Assignment 2
Read course book through Habit 4. Reflection questions are below to complete by midnight. In addition, you will identify a leader whose leadership capabilities will be the subject of your final paper. Please make sure there is enough information on this person’s leadership style or you have access to speak with them.
Suggested Articles:
Article 3:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJCHM-11-2018-0935/full/html?casa_token=UpJRV8-DsKEAAAAA:xri-TQ4hJ0LZKz4b-JuTgBhdEw4h5V0WeDXzBrZIKENUHPfPKLyEvAmAKNV3QuMEI1osFkC-X8kRBNoXNVwhQV6rw8fQgLlyUVGO4YHSoNeN86yPd_lf
Article 4:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1447677019300427
Read the course textbook through Habit 4. Respond to the reflection questions below in question-answer format (10 points). You will also identify the leader and company for your final project. You will create a brief outline regarding how the leader’s leadership capabilities could affect (10 points):
A) Company profit strategy, earnings
B) Marketing strategy, target market
Habit 3: Put First Things First
1.Do you find it difficult to delegate? Why do you think this is?
How can you implement the Quadrants of Success?
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Make a list of obstacles that keep you from applying the Win/Win paradigm more frequently. Determine what could be done within your Circle of Influence to eliminate some of those obstacles.”
Do you find “No Deal” to be a difficult alternative? If so, why do you think this is?
Company Research Part A and B
In the final paper, students will critically examine how the leadership practices/philosophies affect or contribute to:
A) Company profit strategy, earnings
B) Marketing strategy, target market
ALSO BY STEPHEN R. COVEY
The 8th Habit
Living the 7 Habits
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
The Nature of Leadership
First Things First
Principle-Centered Leadership
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Journal
ALSO FROM FRANKLINCOVEY Co.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens Workbook
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens Journal
ALSO FROM MANGO MEDIA Inc.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Network Marketing Professionals,
Kindle Edition
goo.gl/haBt9o
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal
Change: Snapshots Edition
https://goo.gl/B5DmZb
A Self-Guided Workbook for Highly Effective Teens: A Companion to the
Best Selling 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/5kgoJC
First Things First, Interactive Edition, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/cBvprd
First Things First: The Snapshots Edition
1
https://goo.gl/haBt9o
https://goo.gl/B5DmZb
https://goo.gl/5kgoJC
https://goo.gl/cBvprd
https://goo.gl/e1BHwr
Great Work Great Career: Interactive Edition, Kindle Edition with
Audio/Video
https://goo.gl/ZjzLGz
Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times: How To Win In Any
Environment, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/Z4zKog
The Stephen R. Covey Interactive Reader – 4 Books in 1: The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People, First Things First, and the Best of the Most
Renowned Leadership Teacher of our Time, Kindle Edition with
Audio/Video
https://goo.gl/zcqv5N
The Webinar Manifesto, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/kUye3k
A Sense of Purpose, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/r8qMnC
A Time Conscious Life: Inspirational Philosophy From Dr. Covey’s
Life, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/3M69hW
Achieving Balance, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/5Jtkae
An Effective Life: Inspirational Philosophy from Dr. Coveys Life, Kindle
Edition
https://goo.gl/4371Ug
Inspire Trust, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/mFFtDm
Self-Integrity, Kindle Edition
https://goo.gl/qJVLUb
2
https://goo.gl/e1BHwr
https://goo.gl/ZjzLGz
https://goo.gl/Z4zKog
https://goo.gl/zcqv5N
https://goo.gl/kUye3k
https://goo.gl/r8qMnC
https://goo.gl/3M69hW
https://goo.gl/5Jtkae
https://goo.gl/4371Ug
https://goo.gl/mFFtDm
https://goo.gl/qJVLUb
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Infographics Edition
Stephen R. Covey
3
Copyright 2017 by FranklinCovey Co.
Infographics designed by: Elina Diaz and Roberto Nunez
Produced and distributed by: Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango
Media Inc.
Images provided by: FranklinCovey Co.
Mango is an active supporter of authors rights to free speech and artistic
expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors
to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.
Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book
without prior permission is theft of the authors intellectual property.
