Habits of highly effective people

Interdependence is the paradigm of we - we can do it; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.

Win/Win is based on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, that one person's success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the success of others. It's your way or my way; its a better way, a higher way.Win/Win is not a personality technique. It's a total paradigm of human interaction. It comes from a character of integrity, maturity, and the abundance mentality.

The authoritarian approach: "I get my way; you don't get yours." Win/Lose people are prone to use position, power, credtials, possessions, or personality to get their way.When one child is compared to another - when patience, understanding or love is given or withdrawn on the basis of such comparisons - people are into win/lose thinking.Whenever love is given on a conditional basis, when someone has to earn love, what's being communicated to them is that they are not intrinsically valuable or loveable. Value does not lie inside them, it lies outside. It's in comparison with somebody else or against some expectation.

No deal basically means that if we can't find a solution that would benefit us both, we agree to disagree - No Deal.Before any expectations are created.It is so much better to realize this up front instead of downstream when expectations have been created and both parties have been disillusioned.When you have No Deal as an option in your mind, you feel liberated because you have no need to manipulate people, to push your own agenda, to drive for what you want. You can really try to understand the deeper issues, underlying the positions.With no deal as an option, you can honestly say, "I only want to go for win/win"

A relationship where bank accounts are high & both parties are deeply committed to Win/Win is the ideal springboard for tremendous synergy.

There are three character traits essential to the win/win, paradigm.

The value we place on ourselves. As we clearly identify our values and proactively organize & execute around those values on a daily basis. We develop self-awareness and independent will by making & keeping meaningful promises & commitments.There's no way to go for a win in our lives if we don't even know, in a deep sense, what constitues a win - what is, in fact, harmonious with our inner most values. And if we can't make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless.We know it, others know it. They sense duplicity and become guarded.

Is the balance between courage & consideration. Emotional Maturity - The ability to express one's own feelings and convictions balanced w/ consideration for the thoughts & feelings of others.The basic task of leadership is to increase the standard of living and the quality of life for all stakeholders.

Enough for everyone

In Win/Win agreements, 5 elements are made very explicit.

(Not methods) Identify what is to be done & when.The focus is on results; not methods.

Specify the parameters (principles, policies, etc) within which results are to be accomplished.

Identify the human, financial, technical, or organizational support available to help accomplish the results.

Setup the standards of performance and the time of eavluations.People evaluate themselves. The traditional evaluation games people play are awkward and emotionally exhausting.In win/win people evaluate themselves, using the criteria that they themselves helped to create up front.Peter Drucker recommends the use of a "manager's letter" to capture the essence of performance agreements between, managers & their employees.Developing a win/win performance agreement is the central activity of management. With an agreement in place, employees can manage themselves within the framework of that agreement.When a boss becomes the first assistant to each of his subordinates, he can greatly increase his span of control. Entrie levels of administration & overhead can be eliminated. Instead of supervising 6 or 8, such a manager can supervise 20 or 30, 50 or more.So often the problem is in the system, not in the people. If you put good people in bad systems, you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.

Specify - good & bad, natural and logical - what does and will happen as a result of the evalution.

"Principled" vs "positional" approach to bargaining like in the bank. Read "Getting to Yes" - Roger fish & William Fry. They suggest the essence of principled negotiation is to sepperate the person from the problem, to focus on interests and not positions, to invent options for mutual gain, and to insist on objective criteria - some external standard or principle that both parties can buy into.

See the problem from the other point of view. Really seek to understand and to give expression to the needs & concerns of the other party as well as or better then they can themselves.

You don't have much confidence in someone who doesn't diagnose before he or she prescribes.We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.You can't use some tecnique to interact effectively with people, they will sense duplicity and manipulation. They will wonder why you're doing it, what your motives are & they won't open up to you.The real key to your influence with me is your example, your actual conduct. Your character is constanttly radiating, communicating. From it, in the long run, I come to instinctively trust or distrust you.How can you appreciate me when you don't understand me?

Listen with the intent to understand. Gets inside another persons frame of refrence. You see the world they way they see it, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.Satisfied needs do not motivate. It's only the unsatisfied needs that motivate. Next to survival, the greatest need of human being is psychological survial - to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated. When you listen w/ empathy you give the person psycological air. After that vital need is met you can then focus on influencing or problem solving.The human dynamic is more important then the technical dimensions of the deal.

An effective sales person first seeks to understand the needs, the concerns, the situation of the customer. The amature sells the products; the professional sells solutions to needs & problems. He learns how to relate people's needs to his products & services. And, he has to have the integrity to say, "My product or service will not meet that need" if it will not.

