Book Review: The 8th Habit
August 16, 2012 Leave a comment
| Title/ Author/ ISBN; | The 8th Habit Stephen R. Covey ISBN-978-0-684-84665-1 Pages=328 |
| Introduction | The book 8th Habit is about personal leadership. The main theme is finding your voice and inspiring others to find theirs. When personal leadership is fully developed and grounded within, it can be used as a springboard to influence others [another dimension of effectiveness]. The 8th Habit is -“Finding your voice and inspire others to find theirs”. The book itself is not just about the 8th Habit, the title is misleading because once you finished reading the book, you end up with a “million things” to absorb/learn, practice, study and implement. |
| What is the book about? | The book is divided into 15 Chapters. The book includes a DVD with 16 videos to be viewed almost at the end of every chapter. The videos are good “eye openers” and speak a lot of meaning. At the end of every chapter beginning in Chapter 4, there is a Question and Answer portion, these are off topic questions [sometimes] but has a lot of wisdom and good answers.
Chapters: My Notes: Two Steps to 8th Habit B. Inspire others to find their voices Focus Execution Voice-Unique Personal Significance Life is too short-mindset change 5 Ages of Civilization Video Lesson Max and Max: Whole Person Paradigm-4 Dimensions of a Person 6 Levels of Choice A Great Organization Habit is the glue of: Hardwired Birth Gifts Stimulus and Response is separated by our Freedom to Choose 5 Component of Emotional Intelligence-EQ Components of Spiritual Intelligence Video Lessons: Law of the Harvest 4 Leadership Must Haves Traits of Significant Person B- Discipline-Physical Intelligence/Capacity C-Passion-Emotional Intelligence/Capacity D-Conscience-Spiritual Intelligence/Capacity What do successful leaders do? 4 Primary Management Practices 7 Levels of Initiative 5 Cancerous Behaviors Survey Said: “Character of Effective Leader” Effective Team/Individual Types/Levels of Listening Solution Continuum Video Lessons: Goal Video Lessons: Berlin Wall Point of View Changes the World Survey Said: What is holding Empowerment? A Servant Leader 5 Questions 4 Roles of Leadership Modes of Communication Execution Gap Requisite of a successful team: Mission Statement Level 5 Leadership Hierarchy |
| What do you think about the book? | The success and the impact/influence of the 7 Habits across the globe transformed many individuals from just being “good” to “being great”. Personally, I’ve been a believer and a practitioner of the 7 Habits many years ago. My favorite is the Time Management Matrix-Quadrant2. Truly a remarkable starting point to get things organized in our personal life. Knowing the fundamental principles of a true working leadership theory, one should not hesitate to include the 7 Habits as the core/guiding principle in life. Later on, once mastery is attained to the fullest; apply/utilize the 8th Habit. The 8th Habit takes the 7 Habits as the basic foundation of personal development and then later implemented like a building block to transform a person, a family, a workplace or an organization. Influencing a person or a friend or a child or a colleague is a broad subject by itself and takes a lot of wisdom/demand on how to truly impact their lives with what we currently believe and practice. The author took time and effort and provided plenty of explanation and theories and gave examples on how to guide others to find their voice. The first step before we can even think of executing the 8th Habit is to find/know our voice. Once our voice is identified and engrained in our personal habits/systems and the voice itself is grounded in solid foundation of our own “life examples” and “life experiences” we can then share it to someone. You cannot share what you don’t have and it is impossible to really give what you do not practice. Many people are finding the hard truth of why our personal leadership is ineffective. The true/short answer is most likely; we have not “got it” ourselves yet. There are many components to become a great leader/person. One has to constantly sharpen those fundamental skills/traits daily and work towards flawlessness and constancy of application to real life situation. There is no shortcut to true personal leadership, one has to acquire each skillset one a time and then later on we become capable to inspire others and one day they too will nod their head and say – “this is a good example of true leadership and me too – I want to inspire others to find their meaning and voice”. In doing so, we transform a person at first and then our surroundings and then our organization and then the world. |
| Conclusions/Recommendations: | I was in the mid part of the book when I shared the 8th Habit to someone. I asked him if he knows about the 7 Habits and he said yes. Then later I asked him if he heard about the 8th Habit, he became curious instantly but when I told him that the 8th Habit demands us to inspire others – he automatically become so antagonistic about the subject and we started having a debate. His point of view are these: 1. At work, I have to compete to survive. 2. Why would I inspire others? Who cares about other employees? 3. I worked hard to get where I am, everyone should go through the same ordeal. I was speechless and unable to carry on the conversation. Later in my reading of the book, I came across the 5 cancerous behaviors. That is when I realized that a personal transformation must happen first. The transformation must come inside the core of our self – mind, body, heart and spirit. Without the visible transformation, a person cannot set out to sail in the business of inspiring other people. It takes great humility and firm belief system to transform an individual. A person can read several motivational/self-help books, listens to great speakers but without the spiritual transformation within, the human nature will take over and dominate the person and will eventually show the symptoms of the cancerous behaviors of criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing and contending. Step Zero-get rid of this cancerous attitudes. The Book 8th Habit is a lengthy read. I managed to take notes as I went along through the 20 pages/day pace. I wish they have a Kindle version of the book so that I can just screenshot key points and take notes. There are a good amount of theories to dissect and absorb but generally the knowledge and wisdom of what Covey is talking about is easily comprehensible. I made a summary of key points on this report to remind me of the things that I’ve read. Reading the key points will not immerse you to the full effect of the message of the book. You really have to read the book to know what Covey is talking about. Recommendations: |