The 8th Habit From Effectiveness To Greatness by Stephen Covey

The 8th Habit From Effectiveness To Greatness by Stephen Covey In his landmark book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey presented a method of becoming much more effective in our personal and professional lives. But in this new era of the Information/Knowledge Worker, being effective is only the price of entry to today's more complex playing field. In order to thrive, innovate, excel, and lead in today's environment it is imperative that we build on and move beyond effectiveness. The call of this new era in human history is for greatness, fulfillment, significant contribution, and passionate execution. Tapping into these higher reaches of human genius and motivation, what Covey calls "voice," requires a new mind-set, a new skill-set, a new habit. The 8th Habit is all about finding your own voice and then teaching others how to find theirs. Industrial Age Thinking Management guru Peter Drucker tells us that the fifty-fold increase in productivity in the last century came to us courtesy of Industrial Age thinking and Covey believes that the Information/Knowledge Worker Age will increase productivity 50 times again! How will this great leap in productivity occur? By accessing the enormous untapped potential of the knowledge worker but there is a significant impediment in the way. Managers today are still applying the Industrial Age control model to today's knowledge workers. Industrial Age thinking sees only a small part of the whole person as useful. When an organization only wants a person's body and doesn't really want their mind, heart or spirit, that person is reduced to a thing. What happens when you treat people like things? You insult and alienate them and make them feel frustrated, discouraged, unappreciated, and undervalued. The end result is a low-trust, unionized, litigious and unproductive corporate culture. As we will see, the only way to truly excel and create these huge leaps in productivity that the Knowledge Worker Age promises, is to utilize the abilities of the whole person not just their body, but their mind, heart and spirit. Only then can managers tap into the highest motivations, talents and genius of their people and unleash a tidal wave of value creation and productivity. Discover Your Voice Covey believes that: "There is a profound yearning in both people and organizations to find their true 'voice' to matter, to make a difference, to find greatness." It is this "voice" that will facilitate the massive increases in productivity 1 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

that Covey sees along with much greater job satisfaction. To find your voice means to engage in work that genuinely taps your talents and fuels your passion. It means doing something significant with your career identifying an unmet need and then employing all your talents and passion to meet that need. To find your voice means taking the path to greatness rather than settling for the road of mediocrity. Unfortunately the reality is that most people are very frustrated with the lack of opportunity to realize a life of greatness and contribution. They spend the majority of their careers operating below their capacity due to the problems that exist in their organizations. Sadly, even though most people are aware of the problems and the tremendous opportunities for change, they have not developed the internal power or the moral authority to become a force in solving those problems. To rise to this challenge, you need to find your own voice. But where do you look? You can find your voice by examining your own unique: 1. Talents your natural gifts and strengths. 2. Passion those things that excite you. 3. Needs the necessity that you earn a living by providing what people are willing to pay for. 4. Conscience that still, small internal voice or compass that confirms what is right when you're doing it. If you apply your talents, passion, needs and conscience to any role that you carry out in life, you can and will find your voice in that role. Here are some questions that will help give you clarity in the quest for discovering your own voice. Answer each question for all of the primary roles in your life: 1. What need do I sense (in my family, in my community or in the organization I work for)? 2. What talent do I possess which, if properly disciplined and applied, would meet that specific need? 3. Does the opportunity to meet that need tap into the things I feel most passionate about? 4. Does my conscience allow me to take action in this way and become intensively involved? When you engage in work that utilizes your talents and fuels your passions, and which fills a real need your conscience believes in you find your voice, your true calling in life. Four Human Intelligences Voice is also found by developing the four human intelligences: physical 2 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