Try to understand emotion (feeling) & content. ie: "Boy, Dad, I've had it! school is for the birds!". "You're really fustrated about school."Fustration is the feeling, school is the content. As long as the response is logical, you can effectively ask questions & give council. But the moment the response becomes emotional, he needs to go back to listening.Often when people are really given the chance to open up, they unravel, their own problems & the solutions become clear to them in the process.

The whole is greater then the sum of its parts.

Sources of creating new, exciting forms of life - creating an enviroment that is truly fulfilling for each person, that nurtures the self-esteem & self worth of each, that creates opportunities for each to mature into independence & then into interdependence.People see the world not as it is, but as they are.The person who is truly effective has the humility & reverence to recognize his own perceptual limitations & to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts & minds of other human beings. That person values the differences because those differences add to his knowledge, to his understanding of reality. Left to our own experiances, we constantly suffer from a shortage of data.

Driving forces generally are positive, reasonable, logical, conscious, and economic. In juxtaposition, restraining forces are often negitive, emotional, illogical, unconscious, and social /psyschological.Both sets must be taken into account in dealing with change.Increasing the driving forces may bring results - for awhile but as long as the restraining forces are there, it becomes increasingly harder. Its like pushing against a spring, the harder you push, the harder it is to push untill the force of the spring suddenly thrusts the level back down. Yo-yo effect causes you to feel, after several attempts, that people are "Just the way they are" and that "it's too diffcult to change."But when you introduce synergy you use the habit of 4,5 & 6 to work on the restraining forces.

One that is more geared to service & contribution, and is less prtective, less adversarial, less selfish; one that is more open, more trusting, more giving & is less defensive, protective, and political, one that is more loving, more caring, and is less possessive & judgemental.

You are simply opening your mind & heart & expressions to new possibilities, new alternatives, new options. You have an inward sense of excitement & security & adventure, believing that it will be significantly better than it was before.You begin with the belieft that parties involved will gain more insight and that the excitement of that mutual learning & insight will create a momentum toward more & more insights, learnings & growth. These things can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people's lives. But it requires enormous personal security & openness & a spirit of adventure.Most all creative endeavors are somewhat unpredicatable.And unless people have a high tolerance for ambiguity & get their security from integrity to principles & inner values they find it unnerving & unpleasant to be involved in highly creative enterprises. Their need for structure, certainty & predictability is too high.t

Come to the meeting prepared to listen rather than to present, prepared to create & synergize rather then to defend & protect.

How much time is spent in confessing others peoples sins, politicking, rivalry, interpersonal conflicy, protecting one's backside, masterminding & second guessing? It's like trying to drive down the road with one foot on the gas & one on the break.Instead of taking one foot off the break, most people give it more gas. They try to apply more pressure, more eloquence, more logical information to strengthen their position.The problem is that highly dependant people are trying to succed in an interdependant reality. They are either borrowing strength from a position of power(win/lose) or they're dependant on being popular with others & they go for lose/win. They don't want to listen, they want to manipulate & synergy can't thrive in that enviroment.

Describes the amout of trust that's been built up in a relationship.

Build up a reserve with courtesty, kindness, honesty, and keeping commitments. Trust becomes greater. One can make mistakes and that trust level, that emotional reserve, will compensate for it. If a large reserve of trust is not sustained by continuing deposits, a relationship will deteriorate.Instead of rich spontaneous understanding and communication, the situation becomes one of accommodation, where two people simply attempt to live independant life-styles in a fairly respectful and tolerant way.

Our tendency is to project out of our own autobiographies what we think other people want or need. Understand them deeply as indivduals, the way you would want to be understood, and then treat them in terms of that understanding.

The little kindness & courtesies are so important. Small discourtesies, little unkindnesses, little forms of disrespect make large withdrawls. In relationships, the little things are the big things.

Unclear expectations in the area of goals also undermine communication & trust.The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambigous expectations around roles & goals. We can be certain that unclear expectations will lead to misunderstanding, disappointment, and withdrawals of trust. Many expectations are implicit. They haven't been explicitly stated or announced, but people nevertheless bring them to a particular situation. Although these expectations have not been discussed, or sometimes even recognized by the person who has them, fulfilling them makes great deposits in the relationships & violating them make withdrawls.It's important when you come into a new situation to get all the expectations out on the table. People will begin to judge each other through those expectations. The deposit is to make expecations clear & explicit in the begining. Clarifying expectations sometimes takes a great deal of courage. It seems easier to act as thouh differences don't exist and to hope things will work out than it is to face the differences & work together to arrive at a mutually agreeable set of expectations.

