The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is based on an Inside-Out Approach to becoming a more effective people. The Inside-Out Approach means that give our first energies to our own character development before we focus on techniques or how to be more effective with others. What we really need is the Character Ethic rather than Personality Ethic. Let’s focus on what’s really happening, not what’s appearing to happen.
The 7 Habits
The essential purpose of The 7 Habits is to learn how to lead our life in a truly effective way. The 7 Habit is a process of personal and interpersonal growth and development. This requires not only our continuing effort, but also our patience. Real growth and development cannot take place overnight. We must pay the price over an extended period of time to reap the benefit of these 7 habits.
By applying these efforts, we can expect to increase our capacity to achieve personal and professional goals, develop better working relationships, and become more effective.
Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.
As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you.
Feeling good doesn’t just happen. Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew yourself. It’s all up to you. Just remember that every day provides a new opportunity for renewal–a new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill.
To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn’t just happen on its own. It’s a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results that they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty–you name it.
When people begin to interact together genuinely, and they’re open to each other’s influence, they begin to gain new insight. The capability of inventing new approaches is increased exponentially because of differences. Valuing differences is what really drives synergy.
If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely.
So why does this happen? Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating.
Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.
Many people think in terms of either/or: either you’re nice or you’re tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration. To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that–to achieve that balance between courage and consideration–is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.
It’s all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities.
Habit 1 Being proactive is about choice. Habit 2 Beginning with the End in Mind is the first, or mental, creation. It is about vision. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation. This habit is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment-by-moment. It deals with many of the questions addressed in the field of time management. But that’s not all it’s about. Habit 3 is about life management as well–your purpose, values, roles, and priorities.
If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It’s about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.
Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.
366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done Peter F. Drucker
20041026
About This Book
Revered management thinker Peter F. Drucker is our trusted guide in this thoughtful, day-by-day companion that offers his penetrating and practical wisdom. Amid the multiple pressures of our daily work lives, The Daily Drucker provides inspiration and advice to meet the many challenges we face. With Drucker’s trademark clarity, vision, and humanity, Drucker sets out his ideas on a broad swath of key topics, from time management to innovation to outsourcing, providing useful insights for each day of the year.
These 366 daily readings have been harvested from Drucker’s lifetime of work. The reader will find an action point at the bottom of each page that spells out exactly how to put Drucker’s ideas into practice. It is as if the as if the world’s wisest and most action-oriented management consultant is in the room, offering his timeless gems of advice. This book is for anyone who seeks to understand and put to use Drucker’s powerful words and ideas.
Introduction
In putting together The Daily Druker, I (Joseph A. Maciariello) have tried to distill and synthesize the “tapestry” that Peter Drucker has woven and continues to weave. I have done this by constructing 366 readings, each addressing a major topic, one for every day of the year. Each reading starts with a topic and a “Drucker Proverb” or other quote capturing the essence of the topic. These proverbs, wise sayings, and quotes are mnemonic constructs that remind one of the teaching on each topic. Then follows a teaching taken directly from the works of Peter Drucker. Next comes the action step, where you are asked to “act on” the teaching and apply it to yourself and your organization.
