leehwa writes: February 2012

Stephen Covey’s 7^th Habit : Sharpen The Saw

Compiled by leehwa

Different authorities refer to the 7^th Habit, using various terms. It could be, ‘recharging your internal batteries’, ‘renewing yourself’, ‘striving for excellence’, but whatever phrase or term you use, undoubtedly the most famous and renowned is ‘Sharpen The Saw’.

My tribute and appreciation to Mr. Stephen Covey for his wonderful book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which has made a tremendous impact on my life, particularly for ‘Sharpen the Saw’.

My thanks to my dear sister for lending me the book.

I was asked to share a briefing on the 7^th Habit, just one habit by my former boss, Mr. Chang who is very supportive of the teachings and philosophies promulgated by Stephen Covey. The other 6 habits were shared by my colleagues some time back. With the long time lapse and staff turnover, I could not help wonder about sharing with my colleagues this habit without giving them some idea what the whole book is about.

Talking about the 7^th Habit solitarily (alone) is not sufficient as the connectivity and flow of development and self improvement as advocated by Mr. Stephen Covey is not explained and expounded. I had to do something about connecting some of the dots together. So it was back to reading the book again, some summaries and notes that I had compiled earlier, and of course some from the Internet.

The summaries and slides were all prepared during those nights after work, burning the midnight oil and during weekends when I could squeeze in some extra time. I could put them up here through www.slidesharenet or through www.sribd.com. However, I chose otherwise.

What is the book about?

It is about 7 HABITS
It is about how you can improve your life and be more effective

How is it put into practice?

It is about embracing the

7 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

Stephen Covey :

‘true success is a balance of personal and professional effectiveness
the book is a manual for performing better in both arenas.
Before you can adopt the seven habits, you'll need to accomplish what Covey calls a "paradigm shift"--a change in perception and interpretation of how the world works.

What is paradigm?
The way we see, interpret

It can mean a model, theory, perception,assumption, frame of reference, a map of how things are, an explanation of how things are.
It is how you look at things, how you think it should be, and your interpretation (you may like to refer to the book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, pages 25, 26 and 45 and try to interpret these pictures).

Can we change?

Can we change the powerfully conditioning effects of our paradigms?
The more aware we are of our paradigms or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more objective we can be.
Stephen Covey takes you through this change, which affects how you perceive and act regarding productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your "proactive muscles" (acting with initiative rather than reacting), and how to communicate.

INSIDE-OUT APPROACH

Mr. Stephen Covey presents an "inside-out" approach to personal effectiveness that is centered on philosophical, deep principles and character.
the content and the methodology of these universal principles form a solid foundation for effective communication.
The book focuses on the difference between character and personality, and how important it is to focus on having a foundation of good character rather than focusing on skills, personality, and techniques.

PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES

CHARACTER ETHIC – the primary traits
PERSONALITY ETHIC – the secondary traits

PRINCIPLES OF CHARACTER ETHIC

Natural laws of human principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. Human Conscience.
Character is durable, deep, strong, fundamental, universal principles
'permanent things' – like values, relationships, communicating.

PRINCIPLES OF PERSONALITY ETHIC

Skills, techniques,
Behaviors and attitudes, like maintaining a positive mental attitude
not so fundamental, arguable

HABITS

Our character is a collection of our habits. Habits consist of knowledge, skill, and desire.

Í Knowledge allows us to know what to do

Í Skill gives us the ability to know how to do it …and

Í Desire is the motivation to do it.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People begins ------------------ that people perceive the world differently, and because we view the world with our own unique"lens," it is difficult to separate the observation from the observer.

Covey says that we all have our own paradigm, which is our own map of how we perceive the world and how we think the world should be in our ideal view. Covey writes, "The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act."

OVERVIEW stages, process, paradigm, theories or maps

The book moves us through the 7 Habits and takes us to the following stages:

Dependence: the paradigm under which we are born, relying upon others to take care of us.
Independence: the paradigm under which we can make our own decisions and take care of ourselves.
Interdependence: the paradigm under which we cooperate to achieve something that cannot be achieved independently. (you may like to refer to the book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, pages 53 for a diagram on ‘The Seven Habits Paradigm’, to get a better flow of the stages of maturity continuum).

