Part 1: Principle 2 “The Big Secret of Dealing with People”: everyone wants to feel important. The best way to motivate people is by appreciation and encouragement. Be anxious to praise but loath to find fault. Excessive flattery is also a liability.
Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Part One: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People Part 1: Principle 1 “If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive”: self-criticism is a valued and rare commodity while criticism of others is rampant in society. Wrongdoers blame everyone but themselves. Never criticize other people, always focus on the positive attributes of co-workers or customers. A great person shows virtue by the way they treat a little man.
Principle 1: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
Develop a driving desire to master the principles of human relations.
Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.
Stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion.
Underscore each important idea.
Review this book each month.
Apply these principles at every opportunity. Make this volume a working handbook.
Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend a dime or dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of these principles.
Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you are making, what improvement, what lesson you have learned for the future.
Keep notes in the back of this book showing how and when you have applied these principles.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
By Stephen R. Covey
[The following is a synopsis of The 7 Habits]
A CLOSING STORY
It’s a dark and stormy night in the Atlantic Ocean, the communication officer runs from the bridge to the captain’s quarters and to say;
“Captain, there is light in our sea lane but it will not move out of our path!”
The captain exhausted in his bunker says “Well, tell them to move starboard!”
Minutes later the communications officer returns to the captain’s quarters stating that the person at the other end of the line has signaled back to the ship the following message: “No, you must move starboard.”
This enraged the captain. He got dressed rapidly, put on his captain’s hat, threw on his war medals, and rushed to the bridge. He could not believe the situation as the light was now extremely close to the bow of his ship.
The captain turns to his communications officer and says “Let them know who I am.” The officer quickly signaled: “This is the HMS Dreadnought ordering you to move starboard immediately.”
The person on the other end responded. “Yes, well this is the light house.”
Correct Principles/Habits are lighthouses: they do not move. We cannot break principles, we cannot force principles to change; ONLY we can change. We must learn to accommodate them because they free us and empower us.
T.S. Eliot once said:
“We shall never cease from exploring,
And the end of all of our exploring,
Will be to arrive where we began
And to know the place for the first time.”
We already know the 7 Habits but what is common-sense is not practice. That’s why: We need to learn the 7 Habits, We need to teach the 7 Habits, We need to live the 7 Habits, and through this we will become lighthouses in our own lives.
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