THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE

    One of the disciplines discussed in another QPI Book Review on Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline, is personal mastery. An organization is composed essentially of people. That is the employees, outside consultants and contractors, customers and suppliers, etc. It all boils down to dealing with people.

    If the organization is going to be successful, it is going to be the result of accumulative efforts and interactions of these people.

    Senge points out that in a learning organization, what I would call a QPI organization, the first discipline upon which everything else is founded is personal mastery of the individual involved. There are many sources of acquiring the knowledge necessary to achieve personal mastery.

    On a personal note, back in the 1970's, after having several unsuccessful adventures both in the academic and business world, with a marriage that was crumbling, as well as many other less than satisfactory experiences, I underwent a personal search for understanding what it would take to achieve all of the things in life that I truly desired. I effectively discovered the Seven Habits from a wide variety of sources.

    These certainly are not are not unique from Steven Covey. They were not discovered by Steven Covey. He has simply organized them in a very coherent and understandable manner. In fact, many of the great religions and philosophies of the world teach all or some of these Habits.

    When I read this book a few years ago I was struck by it. I felt that it was a book I wish I had access to twenty years earlier when I was undergoing my personal search for personal mastery. I also felt that in some sense of the word I could have written the book although not nearly as well as Steven did. Nevertheless I was very much in agreement with the concepts in it.

    I highly recommend this book to anyone in any stage of development, but particularly to those who are still in a stage of searching for personal answers. I feel it will form an excellent basis for encouraging and helping anyone to achieve personal mastery. That is essentially the relevance to the training that is focusing on QPI.

    The Seven Habits as Steven Covey identifies them are divided into two categories. Three of those habits are utilized to achieve a personal independence and are habits that must be utilized if one is to achieve a personal independence. That is a prerequisite for the second stage which are the next three habits that allow one to achieve an interdependence with other people such as being embedded within an organization or a family.

    The seventh habit is essentially the continual practice, learning, and renewal of the first six habits. Just as life is ever-changing and QPI implies a continual growth, the mastery of the Seven Habits is never complete. One will continue to learn and master these Seven Habits throughout their life.

    Covey defines a habit as some activity that we engage in that represents the intersection of three things: our knowledge, our skills, and our desire. A habit requires all three of those.
We tend to habitually do what we want to do, or at least want we wanted to do at one time, things that we have the ability to do, and things that we know how to do.

    It is very true that we will often fall into habits, due to defective knowledge or due to a desire that we no longer possess, that we consider to be undesirable. Of course, then we need to change the habit. In order to do that according to Covey we need new knowledge, new skills, and new desire.

    The smoking habit can be an example of that. At one point in your life you had the desire to smoke for whatever reasons. You had the knowledge of how to smoke, probably from observation, and you had to acquire the skill which was the ability to inhale and tolerate the toxic smoke without coughing too much. Once the skill had been acquired, it became a habit.
In the case of something like smoking, it became a habit that was hard to change. Later in life as our knowledge of the effects of smoking has increased and as the true results of smoking have become apparent, very often we have a desire to change. It is not easy to change. Smoking is a stable behavior attractor. Non-smoking is another stable behavior attractor, but it is quite different.

    Generally speaking, we must have the knowledge of just what would be involved in non-smoking. That is a deep knowledge of what it would be like to be a non-smoker. Then we have to have a desire to be a non-smoker. The skill is then a matter of controlling our own behavior, at least temporarily until such time as we acquire the new non-smoking habit.
The same is true in making the transition from one type of management system, whether it is a "big boss" type of system or an MBO type of system or some other, into a different one such as the QPI System. We must possess the knowledge of the system which is what the QPI Principles help us to acquire. We have to have the desire that can come from many sources. And, we have to really want to change and develop the skills to do so. When all of those things happen then we can acquire the QPI habits that enable us to become a QPI organization.

    One thing that Covey points out in the introduction is that we often have a mental model, Senge's terminology, or a paradigm of how things are. Our observations are very often influenced by this mental model.

    Covey gives an interesting example of a picture which can be interpreted two different ways depending upon our viewpoint. He explains that in the experiment described which is quite revealing.

    If we come to have certain beliefs or views in life, they very much color the way we interpret facts and which facts we even perceive. Habits are integrated with the paradigms we have and that is something that we sometimes have to consciously examine.

    As for many of these QPI Book Reviews there is no substitute for reading the book. I highly recommend this book to you.