Please honor the authors work as you would your own. Thank you in
advance for respecting our authors rights.
For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales,
please email the publisher at [emailprotected] For trade and wholesale
sales, please contact Ingram Publisher Services at
[emailprotected] or +1.800.509.4887.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Author) —
1st Ed. ISBN: 978-1-63353-310-3
4
mailto:[emailprotected]
mailto:[emailprotected]
TO MY COLLEAGUES,
EMPOWERED
AND EMPOWERING
5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Interdependence is a higher value than independence.
This work is a synergistic product of many minds. It began in the middle
seventies as I was reviewing 200 years of success literature as part of a
doctoral program. I am grateful for the inspiration and wisdom of many
thinkers and for the trans-generational sources and roots of this wisdom.
I am also grateful for many students, friends, and colleagues at Brigham
Young University and the Covey Leadership Center and for thousands of
adults, parents, youth, executives, teachers, and other clients who have
tested this material and have given feedback and encouragement. The
material and arrangement has slowly evolved and has imbued those who
have been sincerely and deeply immersed in it with the conviction that the
Seven Habits represent a holistic, integrated approach to personal and
interpersonal effectiveness, and that, more than in the individual habits
themselves, the real key lies in the relationship among them and in how they
are sequenced.
For the development and production of the book itself I feel a deep sense of
gratitude:
to Sandra and to each of our children and their spouses for living lives of
integrity and service and for supporting my many travels and involvements
outside the home. Its easy to teach principles loved ones live.
to my brother John for his constant love, interest, insights and purity of
soul.
to the happy memory of my father.
6
to my mother for her devotion to her more than 87 living descendants and
for her constant demonstrations of love.
to my dear friends and colleagues in the business, especially:
to Bill Marre, Ron McMillan, and Lex Watterson for feedback,
encouragement, editorial suggestions, and production help.
to Brad Anderson, who at great personal sacrifice for over a year,
developed a Seven Habits video-based development program. Under his
leadership this material has been tested and refined and is being
implemented by thousands of people across a broad range of organizations.
Almost without exception, after initial exposure to this material, our clients
desire to make it available to greater numbers of employees, underscoring
our confidence that it works.
to Bob Thele for helping to create a system for our firm that gave me the
peace of mind to enable me to really focus on the book.
to David Conley for communicating the value and power of the Seven
Habits to hundreds of business organizations so that my colleagues, Blaine
Lee, Roice Krueger, Roger Merrill and Al Switzler, and I have the constant
opportunity to share ideas in a large variety of settings.
to my proactive literary agent Jan Miller, and my can do associate Greg
Link and his assistant Stephanni Smith and Raleen Beckham Wahlin for their
creative and courageous marketing leadership.
to my Simon & Schuster editor Bob Asahina for his professional
competence and project leadership, for his many excellent suggestions and
for helping me to better understand the difference between writing and
speaking.
to my earlier devoted assistants Shirley and Heather Smith and to my
present assistant Marilyn Andrews for a level of loyalty which is truly
uncommon.
to our Executive Excellence magazine editor Ken Shelton for his editing
of the first manuscript years ago, for helping refine and test the material in
several contexts, and for his integrity and sense of quality.
7
to Rebecca Merrill for her invaluable editing and production assistance,
for her inner commitment to the material, and for her skill, sensitivity, and
carefulness in fulfilling that commitment, and to her husband, Roger, for his
wise, synergistic help.
and to Kay Swim and her son, Gaylord, for their much appreciated vision
which contributed to our organizations rapid growth.
8
CONTENTS
PART ONE: PARADIGMS AND PRINCIPLES
Inside-Out
The 7 HabitsAn Overview
PART TWO: PRIVATE VICTORY
HABIT 1: Be Proactive
Principles of Personal Vision
HABIT 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Principles of Personal Leadership
HABIT 3: Put First Things First
Principles of Personal Management
PART THREE: PUBLIC VICTORY
Paradigms of Interdependence
HABIT 4: Think Win/Win
Principles of Interpersonal Leadership
HABIT 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Principles of Empathic Communication
HABIT 6: Synergize
Principles of Creative Cooperation
PART FOUR: RENEWAL
HABIT 7: Sharpen the Saw
Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal
Inside-Out Again
Afterword
9
APPENDIX A: Possible Perceptions Flowing out of Various Centers
APPENDIX B: A Quadrant II Day at the Office
A Final Interview with Stephen R. Covey
10
Part One
PARADIGMS and PRINCIPLES
11
INSIDE-OUT
There is no real excellence in all this world which can be
separated from right living.
