#The 7 habits windows

Covey created a standard operating system-the “Windows”-for personal effectiveness, and he made it easy to use. Similarly, there had been hundreds of years of accumulated wisdom about personal effectiveness, from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Drucker, but it was never assembled into one coherent, user-friendly framework. But with the Macintosh and then Windows, the mass of people could finally tap the power of the microchip behind the screen.

#The 7 habits windows

Prior to Apple and Microsoft, few people could harness computers to their daily lives there was no easily accessible user interface-no mouse pointers, friendly icons, or overlapping windows on a screen, much less a touch screen. I think of what he did for personal effectiveness as analogous to what the graphical user interface did for personal computers.

Covey himself was a Level 5 teacher, humble about his own shortcomings, yet determined to share widely what he’d learned.

Covey wrote primarily about building character, not about “achieving success” - and thereby helped people become not just more effective individuals, but better leaders.

Covey focused on timeless principles, not on mere techniques or momentary fads.

Covey created a 'user interface' organized into a coherent conceptual framework, made highly accessible by Covey’s strong writing.

I also wanted to recalibrate: what makes it an enduring classic? I see four factors that contributed to its rarified stature: When Bob Whitman, chief executive of FranklinCovey, called to ask if I would consider writing a foreword for the 25th anniversary edition of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, I responded first by re-reading the entire book I’d read it shortly after its initial publication in 1989, and it was a gift to re-engage with its message. He saw creating the 7 Habits not primarily as a means to his own success, but as an act of service.

He did not seek credit for the principles he sought to teach the principles, to make them accessible. Covey had spent more than three decades studying, practicing, teaching, and refining what he ultimately distilled into these pages. That’s when I began to understand why this work has had such an impact. All I did was put them together, to synthesize them for people.”

“Yes, I wrote the book, but the principles were known long before me.” He continued, “They are more like natural laws. Here sat a master teacher, one of the most influential thinkers of the day, and he wanted to learn from someone 25 years his junior.Īs the conversation opened an opportunity for me to exercise my own curiosity, I began, “How did you come up with the ideas in the 7 Habits?” Stephen began by asking questions, lots of questions. After a warm greeting-his enveloping handshake feeling like the comfortable leather of a softball glove that you’ve worn a thousand times-we settled into a conversation that lasted two hours. I first met Stephen Covey in 2001, when he asked for a meeting to talk about ideas.