Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey (20 page)

The mission statement for that hotel was the hub of a great wheel. It spawned the thoughtful, more specialized mission statements of particular groups of employees. It was used as the criterion for every decision that was made. It clarified what those people stood for -- how they related to the customer, how they related to each other. It affected the style of the managers and the leaders. It affected the compensation system. It affected the kind of people they recruited and how they trained and developed them. Every aspect of that organization, essentially, was a function of that hub, that mission statement.

I later visited another hotel in the same chain, and the first thing I did when I checked in was to ask to see their mission statement, which they promptly gave me. At this hotel, I came to understand the motto "Uncompromising personalized service" a little more.

For a three-day period, I watched every conceivable situation where service was called for. I always found that service was delivered in a very impressive, excellent way. But it was always also very personalized. For instance, in the swimming area I asked the attendant where the drinking fountain was. He walked me to it.

But the thing that impressed me the very most was to see an employee, on his own, admit a mistake to his boss. We ordered room service, and were told when it would be delivered to the room. On the way to our room, the room service person spilled the hot chocolate, and it took a few extra minutes to go back and change the linen on the tray and replace the drink. So the room service was about fifteen minutes late, which was really not that important to us.

Nevertheless, the next morning the room service manager phoned us to apologize and invited us to have either the buffet breakfast or a room service breakfast, compliments of the hotel, to in some way compensate for the inconvenience.

What does it say about the culture of an organization when an employee admits his own mistake, unknown to anyone else, to the manager so that customer or guest is better taken care of!

As I told the manager of the first hotel I visited, I know a lot of companies with impressive mission statements. But there is a real difference, all the difference in the world, in the effectiveness of a mission statement created by everyone involved in the organization and one written by a few top executives behind a mahogany wall.

One of the fundamental problems in organizations, including families, is that people are not committed to the determinations of other people for their lives. They simply don't buy into them.

Many times as I work with organizations, I find people whose goals are totally different from the goals of the enterprise. I commonly find reward systems completely out of alignment with stated value systems.

When I begin work with companies that have already developed some kind of mission statement, I ask them, "How many of the people here know that you have a mission statement? How many of you know what it contains? How many were involved in creating it? How many really buy into it and use it as your frame of reference in making decisions?"

Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it.

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No involvement, no commitment.

Now, in the early stages -- when a person is new to an organization or when a child in the family is young -- you can pretty well give them a goal and they'll buy it, particularly if the relationship, orientation, and training are good.

But when people become more mature and their own lives take on a separate meaning, they want involvement, significant involvement. And if they don't have that involvement, they don't buy it.

Then you have a significant motivational problem which cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it.

That's why creating an organizational mission statement takes time, patience, involvement, skill, and empathy. Again, it's not a quick fix. It takes time and sincerity, correct principles, and the courage and integrity to align systems, structure, and management style to the shared vision and values. But it's based on correct principles and it works.

An organizational mission statement -- one that truly reflects the deep shared vision and values of everyone within that organization -- creates a great unity and tremendous commitment. It creates in people's hearts and minds a frame of reference, a set of criteria or guidelines, by which they will govern themselves. They don't need someone else directing, controlling, criticizing, or taking cheap shots.

They have bought into the changeless core of what the organization is about.

1. Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of this chapter. You may want to use the chart below to organize your thoughts.

2. Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with that mirror image of your life.

3. Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and to begin work on your personal mission statement.

4. Go through the chart in Appendix A showing different centers and circle all those you can identify with. Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life? Are you comfortable with the implications of your analysis.

5. Start a collection of notes, quotes, and ideas you may want to use as resource material in writing your .personal mission statement.

6. Identify a project you will be facing in the near future and apply the principles of mental creation. Write down the results you desire and what steps will lead to those results.

7. Share the principles of Habit 2 with your family or work group and suggest that together you begin the process of developing a family or group mission statement.

Habit 3: Put First Things First TM -- Principles of Personal Managemen
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least

-- Goeth

Will you take just a moment and write down a short answer to the following two questions? Your answers will be important to you as you begin work on Habit 3.

Question 1: What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?

Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

We'll come back to these answers later. But first, let's put Habit 3 in perspective
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Habit 3 is the personal fruit, the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2.

Habit 1 says, "You're the creator. You are in charge." It's based on the four unique human endowments of imagination, conscience, independent will, and particularly, self-awareness. It empowers you to say, "That's an unhealthy program I've been given from my childhood, from my social mirror. I don't like that ineffective script. I can change."

