently had with Dr. Stephen R. Covey for the FranklinCovey Client Facilitation Academy, I asked him a series of questions provided by our client facilitators that included challenges they are facing as they teach in their organizations to issues some may be struggling with when living the principles of effectiveness. In some cases, as the interviewer, I took the liberty of asking for further clarity or a “deeper dive” on topics that might be of interest. Those additional questions are italicized. Here are a few of the responses.

Q – Thomas Sibert of the Naval Support Activity asked :
“Early in the 7 Habits Signature Program, the idea of “principles” is introduced. It has worked for me to ask participants what principles of government the United States is based on. They quickly come to the Declaration of Independence and the statement “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Do you find this example consistent with your definition of a principle?”

A – Dr. Covey’s response:
“Definitely yes, but that is only the beginning because it took over 120 years for women to get the right to vote and over 80 years before we had the Emancipation Proclamation. So to enculturate and institutionalize these principles is the real challenge today.”

Please refresh us on the definition of principles vs values.

“To expand, a principle is a natural law like gravity. It’s different than a value. Values are subjective; principles are objective. Gravity… if you drop something, gravity controls. If I don’t tell you the truth, you won’t trust me-that’s a natural law. If I tell you the truth consistently and try to live it and apologize when I don’t and try to get back on track, then I’m living a natural law-repentance, making improvements, showing change.”

Q – Mark Allman with MEADWESTVACO asked:
“Of all of the items that you have worked with people on to help them in both their private and professional lives, if you could only share one thing with people, what in your opinion would impact them the most.”

A – Dr. Covey’s response:
“Educate and obey their conscience. Educate their conscience by studying the scriptures or the material that inspires them the most, until it becomes part of your conscience. Then obey it. Little by little, as you obey it, you will get more education and then you obey that. More and more light will come.
To read the interview in its entirety please clicks the link below to access the Academy archives or to learn how to become a certified FranklinCovey facilitator.
http://www.franklincovey.com/tc/facilitation

Author: Scott Miller, General Manager Global Client Facilitator Services, FranklinCovey