This text is my attempt to summarize the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I do this mostly to try to collect my thoughts on the book, as well as to have notes that I can refer to if I ever need to remind myself what the key points of the book were, without having to re-read the entire book.

The reason I first came across this book was that I needed to find some well acclaimed management literature for my competence plan at work. While searching, this was among a couple of books that were mentioned by a lot of articles, and which said articles spoke very highly about. As the book was originally published back in 1989 and still highly recommended today, more than 30 years later, I thought that his must be on my “To read”-list. During this text, I will try to remember that this is not a book review, but a summary, and will thus try to not to include too much of my own thoughts about it.

Starting with some background (that is mostly paraphrased from Wikipedia): the books is written by a man by the name of Stephen R. Covey in the previously mentioned year, 1989. Since its release, the book has sold more than 25 million copies world-wide and has been translated to more than 40 languages. It is also featured on the list “The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books” by Times.

About the book

The book is more of a self-help book than anything else and it continuously drives the point that if you want to make real and lasting success, then you must start by working on yourself. Because continuous success comes from the fact that you know what you believe in, stay true to those beliefs, and build sincere and meaningful relationships with people around you. Trying to gain success without starting with these things, the book argues, may lead to success in the short run, but in the long run, people will see through the surface.

A constant theme throughout the book is the notion of the relationship P/PC, between productivity (P) and care for the means of production (PC) which tells us that to achieve constant outcome in the long run, then we must work on and maintain the means of this productivity. Parallels can be drawn to a machine in a factory that produces a product. Every now and then, the machine will proactively have to be taken out of service to undergo some maintenance, changing a filter perhaps. Sure, by not pausing production for performing this maintenance, higher output could be achieved that month. But in the long run, if there were never time for any maintenance, then eventually the machine would break and production will stop completely and buying a completely new machine will take much longer and cost way more money, than what would have been the effect of the service window.

The habits

In essence, the habits are all about helping us work with this P/PC relation, but more importantly, they are meant to get us to internalize the PC work so that it comes automatically for us. As I mentioned earlier, the book states that true success comes from within, which is why the seven habits are grouped together such that the first three habits solemnly focus inwards, on improving the self. To achieve internal success. The next three habits focus outwards, on how to build and maintain effective relationships and how to achieve outside success. The seventh and last habit is about continuous improvement. Below, I will summarize each habit individually:

Habit 1: Be proactive The key take-away from the very first habit is the realization that you are the master of your own life. It is not enough to sit around and wait for others to hand opportunities to you. Similarly, effective people do not blame their lack of initiative on outside factors. In practice, this means that to be effective, one must focus on the things that one can affect or influence. A proactive person differs from a reactive person in that where a reactive person constantly tries to find outside factors to blame their behaviour on, a proactive person realizes that their behaviour is a product of their own choice.

A trivial example of this might be that a reactive person may be grumpy one day and explain that it is not their fault that they are grumpy as they cannot help it because of how tired they are, due to the lack of sleep they had last night. In contrast, a proactive person chose to plan their day so that they get to bed in time and thus assuring that they get the sleep they need to not be tired and grumpy the day after.

The last piece of the first habit is that a proactive person takes responsibility for how they respond to outside factors. By choosing what to say and how to act on new information and changes to their surroundings. A proactive person uses constructive language like “I can” and “I will”.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind Beginning with the end in mind can most easily be exemplified using a blueprint while building a house. Or even better, the constructing of a new industrial facility. Before you can even know where to build the facility, you must make clear exactly what it will be like when it is finished because the size and purpose of the facility will determine where it can be built and where it would be optimal to build it. Similar practices can be applied to your own life, if you start by mapping out where you want to be, how you want your life to look like, who you want to be, etc. in the future, then you can use that as a pole star to guide your everyday decisions.

In the book, this is taken to the edge by an illustrative path where the reader is asked to picture their own funeral, picture who they would want to have there, what they would want them to say about them in their speeches and what kind of impact they would have wanted to have made while they still had the chance. Habit two explains to us that these are the “ends” that we should constantly keep in mind.

To help you do this, it is advised that you create a “Personal mission statement”. A document that describes your core, what you should always strive for, in your various roles in life. Be it as a father, a friend, or a leader. The concept of a mission statement is also generalized to apply on different levels, you should make a personal mission statement, but you should also make a family mission statement together with your family, and a mission statement together with all your co-workers for your company. These mission statements are also not just static documents, they evolve continuously over time, but it is against these mission statements that all actions must be compared.

Habit 3: Put first things first Now that we have a mission statement that helps us know where we should go, this third habit explains to us how to get there, namely by “putting first things first” or in other words, focusing on what’s important. In this chapter, the books draw up a four squarer (the Eisenhower decision matrix) with the dimensions important and urgent. Meaning that you have these fields into which, every activity one encounters can be classified into:

1. Important and urgent: The first category is what could also be described as a crisis. Of course, when activities that falls into this category occurs, they must be handled with priority. The neat thing, the book teaches us, is that the more time we spend on performing activities in category two, the fewer activities end up in category one.

