Assessing guru covey's
Stephen Covey, the author of best-seller "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", which has sold more than 20 million copies, died last week at the age of 79, leaving behind a legacy that has inspired millions of people. The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn
Lim said there were a few things from Covey’s teachings that had made a big difference in his life. One of them is his notion that people should consider their life as the "indivisible whole" and guide themselves through "principle-centred living and leadership".
"Lots of time, especially managers and people who work, they have a tendency to focus a lot on work and neglect other roles, especially as a son or daughter, brother or sister, father or son. People get lost. When they have a problem at work, they will bring it back home. When they have a problem at home, they will bring it to work.
"Don’t be career-centred, money-centred, manager-centred. But centre yourself on principles. Principles are timeless and universal things like empathy, kindness, caring. Your life will be more reflective and fulfilling," he said.
Applying this principle-centred living as a foundation, people can develop their "seven highly effective habits". Lim said the first habit, "be proactive" – possess the attitude that everyone can influence the outcome of his own life – had a profound impact on his life.
"Being proactive is the master habit for what we call ‘personal leadership’. You are in control. You are the programmer [of your life]. If you’re unhappy, you choose to be unhappy. Nobody makes you unhappy," he said.
The great reckoning came when Lim had his first child, who was born premature (28 weeks instead of 40 weeks) and had to undergo a heart operation for 10 days. Lim said it was a difficult period.
Knowing Covey’s "be proactive" habit, nevertheless, Lim said he soon figured out he was still in control of his own life. And so he began to read more and studied subjects such as how to take care of a pre-term child, and what were the risks involved, and started to talk and share with his wife.
"When you’re not proactive, your state of mind becomes very bad. Knowing his teaching, I can work. I feel I’m still in control," he said.
According to Covey, every human has four "endowments" – self-awareness, creativity, consciousness and independent will.
"People have choices between stimulus and response. Highly effective or proactive people don’t let stimulus put them in a trap," Lim said.
Covey also taught about the "gardener mindset" of leaders who view their people as "seeds" rather than "things".
"When you look at your luk nong [subordinates] as seeds, you have the power to help them grow. If you look at your luk nong as ‘things’ or mechanisms, you’ll try to ‘fix’ the person.
"It [works] fast, but won’t be effective. There’s the ‘law of harvest’ – you can’t expect instant [gains]," he said.
At least 20,000 people have taken "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" course since PacRim started to offer it in Thailand 12 years ago, he said. Many organisations in the country including Unilever, Pandora and Nestle have used the "7 habits" programme as a foundation for developing their people.
Bauke Rouwers, chairman of Unilever Thai Group, is one of the leaders who believe in Covey’s principles and applies them as part of his management tools, he said.
