Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change: Amazon.ca: Stephen R. Covey: Books

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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was a groundbreaker when it was first published in 1990, and it continues to be a business bestseller with more than 10 million copies sold. Stephen Covey, an internationally respected leadership authority, realizes that true success encompasses a balance of personal and professional effectiveness, so this book is a manual for performing better in both arenas. His anecdotes are as frequently from family situations as from business challenges.

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. 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 much more.

This isn't a quick-tips-start-tomorrow kind of book. The concepts are sometimes intricate, and you'll want to study this book, not skim it. When you finish, you'll probably have Post-it notes or hand-written annotations in every chapter, and you'll feel like you've taken a powerful seminar by Covey. --Joan Price

Review

Dun's Business Month When Stephen Covey talks, executives listen.

M. Scott Peck author of The Road Less Traveled The 7 Habits have the gift of being simple without being simplistic. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
IN MORE THAN 25 YEARS of working with people in business, university, and marriage and family settings, I have come in contact with many individuals who have achieved an incredible degree of outward success, but have found themselves struggling with an inner hunger, a deep need for personal congruency and effectiveness and for healthy, growing relationships with other people. Read the first page

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551 Reviews

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4.2 out of 5 stars (551 customer reviews)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Will Help You Become More Efficient and More Effective, Jan 23 2011

By

MJ - See all my reviews

This review is from: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Paperback)

I loved this book since I am someone who is always trying to become more efficient and better at what I do.

There were a number of things about this book that I felt really struck home for me, and they were:

1. Proactive people can and do effect the future. While I can't control what happens to me, I can control my reactions to it and in doing so can feel better about the impact of my actions.

2. Directing my efforts can only come about when I am clear about what my goal is. Until I understand what my dream or my goal is, I can't effectively direct my actions towards that goal. For me, this was a big key in terms of helping to direct my energies towards my goal.

3. The concept of "first things first" was an eye opener for me. It distilled the difference between doing something that is "urgent" versus something that is "important". It was easy for me to be pulled away from important tasks to attend to something that is urgent, but I learned that focusing on Quadrant two (important but not urgent) would get me to me goal. Some of the things in Quadrant two are: planning, preparation, prevention, and relationship-building. All these things helped leverage my time and helped me towards achieving my goal.

4. Thinking Win-Win was another valuable lesson for me. An important distinction from my previous interpretation of this axiom was that win-win does not mean compromise. It means finding solutions to problems that truly benefit both sides of a dispute. The beauty of this approach is that it allowed me to focus my energies on finding great solutions instead of wasting time and effort trying to persuade someone of why my side of the dispute was better.

5. The fifth habit is - Seek First to Understand. At first I thought this was about letting the other person speak first, but the important distinction for me was really understanding the other person's point of view. The beauty of this approach is that when they felt I was truly listening to them, it made them much more open to listening to what I had to say and less judgmental about my point of view.

6. Habit #6 is all about synergizing. Finding a synergistic solution means finding a solution that is better than either party might have first proposed. When I let me guard down and release from my defensive posture regarding a point of view, and then work with the other person, the results have been surprisingly good.

7. The final habit is just getting better at all the other habits.

Another book that helped me achieve more was "GOAL! Your 30 Day Game Plan for Business & Career Success" Goal!: Your 30-Day Game Plan for Business and Career Success It moved me into action right away with regard to achieving a goal. It had me working on my goal from Day One and, importantly, kept me motivated through a series of exercises that had me thinking about my goal from the perspective of having already achieved it - a very powerful tool. I highly recommend this book for help with goal achievement.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great foundation for anyone to build off of, Mar 5 2004

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Sean Reyes (Walnut, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Paperback)

I would consider myself young at 20, and discovering this book has changed my life. It provides a great foundation for communication with the people you work with and love. I've given this book as gifts numerous times, and i've read it numerous times myself, always coming out with something new.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to change their direction in life, to get to where they want to be, and become the person they've dreamt of.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An absolute classic, May 11 2002

By

Dr. Eduard Van Kleef (Berlin, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (Paperback)

Stephen Covey today counts as one of the absolute top-management gurus. If you read this book, you'll understand why.

The book is divided into four parts.

The first part deals with the fundamentals that everything else builds upon: paradigms and principles. An important theme running through all of Covey's work is that of ethical behaviour and delivering one's contribution to society as a necessary ingredient of succesful living.

In part two the author shows you a number of principles that help you to deal with yourself, such as taking responsibility for your own actions and prioritizing your goals.

Part three talks about working with other people, addressing such issues as win/win thinking and active listening.

The fourth and last part talks about sustaining the things that you have learned and continuing to grow.

This book is not a push-over. It has a high level of abstraction. Also, part of this book sounds more like philosophy or even religion, which will not sit well with everyone. However, the author is perfectly correct in first discussing basic values and priorities ("doing the right things") before discussing techniques for raising efficiency ("doing things right").

Also, it is important that you realise that this is not a self-help book for people who have real specific issues on their hands (self-discipline, traumas, lacking social skill etc.) They will probably need to deal with those specific issues first, before they will be able to take the maximum out of this book.

For those who feel that their life is reasonably sorted out, but would like to go (much) further, this is a must-read book.

Highly recommended.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking and Life Changing
I love this book! So influential and thought-provoking. So many people these days forget that what's inside matters most, and Covey talks about how to build your character and... Read more

Published 1 month ago by VWL