2. Important but not urgent: Category number two is where you want to be spending the most of your time. It is in this category where you can be the most proactive. This is a good insight to have because if we do not actively think in these terms, activities that falls into the second category are the ones that are most often overlooked and down prioritized. Typical activities that fall into this category is activities that improves our relationship with others.

3. Urgent but not important: Category number three is the most dangerous one as it is deceivingly easy to confuse urgent with important, it is very easy to end up mainly doing activities in this category, i.e., activities that are stressful and drains a lot of energy but does not add any value.

4. Not urgent and not important: The fourth one is not very productive and generally, activities that falls into this category should be avoided as they are a waste of time, even though they may be the most tempting activities for the undisciplined.

It is worth pointing out here, that it is not necessarily objective into which one of the above categories an activity should be placed as the judgement of where an activity should fall is guided by the priorities that is set up as part of habit one and two.

Habit 4: Think win/win The fourth habit deals with how we should approach negotiations. This may be negations in the traditional since, i.e., at work where we negotiate deals and contracts and what not. But the same principles also apply to ‘micro negotiations’ that we have in our personal relations. The title of the habit basically explains more or less everything there is to know about this habit, but the author spends quite some time explaining and exemplifying how the win/win scenario differs from the other possible scenarios, win/lose, lose/win and of course lose/lose. He also makes the case that if we strive for anything other than a win/win deal, then we will end up with a deal that is a lose/lose in the long run as deals other than win/win damages the relation. So even though most of us are scripted into always striving for a win/lose or at least a win/‘I do not care’, we must try to see past that script. This habit gets easier when combined with the practices explained in habit 5.

The name “Think win/win” does not really convey the entire essence of this habit, however. The entire title should be “Think win/win or no deal”. Because there will always be situations where it is not possible to reach a win/win deal. In these situations, it is better to acknowledge the fact to your negotiating partner and walk away without a deal, for this time. There is nothing stopping you from reaching a deal in the future, on the same subject matter or a different one. Because forcing a deal when a win/win deal is not possible may seem like a good alternative in the short term, but in the long term, this will harm the relation and will in turn result in a lose/lose situation. Entering a negotiation with this mindset will also make it easier to reach a win/win deal because when you enter a negotiation, knowing that you are ready to walk away without a deal makes you way humbler.

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood As mentioned before, the skillset described by this habit is essential to possess if one is to achieve results within habit 4. However, this is much broader as it applies all the time, and not only when negotiating. In this chapter, something that is labelled empathic listening is described. Empathic listening reminds a little bit of active listening which I (and probably many with me) have been taught when we were small. Active listening focuses on really taking in what the person talking is saying and to acknowledge what they are saying with various nods and humming. Empathic listening is different, because instead of focusing on the words that the person is saying, this habit focuses on understanding what the other person means. This habit is about being completely open minded and to trying to really see the situation from the other persons perspective, without pulling it through a filter of your own experiences first. To listen in order to understand, not in order to reply. When this is done, and we have really understood what the actual problem is that the other person is trying to convey through their words, then we can start to influence. To do this well, one must have internalized the first three habit, as truly listening to another person and open ourselves up to being influenced by them puts us at risk of losing ourselves if we are not deeply grounded in our own core believes.

This habit is the easiest one to start practicing right away and according to the author, it is also the one that gives the biggest results in the shortest amount of time.

Habit 6: Synergize Out of all the seven habits described in this book, the sixth one is the one with the shortest description. The title of the habit is synergize but it might as well have been called collaborate because that is basically what it is about. It is about what you can do to create spaces where synergetic events can take place. A synergetic event is described as a situation where 1 + 1 > 2, where you together with people around you collectively iterate on each other’s ideas, where everyone uses their own unique experiences and points of views, in order to reach an end result that is much better than the result that anyone of the participants would have been able to create alone.

To achieve this, one must master many of the previous habits, but especially habit four and five. It is first when we truly seek to understand other people and when we realize that there are scenarios where you do not have to win over someone to succeed, but that there is plenty for everyone involved to each win that we can truly achieve synergy. It is also important to realize that each new constellation of people is unique and each situation, even with the same people, is also unique. So, there is not a silver bullet approach that will always lead to a synergetic event, which is why the seeking of understanding other people is so crucial.

Habit 7: Sharpening the saw The last habit, the habit that surrounds the other 6 habits, is about continuous improvement of the self. It is illustrated by a metaphor of a guy that uses a saw to saw down a tree and is complaining that it takes forever to take the tree down, especially since the saw is so blunt. When asked why he doesn’t stop to sharpen the saw, he answers that he does not have the time because he is already behind on cutting the tree down.

Sharpening the saw refers to self-improvement, to continuously evolve along four dimensions to successfully make use of the other habits. The four dimensions in question is: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Activities that are suggested to help the improvement in each dimension are:

• Physical: Exercise regularly, both cardio and strength. Eat healthy. Rest.
• Social/emotional: Consistent deposits on emotional bank accounts of key relations.
• Mental: Reading and in other ways learn and familiarize yourself with new topics and ideas.
• Spiritual: Meditation, walking in nature, contemplating life, perhaps even engage in religious activities.

Once these are being done regularly it will improve your overall ability in life. And it is very important to remember to strive for improvement in all four of these dimensions and not forget any of them. It is better to improve all four a little, than to improve only one of them a lot.