The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (The Covey Habits Series)

A Zen master once said:"You go to University and spend time studying hundreds of books, we prefer to spend all our time studying one book to get all the essence out of it". If I had to choose one book that I would like to study again and again it would be this one. If you have read and applied Stephen Covey's previous books, then don't expect the 8th Habit to be similar as it is very dense, so not as easy to apply. However I think it is the best success book I have ever read. Whilst First Things First and 7 habits are applicable to your daily life, this book is applicable to the world surrounding you: your community, your organization and your planet. It gives strategies for turning things around to success in a much more holistic way and it works!! This book could be the subject of a PHD on changing the world and making organizations and communities successful. Here is one area and example I chose where this book applies (and there are many others): Managing and Leading Corporations. Today we are suffering either through lay offs or the dwindling of our savings from corporations run by CEOs bad at their jobs. Millions of people are suffering, including the CEOs and board members. Corporations over a hundred years old are disappearing. People are demotivated in the workplace, only 5% of their capacities is used and no amount of top down initiatives can motivate them. Nobody really wants this. So why is it happening? It could be that capitalism is made of creation and destruction. But what is key to survival then? Steven Covey's book in my opinion answers these questions. He gives the key to turning around corporations to success in a more effective way than 6 Sigma processes, big 5 consulting reorganizations and all the hypes that come and go. As I said the book is very dense, but here are some highlights: - S. Covey explains the context: we have moved from an industrial era to a knowledge era. This changes the rules of how success is achieved. - What is key now is people and leading them to get the best of them. We can no longer be lead by specialists in Finance and PR jobs who play lip service to employees. "Employees are on the forefront of our minds"; - S. Covey explains how to motivate people; - S. Covey explains the importance of devising synergistic solutions. So many companies are run through silos. The objective of one department is defeating the objective of another. - S. Covey outlines the importance of focus by limiting goals to 3 wildly important goals; - S. Covey explains how you cannot change the laws of nature. Ethics is a cornerstone of his principles and again this is an area where too many companies just play lip service to. Ultimately whether Ethics is not applied or is just a PR job the company pays the price. And so on...extremely powerful concepts. No amount of financial restructuring and marketing can make up for all these basic concepts. This book is to be put in the hands of all CEOs (and those who hire them :)), P

This is one of the most articulate compendiums on human/business relationships on the market today. Not the sugary feel-good hype but luminescent truths peppered with examples on how to achieve success in today's world by applying age-old human relationship laws with new laws born of the paradigm shift. Incomparable stuff - something for everyone. LOTS of info here - and with 13 CDs, it's not to be absorbed overnight. BONUS! This set also comes with a DVD full of GREAT relevant "mini-movies"! Each movie set is wonderfully produced and qualifies as a top-notch corporate level teaching tool! In addition the family can enjoy it! This bonus DVD alone is worth the price of the 13 CD + 1 DVD set! Highly recommended!

I have to work at it in a bit by bit method to digest each of the concepts and practice what I preach is a lot harder and it only works if we do it that way.This is a life time of work list out for me to do.The High quality DVD also help me to understand by example, I have share that with everyone around me and I will show it again and again until we are all align with the basic principle and values.

It is understandable to me, why so many readers might find "The 8th Habit": tedious, long, too complicated to follow, having no continuity, too many pages of disjointed concepts, charts, graphs, and quotes. When I started reading the book, "The 8th Habit" , I too found myself in a similar disheartened predicament. In the past with other books and even during continuing education pursuits , I have had the disappointing experience of not being able to get myself into reading an allegedly really good book that was purported by others to be great and meaningful. Recalling way back in my school days, it always seemed that I would understand concepts better and remembered them better when they were spoken about in class rather than if I just sat down and tried to initiate myself by reading text in a book. Now as adult, I acknowledge to myself that I consider myself a visual / auditory learner rather than a book text reader learner. Upon the recommendation of a colleague early in January 2005, I set out to read the book: "The 8th Habit" As I usually do with books of this sort, I got stuck with all the seemingly complex, disjointed text after reading just a chapter or too. Frustrated, I listened to a voice in my head that told me to stop reading and just put the book down. Then another voice in my "head", a "voice of self-awareness" reminded me of my auditory learning style and the challenges of previous predicaments when faced with books of similar nature. This voice of self awareness repeatedly asked me to look for a way to listen to "The 8th Habit" rather than struggling with just a read of the book. Quickly, I ran out to see if there was an audio version of the "The 8th Habit". To my amazement there existed an unabridged audio version (no shortcuts) with thirteen audio CD's. It was a reading of the entire book plus a bonus DVD (videos making the material appeal to both sides of my brain!). I found myself listening to the book in my car on the way home from the bookstore! What's more, I could hear the voice of author himself, Stephen Covey, reading aloud to me his own book, with all the commitment, investment, devotion and personal momentum innuendos that lay beneath any writing. It gives me goose bumps to ponder the synergistic effects of me, an adult, experiencing the outstanding "reading aloud" phenomenon as advocated by Jim Trelease and touted in his book: " Hey! Listen to This". And now it is a few weeks later, after several hours in my car, of listening to chapter after chapter, sometimes over and over again. Once I arrived home or even a few hours later on in the day concepts I had heard were fragmented or incomplete in my memory. I was compelled to pick up the book and search for those meaningful sections which allow pieces to put together. Accessing the book as a reference empowered me to "digest" the vast array of "meat & potato" concepts at my own pace. Concepts such as the "jack-ass" paradigm of worker

When I got my hands on a pre-release copy of this book, I expected to enjoy it, simply because his classic, THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE, has had such a powerful impact on my personal and professional life. But in no way was I prepared for this new book to be so inspiring and riviting, and to speak so clearly and insightfully to my present challenges and desires for my life. With THE 8TH HABIT, Covey not only acknowledges the on-going need to be effective in today's world, but puts his finger on the human hunger for meaning, contribution, and significance--what he calls "greatness"--and then provides a roadmap for individuals and organizations to achieve it. You know it's one thing to identify, as his research does, just how disengaged, frustrated, disempowered and straitjacketed most people are in the organizations they work for, but it's another to give insight into how we can actually realize the kind of positive change we desire in our lives, our homes, and in the teams and organizations we are part of. I love and was moved by the personal examples and experiences Covey shares. It's another great blend of principles and practical, inspiring stories. I also love how the focus is not just centered on oneself. Yes, we can and need to "find our voice," but the equal and perhaps greater key to life lies in "inspiring others to find their voice." That's the leadership challenge--whether it be with your children or with those you work with. I believe this may very well be Covey's most important and significant work--an idea whose time has come.