DAVID STARR JORDAN
In more than 25 years of working with people in business, university, and
marriage and family settings, I have come in contact with many individuals
who have achieved an incredible degree of outward success, but have found
themselves struggling with an inner hunger, a deep need for personal
congruency and effectiveness and for healthy, growing relationships with
other people.
I suspect some of the problems they have shared with me may be familiar
to you.
Ive set and met my career goals and Im having tremendous professional
success. But its cost me my personal and family life. I dont know my wife
and children anymore. Im not even sure I know myself and whats really
important to me. Ive had to ask myselfis it worth it?
Ive started a new dietfor the fifth time this year. I know Im
overweight, and I really want to change. I read all the new information, I
set goals, I get myself all psyched up with a positive mental attitude and
tell myself I can do it. But I dont. After a few weeks, I fizzle. I just cant
seem to keep a promise I make to myself.
Ive taken course after course on effective management training. I expect
a lot out of my employees and I work hard to be friendly toward them and
12
to treat them right. But I dont feel any loyalty from them. I think if I were
home sick for a day, theyd spend most of their time gabbing at the water
fountain. Why cant I train them to be independent and responsibleor
find employees who can be?
My teenage son is rebellious and on drugs. No matter what I try, he wont
listen to me. What can I do?
Theres so much to do. And theres never enough time. I feel pressured and
hassled all day, every day, seven days a week. Ive attended time
management seminars and Ive tried half a dozen different planning
systems. Theyve helped some, but I still dont feel Im living the happy,
productive, peaceful life I want to live.
I want to teach my children the value of work. But to get them to do
anything, I have to supervise every move and put up with complaining
every step of the way. Its so much easier to do it myself. Why cant
children do their work cheerfully and without being reminded?
Im busyreally busy. But sometimes I wonder if what Im doing will
make any difference in the long run. Id really like to think there was
meaning in my life, that somehow things were different because I was
here.
I see my friends or relatives achieve some degree of success or receive
some recognition, and I smile and congratulate them enthusiastically. But
inside, Im eating my heart out. Why do I feel this way?
I have a forceful personality. I know, in almost any interaction, I can
control the outcome. Most of the time, I can even do it by influencing
others to come up with the solution I want. I think through each situation
and I really feel the ideas I come up with are usually the best for
everyone. But I feel uneasy. I always wonder what other people really
think of me and my ideas.
My marriage has gone flat. We dont fight or anything; we just dont love
each other anymore. Weve gone to counseling; weve tried a number of
things, but we just cant seem to rekindle the feeling we used to have.
These are deep problems, painful problemsproblems that quick fix
13
approaches cant solve.
A few years ago, my wife Sandra and I were struggling with this kind of
concern. One of our sons was having a very difficult time in school. He was
doing poorly academically; he didnt even know how to follow the
instructions on the tests, let alone do well on them. Socially he was
immature, often embarrassing those closest to him. Athletically, he was
small, skinny, and uncoordinatedswinging his baseball bat, for example,
almost before the ball was even pitched. Others would laugh at him.
Sandra and I were consumed with a desire to help him. We felt that if
success were important in any area of life, it was supremely important in
our role as parents. So we worked on our attitudes and behavior toward him
and we tried to work on his. We attempted to psych him up using positive
mental attitude techniques. Come on, son! You can do it! We know you can.
Put your hands a little higher on the bat and keep your eye on the ball. Dont
swing till it gets close to you. And if he did a little better, we would go to
great lengths to reinforce him. Thats good, son, keep it up.
When others laughed, we reprimanded them. Leave him alone. Get off
his back. Hes just learning. And our son would cry and insist that hed
never be any good and that he didnt like baseball anyway.
