This is the easiest for me to explain, and the hardest for me to do.

Habit #5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

This is about listening to people and truly understanding their perspective before asking them to hear yours. It’s hard because it’s an act of giving. It requires setting aside our own needs and impulses for a while. It’s effective because everyone is better ready to listen when they feel they’ve been heard and understood. It’s wise because by listening we learn things we didn’t know before.

The second half of this is equally important. Win/win requires mutual understanding, so take your turn to speak up. But avoid the tug-of-war of two sides talking over each other by graciously accepting the role of first listener. I think this habit has huge power to turn resistance into cooperative forward motion.

Now Covey moves from the personal realm to the interpersonal.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

This is about seeking a mutually beneficial outcome in all kinds of negotiating and interpersonal situations. The most obvious alternatives are to take advantage of the other side, or to give up too much and let the other side take advantage of you. Win/win says “If we are going to do a deal, I want a deal that’s good for both of us.”

It requires believing that the world is a place of abundance where there is plenty to go around. I don’t need to get a bigger piece of the pie than you get, or to give up my piece to you. It’s a big-pie world.

You can’t reach your goals if you give up too much, and you can’t maintain relationships if you take too much. This is about a mature balance and a creative persistence about searching for a win/win if one can possibly be found.

There’s a lot in this chapter of Covey’s book. Pulling out what I think is the central idea…

Habit 3: Put First Things First

If you know you have choices that make a difference (Habit 1), and you know where you want to end up (Habit 2), then you must be organized enough to spend actual time working toward those goals. That’s Habit 3, allocating real time in your schedule to the activities that will move you closer to the end you want.

As you know, this is harder than it sounds. Life and business crowd a lot of urgent and self-generating tasks into our days. It’s really easy to have big goals in mind, yet spend all day on these popup tasks, moving no closer to the big goals.

I try to prevent this with a entry that lives at the top of my task manager called “Big Picture Strategy”. Inside it I have sub-tasks listing the current big goals for my companies and for myself. These usually focus a few months to a year ahead. I try to look this over once per work day and take a moment to meaningful process those strategies and the actions we should be taking now to move them forward. Some days I don’t get to it and that’s life, but I think it helps keep me focused. That’s the spirit of Habit 3.

I have a little different take than Covey on this habit. Here it is…

Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind

Simply put, this is Habit #1 – be proactive – plus deliberately chosen, consistently pursued direction.

Before you get started blazing a trail, look at the big picture and know where you want to go, and why. Then line up your proactive steps to get there from here. Once you clearly identify where you want to go, operational decisions at all levels are clarified and informed by that destination.

This is the opposite of doing what happens to be in front of you, or what someone else wants you to do.

Non-linear destinations like “learn about this technology” or “discover new possibilities” are ok, so long as you’re clear from the beginning that’s the result you want.

I’m convinced that you can reach almost any goal that you are willing to be steadily proactive about, even goals that seem incredibly far away.

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey is a book of enduring wisdom. Highly effective people I know really do live this way. Welcome to the Seven Habits review mini-series.

Habit #1: Be Proactive

Deliberate action is the basic ingredient of effectiveness. Deliberate action requires a pause between a circumstance happening to you and your reaction to that circumstance. During that pause you must recognize that you are not an option-less victim, you have choices about how to respond. Then choose how you will respond based on the values you believe.

This is awareness in the moment, an internal locus of control, and choice of action based on values not impulses.

The second part involves what Covey calls “circle of concern” and “circle of influence”. Reactive people focus their concern on situations entirely out of their circle of influence. This reminds me of people who talk a lot about the national debt or politics in Washington. If the complaint doesn’t have “and here’s what I’m going to do about it” attached, I think it’s a merely way to avoid action while carrying an illusion of involvement in something important.

Being proactive is focusing your energy and concern on situations you can influence.

The most powerful part of Habit #1 is when you are proactive within your circle of influence, it gets bigger. Doing something about what you can do something about expands your ability and opportunity to influence things previously out of reach.

When I first read Covey’s book I was (happily) self-employed at a one-person company. My circle of influence was pretty much just me, and my immediate family. I was proactive every day in my one-person company and just like Covey promised, my circle of influence expanded. I am now privileged to have some influence on thousands of people including employees, customers, vendors, textile workers far away in India, and even some blog readers.

Proactivity works, no matter who you are or where you start from.