Habits that determine success or failure in life
Habits that determine success or failure in life
By Arif Suryobuwono
JAKARTA (JP): Two points make a line, three a field. These two
basic geometric postulates once surprised me. Why on earth should
a stereology book tell high school students about such clear,
fundamental common sense?
This question struck me again at the Covey Leadership Center
Indonesia course on Stephen Covey's 1989 book Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People early last month. The 385-page book has
sold over five million copies and is still vying to top The New
York Times best-seller list of self-help paperbacks.
The habits are all as logical as the geometric postulates. For
instance, habit two: Begin with the end in mind. How can anyone
begin a journey if they don't know where to go?
The habits are about how emotional intelligence and the
(re)organization of private lives and work can make anyone more
effective.
Covey pitches his work on the seven habits as a synergistic
product of many minds. He says he reviewed 200 years of American
writings on success to write the book. Because Covey is a devout
Mormon, it isn't surprising to find biblical foundations to his
habits.
The habits are commonplace. They are so common that most
people naturally ignore them. Their powerful rediscovery and
reintroduction makes the US$860 three-day course inspiring.
One of the seven habits, "think win/win," is the least
universal because it avoids competition, which is normal for, and
encouraged by, most of us.
"Put first things first", focusing on things which are
important but not urgent (Covey calls it Q2), is not ordinary
either because we usually place things which are both important
and urgent first (Q1 in Covey's term). His time management scheme
is powerful because Q2 provides the infrastructure for Q1.
Since most participants work as managers or leaders, the
course emphasizes how to be effective at work, typically how to
solve communication troubles at work.
Human relations
The course makes it clear that the key to effectiveness is
human relations (or as Thomas A. Harris put it, "I'm O.K., you're
O.K."). This is crystal clear. Irrespective of how clever,
skilled or competent employees are, if they don't have a good
relationship with their boss and colleagues, they cannot be
effective at work.
Organizational politics advises how to please career-busting
bosses, even the nastiest ones. Avoid doing what they dislike,
know what they expect and then meet their expectations. If
necessary, try to impress them by volunteering for assignments
that nobody else will take.
All these sacrifices (or "deposits" in Covey's Emotional Bank
Account concept) will pay in time. Blunders (nobody's perfect),
will be generously forgiven. Chances are that even the worst boss
will forgive mistakes.
Good behavior makes it hard for a boss to rebuke subordinate.
Employees that behave well usually are thought of first for
promotion.
Covey's proactive concept (or locus of control in Steve
Altman's 1985 Organizational Behavior) is essentially political.
However, Covey never urges anyone to become a yes-man.
Following his advice should be done with all sincerity, with a
balance between courage and consideration. This means expressing
feelings and convictions with courage balanced with consideration
for the feelings and convictions of the boss.
This, of course, is very much linked to the degree of
dependence on the boss. Employees with poor bargaining positions,
or those who eye promotion, usually have to be deprecatorily
submissive.
In conditions other than "I'm O.K., you're O.K.",
relationships between bosses and their subordinates are in effect
a war (remember the strikes that hit Greater Jakarta and peaked
in 1994).
In most cases the war is unbalanced, except if employees have
something a boss is afraid of, or have something a boss badly
needs. Because bosses have a say over their subordinates' salary
and career, they are almost always the winners. Subordinates are
therefore often treated as defeated enemies. Some are lucky
enough to be treated leniently, as the U.S. treated Japan after
World War II, but others may experience something akin to the
Japanese occupation of China.
Although today's bosses insist workers are their resources,
they really mean assets, not treasure.
They are always comparing their resources, picking out who
they think is the best and using them to measure their other
assets. In their eyes, only so many people can be "A" students
and only one person can be number one. By so doing, they urge
their workers to compete against each other, creating a low trust
atmosphere and conducive climate for bias, unfairness and
suspicion.
Such bosses have difficulty sharing recognition and credit,
power or profit even with those who help in the production --
particularly if they think that the help is not useful enough.
They want their employees to be like themselves. They look on
differences as insubordination and disloyalty. They see life as
having only so much, as though there was only one pie out there.
And if someone is to get a big piece of the pie, it means less
for everybody else.
This scarcity mentality, Covey says, should be turned into a
win/win relationship in which both bosses and their employees
enjoy mutual benefits. The question is if bosses will share what
they have monopolized. What's the point of competing if our
chance of winning is 100 percent?
In a game called "win as much as you can," I and the other
course participants were aware that a win/win deal was as easy as
your ABCs to clinch. Yet none of us won in the end. My group was
leading when we agreed with the rest of the groups to make a
win/win deal in the game's fifth session. We stayed faithful to
agreement, even though it meant less profits. We wouldn't risk
losing our trustworthiness. But the other groups violated the
deal and our profits dropped considerably. In the subsequent
sessions, marked with no trust, none of us wanted a deal. We all
became selfish. The game ended in disaster for all of us because
everyone nurtured this kind of thinking "it is okay if I lose
provided that you also lose."
Covey says a win/win deal can be achieved if we realize that
we have to depend on each other in order to survive. Thus, the
ultimate goal of the seven habits is interdependence.
The most revealing part of the course was when we were asked
to write down our personal mission statement. "What do you want
to be remembered upon your death?" asked course facilitator
Robert Wrighton.
In an environment where we work to live, its not surprising to
find people who work and work, striving for a better career but
when they finally reach the top they find they are leaning
against the wrong wall.