I’ve finally completed facilitating my first 3-day session of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” program for my organization.  I thought it was about time I write something about this program (one of which I think is among the most essential program for anyone - fundamental yet paradigm changing and inspiring).

7 Habits of Highly Effective People could somewhat be related to both our worklife and personal life.  I once came accross an organization who does not encourage the teachings of 7 Habits as “it does not go in-line with the organization mission”.  I’ve always wondered what does that mean because it’s so fundamental that it touches all aspects of life.

Here are some of my guesses on why some may think that it’s not appropriate as an organization sponsored program and my views on it:

• Much of the 7 Habits revolves around our daily lives, not only in the office but at home as well.  Some may feel that it’s for personal enrichment rather than organization effectiveness.  If we’re thinking from that angle, try asking ourselves these question - doesn’t every individual belong to part of the organization too?  Doesn’t effectiveness in individuals translate to effectiveness in organizations?  If individuals practice principles of effectiveness at home, would the same individual forget about those principles when they are at work?  Principles are Universal!
• If anyone is still not convinced that personal effectiveness contributes to organization effectiveness and thinks that 7 Habits is for self and not company, then why not remove all employees benefits too?  Paying employees medical bills?  Isn’t that individual’s health and not company’s as well?  It’s the same concept that we’re applying here.  We ought to shape all individuals to achieve organization effectiveness.
• Habit 2 talks about personal mission statement (very much something of personal passion), it may lead an employee to realize that he/she isn’t passionate about the work he/she is in and leads to high resignations.  Hello?!!?!?!  So you’d rather keep a passionless people around, and continue believing that driving a person without passion to work will get you good results?  Look at the brighter side - personal mission statement may show how an individual’s mission is aligned to tha organization’s mission (or at least the employees role) - which gives someone more excitement to get to work!

Why do I think that the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a very well designed program:

• All materials are prepared (including very detailed instructor’s guide).
• There are many videos to show the examples of each habit, some with Stephen Covey himself talking about those principles and habits (it ensures that all key elements isn’t lost).
• Additional supporting tools are taught.  It’s not only about knowing the importance of it, but how to do it too!
• It focuses on paradigm.  It’s true that it’s useless focusing on behaviour continuously unless the paradigm is changed.

So what are the challenges of being a facilitator of this program?

• I only see one challenge, but this is the challenge that have made me grow faster and adapt to the habits quicker.  I’VE GOT TO WALK THE TALK!  Unless we’ve practiced some of the habits and felt some results, we can’t quite passionately talk about our experience.  So it was always a great experience facilitating it.

Just a summary of 7 Habits:

• Foundation (Character/Personality, Paradigm shift, Effective vs Efficient)
• Habit 1 - Be Proactive (Focus on what’s within my area of influence)
• Habit 2 - Begin with the end in mind (What’s my mission?)
• Habit 3 - First thing first (The integrity to focus on QII - Important matters)
• Private to Public Victory (Emotional bank account deposits)
• Habit 4 - Think Win-win (The principle of abundance - there’s more to share)
• Habit 5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understood (effective communication)
• Habit 6 - Synergize (Achieving the results of Win-Win, Synergize is not compromise)
• Habit 7 - Sharpen the saw (continuous improvements that keeps the first 6 habits possible)

For more information on this program, here some great links:

• http://www.franklincovey.com/ - The Global Site
• http://www.franklincoveymalaysia.com/ - The Malaysian Site
• http://franklincoveyresearch.org/ - The Case Studies (Very interesting Real Life examples)

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Tags: 7 Habits, development, effectiveness, Training

This entry was posted by Clayton J.C Tan on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 11:18 am and is filed under Business Strategies, Culture, Human Resources, Leadership & Management, Youth Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.