NOTE: At time of writing I have only read a small amount of the book, I intend to write a little as I read each section, really for my own reference.
A colleague, who I respect and who has become a friend, recommended this book – not directly to me but I was heard him recommend it. Shortly after, I saw someone reading it on a flight to Copenhagen. I have a natural aversion to anything “aspirational” within the realm of business and self improvement. I remember people at university who had pictures of Lamborghinis as their desktop background on their laptop, I feel uncomfortable around people who want to succeed at any cost, and who measure that success in status symbols and wealth, I don’t believe this to be a sustainable, compassionate or fulfilling way to live life. Of course it doesn’t hurt to become wealthy, I’m not saying we should all strive to be extremely poor and just be happy about it.
I had heard of this book and put it in my mind as a book for those types of people, who will always think they need more things and will never be truly happy. When my friend mentioned the book again, because I respect his opinion, I admitted my prejudice and explained how I judged the person reading it on the flight.
He did know what I was getting, which was a relief because I was opening up about being a judgmental prick, he explained that there is nothing in the book that expects you to trample on others for your own success or anything toxic like that. Instead it’s full of working on your compassion and understanding to be less judgmental of others, plus generally useful and actionable advice to work well with people in business and personal life. Kindly and compassionately shitting all over my judgement!
Maybe I should give it a read, I spotted that it’s available to borrow from the local library using Libby so it won’t be a waste if it’s rubbish.
The habits:
- Be Proactive
- Begin with the end in mind
- Put the first things first
- Think win-win
- Seek first to understand, then be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the saw
Well, as a list of points they aren’t exactly groundbreaking, but the intro does state that each requires a lot of work so maybe there’s a little more too them. It is clear that they aren’t all aligned with “Dominate” or “Smash all competition”, as my initial judgement had assumed.
Introductory section(s)
There’s a long sectioned up introduction before getting onto the habits, basically telling us that the whole thing requires work and giving apparently real examples to explain how these habits are important, how we can begin to control out habits and that there is importance to the order. 1-3 being personal or private, internal. 3-6 being public, to do with working with others but that 1-3 need some work to be able to achieve much out of 3-6. Then habit 7 is effectively maintenance and continued learning. I guess that makes sense.
I guess the big and important part in the introduction is explaining dependence, independence and interdependence, and the author arguing that interdependence it where we need to get to in order to become “effective”, and we must head through independene to get there. The first two of these words are obvious, but interdependence was not a word I could have defined. Interdependence sounds like depending on others, but it is spoken about in the book as a healthy ability ability to combine efforts with others to achieve something greater.
1. Be Proactive
Being proactive is the opposite of simply being reactive. We try to understand what we can control and influence, and we focus on that, taking responsibility for our actions and reactions. The word “responsibility” is broken apart to “response-ability” a number of times to try to drive home some of this point, although this is a little irritating but I suppose I should control my response.
The idea of maintaining something is used to explain that we need to be proactive otherwise our time and money are wasted, e.g. if you never change your oil, your car won’t last long. But, seemingly more importantly, the basis for understanding this is to consider your “circle of influence” and your “circle of concern”. Things inside your circle of concern may be important, but not all of them can be influenced by you. Remembering to focus efforts in the circle of influence is important because this circle will grow as our efforts are actually focused on things we are able to make a difference to, rather than inanely worrying and blaming others.