intelligence, mental intelligence, emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence. By developing your four intelligences you will be able tap into more of your ultimate potential, find your voice, impact your ability to influence others, inspire them to find their own voice, and create what Covey calls Personal Greatness. So how do you develop these capacities? Covey suggests you make four assumptions. 1. To develop physical intelligence assume you've had a heart attack; now live accordingly. This could mean taking better care of your body by doing things such as eating healthy foods and exercising regularly. 2. To develop mental intelligence assume the half-life of your profession is two years, now prepare accordingly. To develop mental intelligence you must assume that what you now know could become obsolete in a short span of time, so become a continuous and disciplined learner. 3. To develop emotional intelligence assume everything you say about another, they can overhear; now speak accordingly. 4. To develop spiritual intelligence assume you have a one-on-one visit with your Creator every quarter; now live accordingly. Covey believes that by making these four simple assumptions you can immediately begin to lead a more balanced, integrated and powerful life while developing your voice. Express Your Voice The world's great achievers have something in common they all developed their four intelligences. By developing these intelligences, they amplified the power of their voices and as a result became great contributors and led lives of significance. Similarly, in order to express your voice more powerfully, you need to work at building and expanding your capacities in each of these four intelligences. The highest manifestations or levels of development of these four intelligences are: for the physical, discipline; for the mental, vision; for the emotional, passion; for the spiritual, conscience. 1. Vision is seeing the potential in people, projects and businesses. As William Blake once said: "What is now proved was once only imagined." 2. Discipline is the practice of paying the price to bring a vision into reality. To be disciplined means to accept reality and to do the work necessary to move forward from there. Without exception, successful people are disciplined enough to do what has to be done. 3. Passion is the desire and the drive that sustains the disciplined individual to work to achieve the vision. When people are passionate about what they do, they don't require any supervision to get things done their 3 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

motivation comes from within. 4. Conscience is your moral sense of what's right and what's wrong, and is the guiding force to vision, discipline and passion. Covey sums it up nicely. "Conscience often provides the why, vision identifies what you're trying to accomplish, discipline represents how you're going to accomplish it, and passion represents the strength of feelings behind the why, the what and the how." Inspire Others to Find Their Voices "In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." Albert Schweitzer Once you've found your own voice, it's time to help others to find their own unique voice. To inspire others means to recognize, respect and create meaningful opportunities for others to express their voices. The word inspire is derived from the Latin inspirare, which literally means to breath life into another. This is exactly what you do when you encourage and positively influence others within your own organization to actually find their voices. The Four Roles of Leadership Whenever you express your own voice using the highest manifestations of the four intelligences vision, discipline, passion and conscience you are displaying personal leadership. For an organization to express its voice, its leaders must fill four equivalent roles. 1. Modeling the organization's leaders set a good example and build trust so they can perform the next role of leadership Pathfinding. 2. Pathfinding what is our destination and what is the path we will follow to get to that destination? In other words, what is our mission and vision, and what are our strategic objectives? 3. Aligning the organization has to create structures, processes and systems that will engender the new vision, mission and objectives of the organization. If buy-in for Pathifinding isn't achieved, then Aligning will be impossible because people have a tendency to fight change and sabotage it at every turn. The key is to first get buy-in to the Pathfinding criteria then and only then can you start Aligning. In the section below entitled "Blending Voices" a powerful way of resolving conflicts and getting everyone "on board" will be examined. 4 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