    For some it will simply reconfirm the things they already believe and practice, as in my case. But then I was relatively late in life when I read the book. For others it may be revolutionary in their thinking and they may have to read it several times and think about it over long periods of time to fully accept it.

    Now we will discuss the Seven Habits which can transform ones life if one can manage to adopt them. They are all intertwined and even though I will describe them in sequence as Covey does, they are still intertwined.

    You have to constantly revisit each one, thinking about it, and working on it. In a way you never truly master them. There is always room for improvement and there is always more to learn. In fact, Habit Seven is that very one of reviewing and renewing the first Six Habits.
Habit Number One is what Covey entitles "Be proactive". The word proactive is taking action in advance. Reactive is responding to something that has already happened.

    One of the interesting things that Covey talks about is a P/PC Balance. "P" is the ability to produce or production. "P" stands for production. "PC" stands for production capability. Covey points out that when we go through life we can spend some of our time actually producing whatever it is we want and we can spend some of our time working on our production capability. That is the ability to produce.

    If we tend to work exclusively on producing, then we do not tend to work on our capability. On the other hand, if we spend all of our time working on our capability and do not ever produce anything, we will not have much to show either. So, a balance between the two is necessary.

    Some of the your time should be spent actually producing things you enjoy and desire. Other times you should actually be working on your ability which will ultimately in the future influence how much you are able to produce.

    Some people are so involved in production that they allow their production capabilities to become obsolete or to atrophy. When that happens they cease to be able to produce.
This concept applies to many aspects of our lives whether it may be works, hobbies, interpersonal relationships, etc.

    Habit Number One, "Be proactive", means that we must be thinking about what we want out of life, how we are going to react to our environment, and what we will respond to. Covey points out that the word "responsibility" can be "response-ability". In other words, our ability to accomplish.

    Part of being proactive is to create our own abilities. It means to acquire knowledge and develop skills.

    We often encourage our children in the early stages of their lives to gain an education. Of course, that means many things to many people.

    Too often today gaining a skill means the ability to do a specific job to earn a living. But, if it is a narrow job skill that is gained and if that job becomes obsolete or one can not get a job in that particular activity, then they may find themselves in a great deal of trouble.
In my day a broader based education was the goal of education to try to give us a broad base of skills upon which we could then base many specific skills. I frankly think that it is still very wise to spend a certain amount of time acquiring generalized knowledge and perhaps even generalized skills that one will be able to build on for specific skills. So, "Be proactive" implies developing an ability to respond.

    Being proactive also means to take initiative. We have to create the required skill or knowledge in advance of when we need it. If you do not have an appropriate skill when an opportunity comes along, you will not be able to take advantage of it.

    We have a choice of whether to act or be acted upon. Many of us go through life with our actions being very much governed by what happens externally.

    Covey speaks of a circle of concern and a circle of influence and how it relates to reactive versus proactive.

    Being proactive very often involves treating certain work as verbs as opposed to nouns.

    Covey gives an example that applies to all types of relationships. I will this as an example in the case of a spousal relationship.

    Many people think of the word "love" as a noun meaning that love is a feeling which they possess. They think that they either have it if they are lucky or that they do not have it if they are not lucky.

    Very often whether or not we have the feeling depends upon the reactions of the other person. If the other person behaves a certain way and acts a certain way, then that will induce the feeling of love.

    Covey points out that this a very poor approach to love and in fact is an improper approach. It is certainly not a proactive approach.

    Love can also be thought of as a verb. You can actively love someone.

    If you think of love as a noun, then you are reactive, very much depending upon other people's behavior to determine whether or not you have that feeling. If you think of love as a verb, then you are proactive and you can actually love your spouse in an active manner which is something you have control over.

    Covey makes the point, interestingly enough, that love as a noun will often follow if love is practiced as a verb.

    Covey gives the story of a man at one of his seminars stating that he really believed in the things being taught, but that he had a problem. He had a very nice wife that he no longer loved and he wanted to know what he should do about it.

    Covey answered, "Love her." The man then said that Covey did not understand that he did not love his wife and that he had fallen out of love with her.

    Covey again replied, "Love her." The man said, "You don't understand."

    Covey responded, "Perhaps you don't understand. What I am telling you is that you should love your wife as a verb. Do the things that express love. It goes beyond just the actions and you must actively love her in your mind in the way you think about your emotions. If you do that, the feeling of love will come."

