Stephen Covey's seven principles

Abstract

This article connects the relations between Stephen Covey’s seven principles and doing projects. The principles are more often referred to as the seven habits of highly effective people , which describes the thoughts and steps you need to apply if you want to be an effective individual. While working in projects, its highly important to be effective thus do the right tasks, in the right order and with the correct timing. Being able to do that, requires not only effectiveness by yourself, but also with the people you are collaborating with. Interesting parts of Covey’s thinking is how you must be able to manage yourself to manage other people, thus working in projects. The article follows the natural sequence of the principles going through the aspects of being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking win-win, seeking first to understand then to be understood, synergizing and finally sharping the saw. Each principle will be explained, connected to the good or worse practices existing in doing projects and discussing the possible pros and cons before moving on to the next principle, before connecting it all together.

Stephen Covey's seven principles

You might have heard the story about the farmer with the goose (the asset) producing one golden egg (the output) a day, who eventually cuts up the goose to get all the eggs inside, in his approach of only valuing the output, but not the asset. He ends up getting no golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only focusing on your assets you won’t get to profit in any way in life, and you will never be effective. We will go through different aspects of mindsets, behaviors and processes that can contribute to be a more effective individual.

On our way through the topics, we will compare Conveys principles with the skills needed when doing projects and processes you need to perform to do them effectively. We might discover, that if you adapt some of Coveys principles into your life, you might be well suited to do projects as well.

2. Begin with the end in mind

If you imagine yourself being at your own funeral, where people would do speeches about you, what would you like them to say about you? What kind of person, values or behavior would you like it to be? If you can dig deep into yourself and answer those kinds of questions, then you know exactly what everything you do in life should be contributing for. If there is a gab between what you are currently doing and these things, that shouts for changes. By thinking of your “end” in everything you do, it should be ensuring every step you take is forward what is valued for you specific.

Meaningful for projects, course the end deliverables are to keep in mind in everything you do.

Mission statement

It is very important to write a mission statement with bullet points covering different topics as:

- What kind of person do you want to be?

- How will you live your life?

- What do you want to accomplish in your life?

These things should cover social, family and professional or what makes sense for you. The list as it is, do nothing for you, but creating it and frequently reviewing it is the true power level of this exercise. By doing this it allows you to remind yourself of what’s important to you and work forward those things and changing your statements as you develop and growth as a person, your values may change as well. Organizational mission statement should be involving everyone from the top level to the bottom to ensure that people know it and they buy into it.

Makes totally sense with projects, because a lot of people are involved, thus maybe means different perceptions of what is the goal we are trying to accomplish here? Discussing this and writing it down, to review it later when we acquire more knowledge of the area, new technologies / opportunities arises or the entire scope changes.

Effectiveness vs Efficiency

“You can be climbing the latter of success, but the latter is leaning against the wrong wall.” Effectiveness is about doing the right things. Efficiency is about how well you do those things. It is possible to align those things with the difference between leadership and management. Leadership is effectiveness and management are efficiency. Accordantly to Coveys theory, leadership should come first, and second management though a certain balance between them are needed to get anything done. Let’s say you are on fire on your leadership, knowing exactly the right things to do, but you are in entirely lack of management, the output will be zero. By the right level of effectiveness, and by the believe of "All Things are created twice". – That you measure, draw or imagining all work in your mind initially, before you do the physical work of the objective, then you should be able to create daily activities that support and benefits your mission statement.

This is very familiar and in alignment with standards describing WBS.

Topic

Figure 1: Development of skills .