The character of a person is composite of its habits basically. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow and action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
Person’s habit is a powerful factor of a person’s life. It is the unconscious pattern that constantly express in character and what makes a person effective or ineffective.
Habits can be learned through time and it can be also unlearn, not in a second, it needs time and tremendous commitment. Habits can pull a person like a gravity that hinder the person’s success or being effective like procrastination, impatience, criticalness, or selfishness that violate the basic principles of human effectiveness.
The first 3 habits deal with the self-mastery. They move a person from dependence which is from infancy to independent which is adulthood. They are the Private Victories the essence of character growth.
The next 3 habits is the Public Victories of teamwork, cooperation, and communication.
Habit # 7 is the habit of renewal- a regular balanced renewal of the four basic dimensions of life, it circles and embodies all the other habits. It is the habit of continuous improvement that creates the upward spiral of growth that lift a person to new levels of understanding and living each of the habits as a person comes around to them on a progressively higher plane.
Effectiveness is the balance of P/PC, P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.
There was a poor farmer had a goose that lays a golden egg everyday and becomes fabulously wealthy, but because of increasing wealth comes greed and impatience. Unable to wait for the following day he killed the goose so he could inherit all the golden eggs that is in the stomach of the goose but unfortunately there was no golden egg inside the stomach.
True effectiveness is the function of two things the producing asset or the capacity to produce (goose) and what is produced (golden eggs). Some are ineffective because they are always aiming the golden eggs and neglect the goose.
Another illustration, a guy who buys the lawn mower, he used it over and over without maintain or checking the lawn mower. The mower worked for two seasons, then it began to break down. He tried to open it and discovered that the engine had lost over half of the original power capacity.
The guy is focus of the P, mowed the lawn, and not the PC preserving and maintaining the mower. He could spend far more time and money to replace the mower than spent in maintaining it.
Another example in an organization, a person is in charge is a machine, an is eager to make impression to his superiors. The machine produce at the maximum level with out maintaining it, will the profit is very high. He runs the machine day and night. With in a short span of time he is promoted. (he is focus on the golden eggs).
But if ever his successor inherit the left over machine (goose), by this time, is rusted and starts to break down, he will spend in downtime and maintenance. The successor will be blame of the low profit.
P/PC balance is particularly important as it applies to the human assets of an organization-customers and the employees.
Our character is a collection of our habits, and habits have a powerful role in our lives. Habits consist of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge allows us to know what to do, skill gives us the ability to know how to do it, and desire is the motivation to do it.
The Seven Habits move us through the following stages:
1. Dependence: the paradigm under which we are born, relying upon others to take care of us.
2. Independence: the paradigm under which we can make our own decisions and take care of ourselves.
3. Interdependence: the paradigm under which we cooperate to achieve something that cannot be achieved independently.
Much of the success literature today tends to value independence, encouraging people to become liberated and do their own thing. The reality is that we are interdependent, and the independent model is not optimal for use in an interdependent environment that requires leaders and team players.
To make the choice to become interdependent, one first must be independent, since dependent people have not yet developed the character for interdependence. Therefore, the first three habits focus on self-mastery, that is, achieving the private victories required to move from dependence to independence. The first three habits are:
* Habit 1: Be Proactive
* Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
* Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habits 4, 5, and 6 then address interdependence:
* Habit 4: Think Win/Win
* Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
* Habit 6: Synergize
Finally, the seventh habit is one of renewal and continual improvement, that is, of building one's personal production capability. To be effective, one must find the proper balance between actually producing and improving one's capability to produce. Covey illustrates this point with the fable of the goose and the golden egg.
In the fable, a poor farmer's goose began laying a solid gold egg every day, and the farmer soon became rich. He also became greedy and figured that the goose must have many golden eggs within her. In order to obtain all of the eggs immediately, he killed the goose. Upon cutting it open he discovered that it was not full of golden eggs. The lesson is that if one attempts to maximize immediate production with no regard to the production capability, the capability will be lost. Effectiveness is a function of both production and the capacity to produce.
The need for balance between production and production capability applies to physical, financial, and human assets. For example, in an organization the person in charge of a particular machine may increase the machine's immediate production by postponing scheduled maintenance. As a result of the increased output, this person may be rewarded with a promotion. However, the increased immediate output comes at the expense of future production since more maintenance will have to be performed on the machine later. The person who inherits the mess may even be blamed for the inevitable downtime and high maintenance expense.
Customer loyalty also is an asset to which the production and production capability balance applies. A restaurant may have a reputation for serving great food, but the owner may decide to cut costs and lower the quality of the food. Immediately, profits will soar, but soon the restaurant's reputation will be tarnished, the customer's trust will be lost, and profits will decline.
This does not mean that only production capacity is important. If one builds capacity but never uses it, there will be no production. There is a balance between building production capacity and actually producing. Finding the right tradeoff is central to one's effectiveness.
No comments:
Post a Comment