Stephen R. Covey died the other day (16 July 2012). He was best known for his top-selling book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ which sold well over 15 million copies worldwide.
Now I don’t agree with everything that Stephen Covey espoused, especially the idea that all you have to do is make the right choices, and that your future is in your own hands. But who can argue with his main messages which were built around fairness, integrity, service to others and human dignity.
One thing that I do agree with is his proposition that all of us as we grow from childhood to adolescence to being adults, move from dependence to independence and then finally to interdependence.
When we are born we are totally dependent on our parents, our carers and our families. As we grow we become more and more independent, more self-reliant, more proactive and less reactive to our environment. We start to plan things, to achieve things, and this leads to a level of independence. According to Covey as we strive for independence we achieve our own private victories.
The more challenging concept is that of interdependence. That is where we start to become part of the community, make a contribution to others, look to work together to achieve rather than just striving to achieve our own goals. As we become interdependent Covey suggested that we should first seek to understand, and then seek to be understood. Further he believed that the best solutions come from joint ideas and involve striving for all involved to winners, rather than just ourselves being the winners. He described this as our public victories.
I’ve read a few of Covey’s books and found that there was quite a bit that was of use to me, and maybe a bit of who I am now is thanks to Stephen R. Covey. My very best wishes to his family and thanks to Stephen for sharing his principles and ideas with us all.
CS
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