    That really struck a resonant cord with me because I had undergone a very similar experience about ten year into my own marriage. My wife and I very many reasons that are very common with many couples had gotten in a situation in which we had basically fallen out of love. I am sure we both could very easily blame each other for that condition.

    The easy thing would have been to obtain a divorce and look for love from another source. However, we had children that we both felt very dedicated to and we felt that divorce was not an acceptable alternative. We determined that we would remain together for the sake of the children.

    Once that decision was made we then decided we might as well treat each other nicely. As we began to treat each other in a nice sort of way we began to practice love as a verb even though we did not have the feeling.

    The most miraculous thing happened after we did that for awhile. The feeling of love came back, so in that sense we fell back in love.

    I have to emphasize that our falling back in love was preceded by the love in the verbal form which did not have many feelings involved in it. After that the feeling came and then our love affair just got greater and greater.

    We have not only continued practicing love for all of these years, but the feeling has become more and more intense. It is like a QPI System in that it that continually improves.
So, the first Habit is to be proactive in all aspects of your life.

    The second Habit is to "Begin with the end in mind." What Covey means by that is you must be thinking about what it is that you want out of life. This means you need to have a vision of what you would like to have in all aspects of your life. It is not a simple thing.

    Do you want a family? Do you want a husband or a wife? Do you want to live in a large city or live on a farm? Do you want a certain type of career? Do you want multiple careers? Do you want a certain type of education? What kind of activities will you engage in? And, so on and so on.

    If you begin to think about and visualize this, it will lead to a mission statement. Covey insists that each of us need a personal mission statement. This, of course, needs to be harmonious with the vision and desires we have in life.

    A mission statement is a dynamic document that can continually change as you grow. Things you may want early in your life are different that things you will want later in your life. You may want something today that seems impossible over the long-term, so you have intermediate missions.

    There is no one who can give you the mission you want in your life. That will be derived by your personal experiences, your social and family background, as well as things you have read (which are part of your personal experiences).

    Many people grow into a certain centeredness that Covey discusses. There are things you can center your life on and different people practice this.

    One may be money centered and simply focused on making money. You may be work centered and that may dominate your life. You may be hobby centered with some dominate hobby. You may possession centered and very concerned about your possessions. You may pleasure centered and want constant pleasure. You may be friend centered or family centered. You may be enemy centered on the people you dislike in life. You may be church centered. You may be in some sense self-centered.

    What Covey advocates is that we become principle centered. That means to decide what principles we are going to live our life by. This applies to all aspects of life and it is an individual's choice of what principles they want to live their life by.

    One of the things I did twenty years ago in the mid 70's is that I thought a lot about the principles in my life. I asked myself what was really important in my life and what I wanted.
It turned out that my principles were basically to raise my children in the best way I could, to have a good strong marriage with my wife, and to build a business that would be very valuable to my customers and to all the people we dealt with.

    I did not think in terms of the explicit Principles of QPI at that time although I had the basic ideas in mind. One of the Principles was to always treat others as I wished to be treated, the so-called "Golden Rule". Another Principles was to always try to give more than I received. I believe in the Principle of Karma and that is that the actions you take today very much determine what will happen to you in the future. I believe in the Principles of self-improvement and educating oneself.

    I found that the more things I learn in life, even though at the time I learn them I may not see the value, the more relevant they become as time goes on. Many things I have studied at a certain point in my life that I did not see any particular practical application of later became extremely practical.

    One of the things I did very early in my life simply because it was something I enjoyed doing was to acquire a Ph.D. in mathematics. I did so mainly because I wanted to perpetuate the lifestyle of a college student.

    My Ph.D. is in theoretical mathematics that had no practical application that was obvious at the time. The background in mathematics has served me extremely effectively throughout my life because it has given me a certain way of viewing things and a certain manner of analyzing problems and of building models. The axiomatic approach in QPI is very much an outgrowth of looking at things through the eyes of a mathematician.

    What are the basic principles of a structure? That is the mathematical approach. The QPI Principles define that.

    Of course mathematics have been applied to many other things my life. The discovery of statistical process control, and many of the things we did in industrial training. Learning electronics on my own in the 70's would not have been possible without the background of mathematics I had acquired in the 60's. I am not suggesting that you should follow my path, but certainly constant learning is one of the Principles I think everyone should seriously consider.