When we make withfrawls, great deposits come in sincere words;"I was wrong", "I showed no respect", "I gave you no dignity, and I'm deeply sorry."It takes a great deal of character strength to apologize quickly out of one's heart rather then out of pity. A person must posses himself and have a deep sense of security in fundamental principles and values in order to genuinely apologize.Leo Rakin taught, "It is the weak who are cruel, Gentleness can only be expected from the strong."

Integrity includes but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth - in other words, conforming our words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, you retain the trust of those who are present.Integrity in an interdependant reality is simply this:You treat everyone by the same set of principles. As you do, people will come to trust you. Integrity means avoiding any communication that is deceptive, full of guile or beneath the dignity of people. "A lie is any communication with intent to deceive." Whether we communicate w/ words or behavior, if we have integrity, our intent cannot be to deceive.

Keeping a commitment is a major-deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawl.There is probably not a more massive withdrawl than to make a promise that's important to someone and not to come through. The next time a promise is made, they won't believe it.People tend to build their hopes around promises, particularly promises about their basic livelihood.Try to make promises very carefully, very sparingly, and to be aware of as many variable and contingencies as possible. Value the promise. If you cultivate the habit of always keeping the promises you make, you build bridges of trust that span the gaps of understanding.

The fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually.

Independence is the paradigm of I. I can do it; I am responsable; I am self-reliant; I can choose.Dependence is the paradigm of you take care of me; you didn't come through; I blame you for the results.Dependant people need others to get what they want. Independant people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependant people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to acheive their greatest success.

The ability to think about your own thought process is the reason man why man has dominion over all things in the world and why he can make significant advances from generation to generation.

Viktor Frankl

It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things. Our response to any mistake affects the quality of the next moment. It is important to immediatly admit and correct our mistakes so that they have no power over the next moment and we are empowered again.

Carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place. Untill a person can say deeply & honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday", that person can not say, "I choose otherwise".

Nothing has a greater, longer lasting impression upon another person than the awareness that someone ahs transcended suffering, has transcended circumstance, and is embodying and expressing a value that inspures and ennobles and lifts life.

That which happens to us

That which we bring into existence

Our response in difficult circumstances.

Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles to get the job done.

Reactive language comes from a basic paradigm of determinism. The whole spirit of it is the transfer of responsability.A serious problem with reactive language is it becomes a self-fulling prophecy. People become reinforcced in the paradigm that they produce evidence to support the belief.

As we look into our circle of concern we see there are things we have no control over and things we do.Reactive people focus their efforts on the circle of concern.

Concerns we can do something about. Proactive people live in the circle of influence.

According to covey love is a verb not a feeling.

The AA prayer is fitting. "Lord, give me the courage to change the things which can and ought to be changed, the serenity to accept the things which can not be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Covey has identified over 30 seperate methods of human influence - as seperate as empathy is from confrontation, as seperate as example from persuation.

The the very heart of our circle of influence is our ability to make and keep commitments and promises. The commitments we make to ourselves and to others, and our integrity to those commitments, is the essence and clearesrt manifestation of our proactivity. It is also the essence of our growth.

As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater then our moods.

You can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole. Start with a clear understanding of your destination.It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.Its incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover its leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy without being very effective.People often find themselves achieving victories that are empty successes that have come at the expenses of things they suddenly realize were far more valuable then to them.How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what reallly matters most.We maybe very busy, we maybe very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind.

If we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first-creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our circle of influence to shape much of our lives by default. We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of curcumstance - scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning.

Management is discipline, carrying it out.

What one thing could you do that if you did on a regular basis would make a temendous positive difference in your personal life?What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

The degree to which we have developed our independant will in our everyday lives is measured by our personal integrity. Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves. It's our ability to make & keep commitments to ourselves, to "walk our talk".

Effectiveness does not depend soley on how much effory we expend, but on whether or not the effort we expend is in the right jungle.Efficient management without effective leadership is "like striaghtening deck chairs on the titanic". Leadership is hard because we often get caught in a management paradigm.

The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value. Many so called mental & emotional illnesses are really symptons of an underlying sense of meaninglessnes or emptyness.

A mission statement becomes the basis for making major, life-directing decisions in the midst of circumstances & emotions that affect our lives. It empowers individuals with the same timeless strength in the midst of change.

These 4 factors are interdependant. Security & clear guidance bring true wisdom, and wisdom becomes the spark or catalyst to release & direct power. Together they create the great force of a noble personality, a balanced character, a beautifully integrated individual.