Nothing we did seemed to help, and we were really worried. We could
see the effect this was having on his self-esteem. We tried to be encouraging
and helpful and positive, but after repeated failure, we finally drew back
and tried to look at the situation on a different level.
At this time in my professional role I was involved in leadership
development work with various clients throughout the country. In that
capacity I was preparing bimonthly programs on the subject of
communication and perception for IBMs Executive Development Program
participants.
As I researched and prepared these presentations, I became particularly
interested in how perceptions are formed, how they govern the way we see,
and how the way we see governs how we behave. This led me to a study of
expectancy theory and self-fulfilling prophecies or the Pygmalion effect,
and to a realization of how deeply imbedded our perceptions are. It taught
me that we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as
at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the
world.
As Sandra and I talked about the concepts I was teaching at IBM and
about our own situation, we began to realize that what we were doing to
14
help our son was not in harmony with the way we really saw him. When we
honestly examined our deepest feelings, we realized that our perception was
that he was basically inadequate, somehow behind. No matter how much
we worked on our attitude and behavior, our efforts were ineffective
because, despite our actions and our words, what we really communicated
to him was, You arent capable. You have to be protected.
We began to realize that if we wanted to change the situation, we first
had to change ourselves. And to change ourselves effectively, we first had
to change our perceptions.
15
16
THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER ETHICS
At the same time, in addition to my research on perception, I was also
deeply immersed in an in-depth study of the success literature published in
the United States since 1776. I was reading or scanning literally hundreds of
books, articles, and essays in fields such as self-improvement, popular
psychology, and self-help. At my fingertips was the sum and substance of
what a free and democratic people considered to be the keys to successful
living.
As my study took me back through 200 years of writing about success, I
noticed a startling pattern emerging in the content of the literature. Because
of our own pain, and because of similar pain I had seen in the lives and
relationships of many people I had worked with through the years, I began to
feel more and more that much of the success literature of the past 50 years
was superficial. It was filled with social image consciousness, techniques
and quick fixeswith social Band-Aids and aspirin that addressed acute
problems and sometimes even appeared to solve them temporarily, but left
the underlying chronic problems untouched to fester and resurface time and
again.
In stark contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so
focused on what could be called the Character Ethic as the foundation of
successthings like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage,
justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule.
Benjamin Franklins autobiography is representative of that literature. It is,
basically, the story of one mans effort to integrate certain principles and
habits deep within his nature.
17
18
The Character Ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective
living, and that people can only experience true success and enduring
happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic
character.
19
20
But shortly after World War I the basic view of success shifted from the
Character Ethic to what we might call the Personality Ethic. Success
became more a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and
behaviors, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human
interaction. This Personality Ethic essentially took two paths: one was
human and public relations techniques, and the other was positive mental
attitude (PMA). Some of this philosophy was expressed in inspiring and
sometimes valid maxims such as Your attitude determines your altitude,
Smiling wins more friends than frowning, and Whatever the mind of man
can conceive and believe it can achieve.
Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even
deceptive, encouraging people to use techniques to get other people to like
them, or to fake interest in the hobbies of others to get out of them what they
wanted, or to use the power look, or to intimidate their way through life.
Some of this literature acknowledged character as an ingredient of
success, but tended to compartmentalize it rather than recognize it as
foundational and catalytic. Reference to the Character Ethic became mostly
lip service; the basic thrust was quick-fix influence techniques, power
strategies, communication skills, and positive attitudes.
This Personality Ethic, I began to realize, was the subconscious source
of the solutions Sandra and I were attempting to use with our son. As I
thought more deeply about the difference between the Personality and
Character Ethics, I realized that Sandra and I had been getting social
mileage out of our childrens good behavior, and, in our eyes, this son
simply didnt measure up. Our image of ourselves, and our role as good,
caring parents, was even deeper than our image of our son and perhaps
influenced it. There was a lot more wrapped up in the way we were seeing
and handling the problem than our concern for our sons welfare.
As Sandra and I talked, we became painfully aware of the powerful
influence of our own character and motives and of our perception of him.