    In any event it is not a trivial matter to decide what your principles of life are. If you are going to live your life by your principles, then you should not consider it to be a trivial matter nor should you look for someone else to do it for you. On the other hand you can certainly benefit from learning about the principles that other people have.

    None of the principles I have adopted in my life were unique to me. I probably got the idea for every principles I have from someone else. Principles can come from a myriad of sources such as family, friends, religious literature, The Bible, social groups, philosophy, etc.
The Third Habit is "Put first things first." One thing that Covey talks about that is very important is time management. He points out that there are basically two types of activities, urgent and non-urgent. Those can be subdivided into important and non-important.
Of course if we have important activities that are urgent, we will naturally deal with them and that is what we all do. Where the mistake is made is when we deal with non-important activities that are urgent using up all of our time and preventing us from getting to the important activities that are non-urgent.

    Covey strongly encourages us to identify these activities and to attend to the important activities, even those that are not urgent. Examples of important activities that are not urgent are relationship building, production capability improvement, recognizing new opportunities, planning, taking time for recreation, physical and emotional fitness, etc. All of those things are important although none of them are usually urgent. Very often they are neglected simply for that reason.

    Examples of activities that are non-important, but nevertheless seem urgent are certain meetings, interruptions, phone calls, certain activities engaged in, etc. Of course, each person must decide what is important in their life and what is not important in their life based on their principles.

    The main thrust of Covey's discussion is to attend to those important activities even though they are not urgent.

    Some of us get caught up in the bad habit of dealing with non-important, non-urgent activities such as time wasters, trivia, pleasant little activities, etc. Some of the activities we are trying to avoid are not exactly pleasant or fun and therefore we tend to avoid them.

    One has to learn to say "no" if one is going to tend to the important things. It is a matter of balancing your approach.

    QPI says that all decisions must be made in a balanced manner for all stakeholders. Many times you must say no to one stakeholder group because a global beneficial effect is lacking. Saying no is extremely important as you develop this independence.

    The ultimate goal of these first three Habits is to achieve a certain level of independence. If you are dependent on other external things, you will always be reacting to external influences. If you develop a set of principles and live by them, if you have a vision in mind, and you are proactive, if you organize your time putting "first things first", then you will achieve an independence in your life.

    We all live as members of the human race in societies and organizations. We are all social animals. That means that even though we are independent we are not just lone wolves. We are actually going to be part of larger organizations. The next three Habits lead us into a state of interdependence with other independent people.

    Covey makes a very important distinction between dependence and interdependence. Dependency is essentially unhealthy and reactive. Interdependence is founded on independence and it is a 50/50, cooperative, win-win situation.

    Covey describes the first Habit as the "Think-Win-Win Habit." If you are going to interact with other independent people, then you need to do so in a way that both parties are coming out winners.

    We have all thought in terms of win-lose and lose-lose and win-win. If you think about it, you want to ultimately head toward a win-win situation.

    It is very simple to define a win-win relationship. It simply means that both parties are going to benefit in some mutual way.

    He makes up a matrix of what is involved in win-win, win-lose, etc. relationships and points out that it takes a considerable amount of courage and consideration to create a win-win situation. If you desire a win-lose situation, you can achieve it with a lot of courage, but with no consideration for the other party. If you desire a lose-win situation in which you are losing and they are winning, little courage and a lot of consideration will accomplish that situation.
Many spousal relationships are of that nature. One spouse subordinates to the other and they live their lives in a state of lose-win or win-lose depending upon the viewpoint. My view is that is not a very healthy situation. In a win-win spousal relationship both parties will stand up for what they believe in, but they will both also have tremendous consideration for the other.
One of the things you try to do in a win-win relationship with another person is to always give more than you receive. The paradox of that is the more you give, the more you seem to get. It is virtually impossible in a win-win relationship to give too much. The other person will always want to give back more in response to your actions. In other words the more you give, the more you receive.

    One good friend of mine is very religious in a conventional sense. He is a devote Christian. He considers God to be his personal partner and his senior partner and he literally gives 51% of everything he makes. He is a multimillionaire so he makes tremendous quantities of money, but he gives 54% away to the Church because he considers that to be giving to God, his senior partner.

    My friend has told me that the more he gives, the more he seems to make. He attributes much of his great success to that attitude.

