Key Management Models, 3rd Edition

76

Seven habits of highly effective people (Covey)

The big picture

Wildly popular throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, Stephen Covey (1989) has changed the face of many an ambitious manager’s bedside table. Covey claims that highly effective people have seven habits that make them very successful in life and business:

1. Be proactive.
2. Begin with the end in mind.
3. Put first things first.
4. Think win–win.
5. First understand, and then be understood.
6. Synergise.
7. ‘Sharpen the saw’.

In addition, Covey argues that highly effective managers do exactly what they feel is both right and important, and they do it consciously.

Figure 76.1 ...