We knew that social comparison motives were out of harmony with our
deeper values and could lead to conditional love and eventually to our sons
lessened sense of self-worth. So we determined to focus our efforts on us
not on our techniques, but on our deepest motives and our perception of him.
Instead of trying to change him, we tried to stand apartto separate us from
himand to sense his identity, individuality, separateness, and worth.
Through deep thought and the exercise of faith and prayer, we began to
see our son in terms of his own uniqueness. We saw within him layers and
21
layers of potential that would be realized at his own pace and speed. We
decided to relax and get out of his way and let his own personality emerge.
We saw our natural role as being to affirm, enjoy, and value him. We also
conscientiously worked on our motives and cultivated internal sources of
security so that our own feelings of worth were not dependent on our
childrens acceptable behavior.
As we loosened up our old perception of our son and developed value-
based motives, new feelings began to emerge. We found ourselves enjoying
him instead of comparing or judging him. We stopped trying to clone him in
our own image or measure him against social expectations. We stopped
trying to kindly, positively manipulate him into an acceptable social mold.
Because we saw him as fundamentally adequate and able to cope with life,
we stopped protecting him against the ridicule of others.
He had been nurtured on this protection, so he went through some
withdrawal pains, which he expressed and which we accepted, but did not
necessarily respond to. We dont need to protect you, was the unspoken
message. Youre fundamentally okay.
As the weeks and months passed, he began to feel a quiet confidence and
affirmed himself. He began to blossom, at his own pace and speed. He
became outstanding as measured by standard social criteriaacademically,
socially and athleticallyat a rapid clip, far beyond the so-called natural
developmental process. As the years passed, he was elected to several
student body leadership positions, developed into an all-state athlete and
started bringing home straight A report cards. He developed an engaging
and guileless personality that has enabled him to relate in nonthreatening
ways to all kinds of people.
Sandra and I believe that our sons socially impressive
accomplishments were more a serendipitous expression of the feelings he
had about himself than merely a response to social reward. This was an
amazing experience for Sandra and me, and a very instructional one in
dealing with our other children and in other roles as well. It brought to our
awareness on a very personal level the vital difference between the
Personality Ethic and the Character Ethic of success. The Psalmist
expressed our conviction well: Search your own heart with all diligence
for out of it flow the issues of life.
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY GREATNESS
22
My experience with my son, my study of perception and my reading of
the success literature coalesced to create one of those Aha! experiences in
life when suddenly things click into place. I was suddenly able to see the
powerful impact of the Personality Ethic and to clearly understand those
subtle, often consciously unidentified discrepancies between what I knew to
be truesome things I had been taught many years ago as a child and things
that were deep in my own inner sense of valueand the quick fix
philosophies that surrounded me every day. I understood at a deeper level
why, as I had worked through the years with people from all walks of life, I
had found that the things I was teaching and knew to be effective were often
at variance with these popular voices.
I am not suggesting that elements of the Personality Ethicpersonality
growth, communication skill training, and education in the field of influence
strategies and positive thinkingare not beneficial, in fact sometimes
essential for success. I believe they are. But these are secondary, not
primary traits. Perhaps, in utilizing our human capacity to build on the
foundation of generations before us, we have inadvertently become so
focused on our own building that we have forgotten the foundation that holds
it up; or in reaping for so long where we have not sown, perhaps we have
forgotten the need to sow.
If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other
people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me
and each otherwhile my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by
duplicity and insinceritythen, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My
duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I doeven using so-called
good human relations techniqueswill be perceived as manipulative. It
simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the
intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for
permanent success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique.
To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You
sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you dont pay the
price day in and day out, you never achieve true mastery of the subjects you
study or develop an educated mind.
Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a
farmto forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the
fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be
paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no
shortcut.
23
This principle is also true, ultimately, in human behavior, in human
relationships. They, too, are natural systems based on the law of the harvest.
In the short run, in an artificial social system such as school, you may be
able to get by if you learn how to manipulate the man-made rules, to play
the game. In most one-shot or short-lived human interactions, you can use
the Personality Ethic to get by and to make favorable impressions through
charm and skill and pretending to be interested in other peoples hobbies.