    Many times you will have a relationship with your organization, let us say with your place of employment. Again, in a QPI environment one wants a win-win situation. The more you give, the more you will get. Of course the more the organization win, the more it will give to you.
There needs to be a win-win mentality. It takes courage and consideration. If both courage and consideration are lacking, you will probably end up in a lose-lose relationship.

    Covey gives many examples on Habit Number Four, of the various inter-relationships. But, I am sure the idea is clear at this point.

    I will add that the very essence of the QPI Principles is to force win-win relationships among individuals, among departments, and between any stakeholder group within the company.

    The Fifth Habit that Covey introduces is "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." If there was one Habit that was somewhat new to me when I read this book and that effected me, it was the idea of empathetic communication. That is the concept that if you really want to communicate effectively, the first step is to truly listen to the other person and to ask questions to which you really desire the answer. You should not be trying to think of your response to the answer they will give.

    Senge discusses this concept in his book, The Fifth Discipline, and he calls it "Inquiry". The idea is to really try to learn what the other person is thinking. A Senge points out, you also want to understand where they are coming from, their mental model, their paradigm, so that you can better understand their thinking. So, "Seek first to understand."

    Once you feel you understand, then you seek to be understood. That is you try to communicate your ideas in a Socratic method and in a manner that is empathetic with the listener.

    In this manner you are having a true communication and Senge calls it advocacy. Once you have inquired and you understand, then you advocate your ideas. You try to present the reasons behind your ideas and strive to truly communicate them.

    If you have two truly independent people working together, they will both seek to understand. Once the understanding is achieved, then they will both seek to be understood and that is usually how true consensus and good ideas are reached.

    I might add that very often an understanding at the group level, when one is in the inquiry and seeking to understand stage, far exceeds what would have been the individual understanding. Different members of the group will stimulate others' thoughts.

    The Sixth Habit is "Synergize." Synergy means that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Synergism is two plus two equals five.

    Synergy is truly remarkable when experienced. For those who are familiar with Ichak Adizes' PAEI concepts, they are a good example of tremendous synergy existing within an organization.

    As you may recall, the four management styles are Producer, Administrator, Entrepreneur, and Integrator. Rarely are all four of those styles embedded in any one manager. It may be theoretically impossible. The idea is to have a management team with members that possess all these components between them making decisions. The key to success in such an endeavor is mutual respect and each of those contributing components.

    The "P" person answers the question, "What are we going to do?" The "A" answers, "How are we going to do it?" The "E" answers, "Why and when are we going to do it?" The "I" answers, "Who is going to do it?" All of those questions must be answered in order to have a good solid decision. That is synergy in action.

    No one person could on their own come up with the correct solution to the problem and make a good decision. If they all tried to make the decisions individually and somehow pooled the decisions, it would be a total failure. When they work together with mutual respect, respecting each other's skill and viewpoint as valid and necessary, a great decision will result.

    All four of the questions will have an integrated answer.

    Again, that is synergy in action. It is built right in.

    Principle one implies that decisions be made in a balanced manner. The entire organization is taken into consideration and benefits. The only way that can be accomplished is if there is a synergy among its components.

    Synergy is actually a necessary ingredient in the management of a QPI organization.
Another example of synergy is a shared mission statement. It is a fact that Covey points out and it has been pointed out by others as well. It is discussed in Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline. If an organization is to have a truly meaningful mission statement, there must be input from all people. It is only when people participate in the creation that they actually buy into it.

    You can think of a mission statement almost as a hologram in which each person has a certain view in their own mind. When all of those views are put together a global mission statement exists.

    In a QPI organization in order to achieve the objectives of the Principles and be consistent it is necessary to have a shared mission statement. This may be one of the most dramatic examples of synergy one can have. That is in the creation of a shared mission statement.
If you try to create the mission statement by one or a few people coming up with their vision and communicating it, you will rarely obtain the beneficial effects that you want. The most you would usually have from the other members of the organization is what we call compliance. If you want commitment, you must have a shared participation in that creation and that may be the ultimate synergism.

    Of course there are many examples of synergism. Anytime there are two or more people dialoguing in an inquiring mode, a form of empathetic listening as described by Covey, a synergy exists.

    If you say something and I am truly listening to you, it will trigger thoughts in my mind and I will then respond with ideas, facts, conclusions, etc. that you have triggered. If you listen to that with an open and inquiring mind, it will trigger thoughts in you. You will then come back with more facts and ideas. Between the two of us we will come up with an entire paradigm, a set of ideas, that neither of us could have come up with individually. That is true when there is any number of people involved.