INTERDEPENDENCE

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 7 habits

The first three habits are Dependence Habits

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habits 4, 5, and 6 - Independent Habits

Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize

7th HABIT - SHARPEN THE SAW

The habit of renewal and continual improvement.
To be effective, one must find the proper balance between actually producing and improving one's capability to produce.

THE

TAKING CARE OF	HABIT
‘YOU’

Do take good care of the goose that lays the golden egg, so that you can take better care of everything else.

习惯
- 管理自己	- 领导他人
主动积极	双赢思维
以终为始	知彼解己
要事第一	统合综效
	不断更新

PRODUCTION (P) VS CAPACITY TO PRODUCE (PC)

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.

physical assets, P represents using the asset, and PC stands for preserving and maintaining it.
In the financial area, P represents our earnings while PC represents our own capacity to earn.
In the human area, P represents getting the things we want from a relationship, while PC represents sustaining and improving the relationship by making deposits to the Emotional Bank Account.

THE 4 DIMENSIONS OF RENEWAL

Habit 7 is a personal PC. It's renewing the four dimensions of your nature, the physical, spiritual, mental and social or emotional aspects.

WHAT IT MEANS

Sharpening the saw
means prioritizing your well-being—physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional—by
taking the time out of daily routine to strengthen, replenish and renew yourself
Balance is better
Take time for a time-out

Physical, Mental & Spiritual

These 3 dimensions focuses on Habits 1, 2, &3
Is – ‘practising’ of Daily Private Victories(personal)
One hour to value add to gain private victories will affect every decision and relationship.
It will greatly improve the quality, the effectiveness of every other hour of the day including sleeping well
It will help build long-term physical, spiritual, mental strength to enable you to handle challenges in life

Physical Dimension
Caring for Your Body

Are you what you eat?
Exercising to keep healthy

Mental Dimension

Brain Food

What are your plans for “feeding” your brain? Make a list of things you want to learn or things that you want to do that will teach you.

Continuing education
Continually honing and expanding our mind is vital mental renewal
Reading – as we read, we seek to understand what the author has to say to reap the benefits of reading
Writing or blogging – is another powerful way to sharpen our mental saw

Spiritual Dimension

battle of good versus evil How you are working to improve your soul? What is it that makes you the most happy?

Feeding Your Soul

What feeds your soul? What or who inspires you and gives you peace?
Is there a person that makes YOU want to be better?

Social Dimension

Focuses on Habits 4, 5 & 6 centered on the principles of interpersonal leadership, emphatic communication and creative communication
All about our relationships with others
You do not need to particularly spend time to do it. We can do it in our normal everyday interactions with other people.

We need to push ourselves to do and practise it, as many of us have not achieved the level of skills of Public Victory necessary for Habits 4,5,& 6 to come naturally to us in all our interactions.
Serve, Laugh, Be a Friend

Caring for Your Heart

Focus on the things that are most important
Be in Love and work on relationships. Laughter or tears, the tears make those smiles and laughter more precious.

FEELING GooooD

Revitalize yourself and face a new day in peace and harmony. Or you can wake up in the morning full of apathy because your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone.

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.

Sharpening the Saw

Renew yourself in these four dimensions to develop and grow.

Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practise the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and deal with challenges around you.

Without this renewal, the body and mind become weak, and without purpose, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?

Too often we hear ourselves say, “I just don’t have time for that right now! I need to stick to my schedule. I’m too busy to take a vacation.” As much as we need our jobs, have our commitments and other people, we must also respect ourselves by caring well for ourselves. It is important to occasionally make time within our busy schedules to assess our personal needs. From this acknowledgment, we can begin to sharpen and renew ourselves appropriately.
As Stephen Covey states, “Renewal is the principle–and the process-that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.” The seventh habit is what makes all the other habits possible.

For connecting more of the dots and better understanding of the philosophies expounded by Mr. Stephen Covey, please read the book. You could either purchase it from Amazon.com, by clicking on the Amazon.com link http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-Powerful/dp/0743272455

or MPH Online at http://www.mphonline.com/books/nsearch.aspx?do=search&Cri=1&Val=The%207%20Habits%20of%20Highly%20Effective%20People&Sess=Fri%20Mar%2002%202012%2017:38:52%20GMT+0800%20%28Malay%20Peninsula%20Standard%20Time%29