4. Empowering the unleashing of peoples voices, talents and creativity. Covey emphatically states that "You cannot hold people responsible for results if you supervise their methods the moment you supervise peoples' methods you become responsible for results." This is where rules and regulations have taken the place of human judgment and has killed peoples' voices and creativity. That's why most people raise their hands at conferences when Covey asks "How many honestly believe that the vast majority of the workforce possesses far more talent, intelligence and creativity than their jobs require or even allow?" These people are disempowered. The essence of the Knowledge Worker Age is empowerment: giving people the opportunity to use their talents and passion in meeting human needs in ways driven by their conscience. The first two leadership roles, Modeling and Pathfinding, deal with focus; with what matters most in an organization. The last two roles, Aligning and Empowering, deal with execution; making it actually happen. We will now take a closer look at both focus and execution. Focus Focus embodies both the Modeling and Pathfinding leadership roles, but how exactly do we create focus? Covey suggests developing the Voice of Influence and the Voice of Trustworthiness. The Voice of Influence Taking the initiative is the road to expanding your influence. It requires vision to see what needs to be done, discipline to do the job along with passion guided by conscience. How specifically do we expand our influence? By becoming what Covey calls a "trim-tab." A trim-tab is a very small rudder on a ship that turns the bigger rudder, which then turns the entire ship. When you do all you can to help the company succeed you will act as a trim-tab and help steer the organization in a positive direction even if you have little formal authority. In practical terms, being a trim-tab means to: Strive for personal excellence and encourage others to do the same. Use your initiative to solve problems without waiting for explicit permission. Avoid complaining, criticizing or being negative. Empathize with your boss and, whenever you're given an assignment, pause and consider why the work is important and then do more than is asked of you. As you do these things, you will influence others to perform at a higher level and positively impact the culture of your organization. Also, your superiors will give you more responsibilities which will further increase your influence. It's true that 5 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

senior executives are the "big rudder" for the organization but your great contributions, your "trim-tabbing," will also exert considerable influence. Ben's Story Years ago Stephen Covey served as the administrative assistant to a dictatorial and controlling president of a university. This person was also brilliant and highly talented but he treated everyone like a gofer as in "go for this, go for that." Over time this made the highly educated, motivated men and women under him become disenchanted, and then disempowered. They would constantly complain about the president by saying things like "I can't believe what he did...", "You know, let me tell you the latest..." and "You think that's bad. You ought to see what he did when he came into our department..." Then there was Ben, a non-academic with very little formal authority. Instead of complaining Ben decided to be the best gofer around. He would anticipate the president's needs and the reasons behind the gofer jobs he was to perform. He would ask himself "Why does the president want this information?" For one meeting the answer was "He's preparing for a board meeting and he wants me to gather data on how many university campus securities across the country carry side-arms because he's getting criticized about our approach. I think I'll help him prepare for that board meeting." Ben presented his gofer data at a preliminary meeting. But he did more. He also offered an analysis of the situation and made recommendations based on that analysis. After Ben's presentation, the president turned to Covey, speechless. Then he turned back to Ben and said, "I want you to come to the board meeting and make the recommendations. Your analysis is brilliant. You anticipated exactly what the need is." Ben's circle of influence exploded. Very soon he was making presentations to the board on a regular basis. Now people in the executive corridors were critical of him. So Ben "trim-tabbed" toward them as well. Ben took any problem they had and turned it into an opportunity to meet their needs and to solve their problems. Over time the whole university culture embraced Ben, even the academic side. They also saw him as the perfect complement to the president Ben was strong where the president was weak which rendered the president's weakness irrelevant. After four years, Ben was the second most influential person on campus and the president would not make any significant moves without consulting him. When Ben retired, a special award was given in his name because of the powerful, positive influence he had on the entire university. 6 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

Ben is a perfect example of how leadership can be a choice. He didn't wish things were different he simply saw a problem and took the initiative. Covey states, "When we say that leadership is a choice, it basically means you can choose the level of initiative you want to exercise in response to the question, "What is the best I can do under the circumstances?" The Voice of Trustworthiness The voice of trustworthiness is another voice that needs to be developed in order to create focus in an organization because trust is the key to all relationships and the glue that holds organizations together. According to Covey, to be trustworthy, you must have: Personal integrity you live a principle-centered life. Maturity the ability to deal with tough issues. An abundance mentality you can be happy for the success of others. Technical competence the skills and knowledge required to do the job. Conceptual knowledge the ability to see the bigger picture and think strategically. Awareness the understanding that everything is interdependent and connected to some degree. Blending Voices When a company is in Pathfinding mode and determining its strategic objectives conflicts will naturally arise. The best way to resolve conflicts within any organization is to search for a superior third alternative. When organizations do this, they create conditions where the organization's voice can be more clearly projected. So how do you develop a third alternative that will blend together people's voices and quash the voice of conflict? Here are two key questions you need to ask the other party: 1. "Would you be willing to search for an alternative solution that is better than what either you have proposed or what I have proposed thus far?" 2. "Would you agree to one simple ground rule while we discuss this: No one can make his or her point until they have restated the other person's previous point to his or her satisfaction?" If the other party will agree to both these suggestions, then you have a chance to work together to develop a synergistic plan which will work for both of you. This is a win/win approach and the solution is never a compromise, it should actually be better than either party's alternative. When properly crafted, both parties will actually be enthusiastic about the third alternative. Covey states, "The Third Alternative isn't my way, it isn't your way it's our way. It's not a compromise halfway between your way and my way; it's better than a 7 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