You can pick up quick, easy techniques that may work in short-term
situations. But secondary traits alone have no permanent worth in long-term
relationships. Eventually, if there isnt deep integrity and fundamental
character strength, the challenges of life will cause true motives to surface
and human relationship failure will replace short-term success.
Many people with secondary greatnessthat is, social recognition for
their talentslack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner
or later, youll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it
is with a business associate, a spouse, a friend, or a teenage child going
through an identity crisis. It is character that communicates most eloquently.
As Emerson once put it, What you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot
hear what you say.
There are, of course, situations where people have character strength but
they lack communication skills, and that undoubtedly affects the quality of
relationships as well. But the effects are still secondary.
In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than
anything we say or do. We all know it. There are people we trust absolutely
because we know their character. Whether theyre eloquent or not, whether
they have the human relations techniques or not, we trust them, and we work
successfully with them.
In the words of William George Jordan, Into the hands of every
individual is given a marvelous power for good or evilthe silent,
unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant
radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.
THE POWER OF A PARADIGM
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People embody many of the
fundamental principles of human effectiveness. These habits are basic; they
are primary. They represent the internalization of correct principles upon
which enduring happiness and success are based.
24
But before we can really understand these Seven Habits, we need to
understand our own paradigms and how to make a paradigm shift.
Both the Character Ethic and the Personality Ethic are examples of social
paradigms. The word paradigm comes from the Greek. It was originally a
scientific term, and is more commonly used today to mean a model, theory,
perception, assumption, or frame of reference. In the more general sense,
its the way we see the worldnot in terms of our visual sense of sight,
but in terms of perceiving, understanding, interpreting.
For our purposes, a simple way to understand paradigms is to see them
as maps. We all know that the map is not the territory. A map is simply an
explanation of certain aspects of the territory. Thats exactly what a
paradigm is. It is a theory, an explanation, or model of something else.
Suppose you wanted to arrive at a specific location in central Chicago. A
street map of the city would be a great help to you in reaching your
destination. But suppose you were given the wrong map. Through a printing
error, the map labeled Chicago was actually a map of Detroit. Can you
imagine the frustration, the ineffectiveness of trying to reach your
destination?
You might work on your behavioryou could try harder, be more
diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting
you to the wrong place faster.
You might work on your attitudeyou could think more positively. You
still wouldnt get to the right place, but perhaps you wouldnt care. Your
attitude would be so positive, youd be happy wherever you were.
The point is, youd still be lost. The fundamental problem has nothing to
do with your behavior or your attitude. It has everything to do with having a
wrong map.
If you have the right map of Chicago, then diligence becomes important,
and when you encounter frustrating obstacles along the way, then attitude
can make a real difference. But the first and most important requirement is
the accuracy of the map.
25
26
Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into
two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of
the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience
through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; were
usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we
see things is the way they really are or the way they should be.
And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way
we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.
Before going any further, I invite you to have an intellectual and
emotional experience. Take a few seconds and just look at the picture on the
opposite page.
Now look at the picture on page 34 and carefully describe what you see.
Do you see a woman? How old would you say she is? What does she
look like? What is she wearing? In what kind of roles do you see her?
You probably would describe the woman in the second picture to be
about 25 years oldvery lovely, rather fashionable with a petite nose and a
demure presence. If you were a single man you might like to take her out. If
you were in retailing, you might hire her as a fashion model.
But what if I were to tell you that youre wrong? What if I said this
27
picture is of a woman in her 60s or 70s who looks sad, has a huge nose,
and is certainly no model. Shes someone you probably would help across
the street.
Whos right? Look at the picture again. Can you see the old woman? If
you cant, keep trying. Can you see her big hook nose? Her shawl?
If you and I were talking face to face, we could discuss the picture. You
could describe what you see to me, and I could talk to you about what I see.
We could continue to communicate until you clearly showed me what you
see in the picture and I clearly showed you what I see.
Because we cant do that, turn to page 53 and study the picture there and
then look at this picture again.
Can you see the old woman now? Its important that you see her before
you continue reading.
I first encountered this exercise many years ago at the Harvard Business
School. The instructor was using it to demonstrate clearly and eloquently
that two people can see the same