    Synergy is probably the single most powerful source of leverage in an organization. That is because it really does involve the input in a coordinated and congruent way of many of the individual components.

    Just like on a basketball team you can have a big, tall center, but if he does not have a supporting forward or good guards to feed the ball in and out, he is not going to amount to much.

    A classic example is that of Wilt Chamberlain, one of the great individual centers of all time. But, for whatever reason he never could seem to play on a team that possessed of the natural ingredients of synergy to create a consistent championship team.

    It is arguable that Wilt was a greater center than Bill Russell, also a great center, but Bill always played on teams that were very synergistic. That means that all the five players played very well together and the Boston Celtics won a tremendous number of championships in the circumstance.

    Whether or not Russell or Chamberlain were the greater center, who knows? But, the facts are that it took the synergism of all the players to create the winning team that the Celtics were.

    I think that part of the greatness in great athletics who are champions is their bringing out the greatness in fellow players. Of course then synergy takes over and the whole team becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Synergy is a great opportunity.

    You can not have synergism in an organization in which there are people fighting and competing with each other. It is very important to emphasize cooperation and mutual self-interest as opposed to competitiveness.

    That is one of the reasons why we learn in a QPI System that having competition among individuals on a team, and among various departments and divisions is ultimately counter-productive. It tends to destroy the potential synergism when that competitiveness exists. Again we come back to the fact that you can not maximize the local production of local units of your organization and expect to achieve a global maximum. That is theoretically impossible.

    The way to achieve a global maximum is to have each of the units contributing in the most positive way to benefit the whole organization. Rarely will that lead to any given unit maximizing its whole performance.

    On great basketball teams even the great players could have better statistics if they did not work as a total team. But, then the team would not be as successful. It is also arguable that even the great player would not have as good statistics if the team was not working synergistically. There can be many obvious reasons for that.

    A local unit may not maximize its performance within the context of an existing organization because of subordinating some of its activities to the good of the whole organization. In the long run that local unit may perform much better than it would have in a non-QPI organization in which it was maximizing its own production to the detriment of the global outputs.
There are some very subtle and deep concepts buried in the concept of synergy. It is discussed in further depth in Senge's book, The Fifth Discipline. If you have a good functioning organization whether it be a team, management group, or project group, one of the things you will learn is that the results will be greater than what you may have expected from looking at the individual inputs.

    A great basketball team is an example of that ideas. You may have five rather common players, but if they work well together they can literally beat a group of superstars that are not cooperating. Teamwork is the essence of synergy and visa versa.

    One of the points of a QPI organization is to have the parts work together to the benefit of the whole. It is important to always subordinate the interest of any given stakeholder to the benefits of the whole organization so that ultimately all stakeholders benefit. That is true synergism. In fact that is the only way an organization can truly be successful. The Seventh Habit is "Sharpen the saw." That is to constantly review the principles of life, the principles you are living by, your own habits, and continually improving.

    "Sharpen the saw" is just another way of saying "QPI". Constantly improving the quality and productivity of all of your processes. That is the final Habit that Covey recommends.
It is extremely important for us to focus on personal mastery. First, we each need to do it for our personal reasons, but also because it is only when we become independent that we can truly contribute and be interdependent with the organization. By the same token, if the organization's goal and best interest to see that each of the individuals are independent. Only then can the organization become truly powerful.

    A QPI organization will encourage that its individual members be independent and achieve a personal mastery through education, training, and examples.

    Certainly all individual members are encouraged to educate themselves. I do not personally think it is the responsibility of an organization to educate its members in a generic sense. I do think it is the organization's responsibility to encourage that and to possibly assist when it is appropriate.

    For example, tuition assistance when one wants to take a class. Not asking one to work such overtime that one does not have time for personal mastery or improvement. It is important that people have the free time to pursue it and hopefully they will.

    If you spend time only pursuing the pleasures of life, such as a hobby that is not really improving your knowledge and productivity capability, then ultimately you will not achieve the objectives you want in life. There is a great synergism between the individual and the organization as a whole.

    Steven Covey's book is very readable and relevant and true. In the book he gives some practical tables in which one can follow a program. He makes specific suggestions for a program for those who may need it. He also give specific means of trying to achieve the Seven Habits.