Most people are familiar with the late Stephen Covey’s famous book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. First published in 1988, the business / self-help book offered an approach to being more effective in achieving goals by aligning oneself to what Covey referenced as the “true north” principles. He saw those seven principles as universal and timeless. Later he added an eighth principle. By far his best-known book, Covey’s Seven Habits have sold more than 25 million copies in 40 languages worldwide. The audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in U.S. publishing history to sell more than one million copies and has now sold over 1 ½ million audio copies to date. More recently, Covey’s son wrote and published a simplified version of the book titled The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. The Seven Habits philosophy lives on with Millennials and iGens.
So why was this book so successful? Because Covey’s approach helped people shift their focus to habits that improved their personal and professional lives by making them more “effective”. At its core, Covey believed that people were meant to evolve from dependence to independence and, ultimately, to interdependence. And for a person to remain truly effective, he had to invest in balanced self-renewal. Covey called it “sharpening the saw.” He said that to be effective, one needed to preserve and enhance his or her greatest asset: the self. So, as we approach the 30th anniversary of this philosophy, what does saw sharpening look like today? And what happens when we sharpen the saw? Continue reading