compromise. A third alternative is what the Buddhists call the middle way a higher middle position that is better than either of the other two ways, like the tip of a triangle. The Third Alternative is a better alternative than any that have been proposed. It is a product of sheer creative effort. It emerges from the overlapping vulnerabilities of two or more people from their openness, their willingness to really listen and their desire to search. You simply don't know where it's going to end up. All you know is that it's going to end up better than where it is now." Execution After focus is created it's time to execute. To get the job done there are certain disciplines that must be used to close the execution gap and research shows that the following four are the most effective at executing an organization's top priorities. Focus on the Wildly Important People are naturally wired to do only one thing at a time really well. The more goals you have the less chance you have of achieving them. Research shows that if you have an 80% chance of achieving one goal, by adding a second goal your chances of achieving both drop to 64%. When you get to five goals the chances are only one in three that you will achieve all the goals with excellence. So only focus on a few goals the ones that are of the greatest strategic importance and that will provide you with maximum leverage. To identify your organization's top two or three "Wildly Important" goals: 1. Use an importance screen. Ask: Which goals if not achieved would render all other goals to be of little or no consequence? 2. Use a stakeholder screen. Ask: Which goals are the most important for our stakeholders? 3. Use a strategic screen. Ask: What is the most consequential thing that can be done to advance our strategy? Create a Compelling Scoreboard People play differently when they know that the score is being kept. So it's vital that you create a scoreboard that is highly visible and accurately reflects the progress made towards the Wildly Important goals. To create scoreboards: 1. List the top priorities or "Wildly Important Goals." 2. Create a scoreboard for each goal with these 3 elements, 1) where we are now, 2) the target result and 3) the deadline. The scoreboard can be a bar graph, trend line, pie chart or Gantt chart. It could also look like a thermometer or speedometer. The important thing is 8 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved

that you make it visible, dynamic and accessible. 3. All team members should watch the scoreboard change day by day or week by week. They should be discussing it all the time and never really take their minds off it. Covey says that "The compelling scoreboard has the effect of keeping score in a street game. All of a sudden, the tempo changes. People work faster, conversations change, people adapt to new issues." The end result is that the goals are achieved much faster. Hold Each Other Accountable Without accountability the process is doomed from the start so Covey suggests that you hold regular accountability sessions. In these sessions each member should account for their commitments, examine the scoreboard, help to resolve issues that come up, and support other team members. Conclusion Within each one of us is the desire to make a difference, to contribute, to be significant to find our voice. This voice has been silenced by Industrial Age management practices and is the reason so many people feel frustrated, discouraged, unappreciated and undervalued at work. The 8th Habit provides a roadmap for individuals and organizations looking to find their true voice and create the huge leaps in job satisfaction, productivity and value creation that the Knowledge Worker Age promises. Covey strongly believes that when you engage in work that utilizes your talents, fuels your passion and fills a real need that your conscience believes in you will find your voice, your true calling in life. And if you help others find their voices your organization will be able to move into the new Knowledge Worker Era. When this happens, the organization will find its collective voice and a powerful culture will emerge which will facilitate the achievement of all of its crucial goals. 9 The Business Source www.thebusinesssource.com All Rights Reserved