Most families are managed on the basis of crises, moods, quick fixes, and instant gratification - not on sound principles. Symptons surface whenever stress and pressure mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting. Children who observe these kinds of behavior grow up thinking the only way to solve problems is flight or fight.

What is always going to be there?

By getting input from every family member, drafting a statement, gettibng feedback, revising it and using wording from different familt members, you get the family talking, communicating on things that deeply matter.

Each partner tends to wait on the initiative of the other for love, only to be disappointed but also confirmed as to the rightness of the accusations made.

Creates a partial understanding and family narcissism.

The degree to which we have developed our independant will in our everyday lives is measured by our personal integrity. Integrity is, fundamentally, the value we place on ourselves. It's our ability to make & keep commitments to ourselves, to "walk our talk".

That will help you become more congruent with deeper values in daily life.ie: It is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.Almost all of the world class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it, they feel it; they experiance it before they actually do it. They begin with the end in mind.Do it in every area of your life. Before a perofmrance, a sales presentation, a difficult confrontation, or the daily challenge of meeting a goal, see it clearly, vividly, relentlessly, over and over again. Create an internal "comfort zone". Then, when you get into the sitation, it isn't foreign. It doesn't scare you.

An effective goal focuses primarily on results rather than activity. It identifies where you want to be, and in the process, helps you determine where you are. It gives you important information on how to get there, and it tells you when you have arrived. It gives meaning & purpose to all you do. And it can finally translate itself into daily activities so that you are proactive, you are in charge of you life, you are making happen each day the things that will enable you to fulfill your personal mission statement.

Writing distills, crystallizes and clarifies thought and helps break the whole into parts.

ie: My partner is the most important person in my life. Together we contribute the fruits of harmony, industry, charity and thrift.

ie: I help my children experiance progressively greater joy in their lives.

Notice that Q-2 takes up the bulk, followed by Q-1. Q-3 takes up a minimal proportion. Q-4 tasks are completely out of the picture.Quadrant II deals with things that are important but not urgent. Things like building relationships, exercising, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, preventive maintenance, preparation - all those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they aren't urgent.Effective people feed opportunities and starve problems. They think preventively.If you were to ask what lies in quadrant II and cultivate the proactivity to go after it, you would find the same result. Your effectiveness would increase dramatically. Your crises and problems would shrink to manageable proprtions because you would be thinking ahead, working on the roofs, doing the preventative things that keep sitautions from developing in to crises in the first palce.To say "YES" to quad II priorities, you have to learn to say no to other activities, sometimes apparently urgent things.You are always saying "no" to something. If it isn't to the apparent urgent things in your life, it is probably to the more fundamental, highly important things. Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contribution, if you let it.

Write down your key roles.ie: individual, spouse/parent, manager new products, manager research, chairman united way.

Think of one or two important goals you feel you should accomplish in each role during the next 7 days. Ideally these weekly goals would be tied to the longer term goals you have identified in conjuction with you personal mission statement.

Look at the week ahead with your goals in mind and schedule time to achieve them.ie: if your goal is to produce the first draft of your personal mission statement, you may want to set aside a 2-hour block of time on sunday to work on it.

Responding to unanticiapted events, relationships, and experiances in a meaningful way. Taking a few minutes each morning to review your schedule can put you in touch with the value based decisions you made as you organized the week as well as unanticipated factors that may have come up.

Effectively delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leverage activity there is.If we delegate to time, we think efficiency, if we delegate to other people, we think effectiveness.Delegation means growth, both for individuals & organizations."The wisest decision I made was to "let go", since I could no longer do it by myself." - J.C. Penny.A producer can invest 1 hour & produce 1 unit of results. A manager can invest 1 hour of effort and produce many units through effective delegation.Effective delegation is perhaps the best indicator of effective management simply because it is so basic to both persona & organizational growth.

Stewardship delegation is focused on results instead of methods. It gives people a choice and makes them responsible for results. Involves clear, up-front mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in 5 areas.Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the best in people.

Mutual understanding of what, not how, needs to be accomplished

Identify the parameters within which the individual should operate.

Identify the human, financial, technical or organizational resources the person can draw on to accomplish the desired results.

Setup standards of performance that will be used in evaluating the results and the specific times when reporting and evaluation will take place.

Specify what will happen, both good & bad, as a result of the evaluation. This could include such things as financial rewards, phychic rewards, different job assignments, and natural consequences tied into the overall mission of an organization.

A chance to build the emotional bank account.One department store that operates from this pardigm has created a great loyalty among its customers. Anytime a customer comes into the store with a problem, no matter how small, the clerks immediatlely see it as an opporunity to build the relationship with the customer.