Habit 2 is the first or mental creation. It's based on imagination -- the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see without eyes; and conscience -- the ability to detect our own uniqueness and the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which we can most happily fulfill it. It's the deep contact with our basic paradigms and values and the vision of what we can become.

Habit 3, then, is the second creation -- the physical creation. It's the fulfillment, the actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2. It's the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered. It's the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment doing it.

Habits 1 and 2 are absolutely essential and prerequisite to Habit 3. You can't become principle-centered without first being aware of and developing your own proactive nature. You can't become principle-centered without first being aware of your paradigms and understanding how to shift them and align them with principles. You can't become principle-centered without a vision of and a focus on the unique contribution that is yours to make.

But with that foundation, you can become principle-centered, day-in and day-out, moment-by-moment, by living Habit 3 -- by practicing effective self-management.

Management, remember, is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right-brain activity. It's more of an art; it's based on a philosophy. You have to ask the ultimate questions of life when you're dealing with personal leadership issues.

But once you have dealt with those issues, once you have resolved them, you then have to manage yourself effectively to create a life congruent with your answers. The ability to manage well doesn't make much difference if you're not even in the "right jungle." But if you are in the right jungle, it makes all the difference. In fact, the ability to manage well determines the quality and even the existence of the second creation. Management is the breaking down, the analysis, the sequencing, the specific application, the time-bound left-brain aspect of effective self-government. My own maxim of personal effectiveness is this: Manage from the left; lead from the right.

In addition to self-awareness, imagination, and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment --

independent will -- that really makes effective self-management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. It is the ability to act rather than to be acted upon, to proactively carry out the program we have developed through the other three endowments.

The human will is an amazing thing. Time after time, it has triumphed against unbelievable odds.

The Helen Kellers of this world give dramatic evidence to the value, the power of the independent will.

But as we examine this endowment in the context of effective self-management, we realize it's usually not the dramatic, the visible, the once-in-a-lifetime, up-by-the-bootstraps effort that brings enduring success. Empowerment comes from the learning how to use this great endowment in the decisions we make every day.

The degree to which we have developed our independent will in our everyday lives is measured by our personal integrity. Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves. It's our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves, to "walk our talk." It's honor with self, a fundamental part of the character ethic, the essence of proactive growth.

Effective management is putting first things first. While leadership decides what "first things" are,
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it is management that puts them first, day-by-day, moment-by-moment. Management is discipline, carrying it out.

Discipline derives from disciple -- disciple to a philosophy, disciple to a set of principles, disciple to a set of values, disciple to an overriding purpose, to a superordinate goal or a person who represents that goal.

In other words, if you are an effective manager of your self, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.

One of my favorite essays is "The Common Denominator of Success," written by E. M. Gray. He spent his life searching for the one denominator that all successful people share. He found it wasn't hard work, good luck, or astute human relations, though those were all important. The one factor that seemed to transcend all the rest embodies the essence of Habit 3: Putting First Things First.

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do," he observed.

"They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

That subordination requires a purpose, a mission, a Habit 2 clear sense of direction and value, a burning "Yes!" inside that makes it possible to say "no" to other things. It also requires independent will, the power to do something when you don't want to do it, to be a function of your values rather than a function of the impulse or desire of any given moment. It's the power to act with integrity to your proactive first creation.

In Habit 3 we are dealing with many of the questions addressed in the field of life and time management. As a longtime student of this fascinating field, I am personally persuaded that the essence of the best thinking in the area of time management can be captured in a single phrase: Organize and execute around priorities. That phrase represents the evolution of three generations of time-management theory, and how to best do it is the focus of a wide variety of approaches and materials.

Personal management has evolved in a pattern similar to many other areas of human endeavor.

Major developmental thrusts, or "waves" as Alvin Toffler calls them, follow each other in succession, each adding a vital new dimension. For example, in social development, the agricultural revolution was followed by the industrial revolution, which was followed by the informational revolution. Each succeeding wave created a surge of social and personal progress.

Likewise, in the area of time management, each generation builds on the one before it -- each one moves us toward greater control of our lives. The first wave or generation could be characterized by notes and checklists, an effort to give some semblance of recognition and inclusiveness to the many demands placed on our time and energy.

The second generation could be characterized by calendars and appointment books. This wave reflects an attempt to look ahead, to schedule events and activities in the future.