Book Tigers - Summary and Analysis of: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (Book Tigers Self Help and Success Summaries)

T he first part of the book starts with Inside-Out. It shed insightful information about perception and how important it is to start from inside to outside. Stephen had worked with people for more than twenty-five years. In those years, he heard many people with impeccable success and achievements but found themselves struggling with another problem. They battled with an inner hunger for personal congruency and ways to shape healthy, growing relationships with others. For example, your teenage son is a rebel and consumes drugs. Whatever you do, nothing seems to get to him. Or, despite taking courses on effective management, you still cannot grow loyalty in your employees. You do not feel any from them and are sure that they will dump work if youre sick for a day. Or when you cannot stick to a diet routine for the fifth time in a year. You just cant seem to stick to it. After a few weeks, you just fizzle. It looked like you cannot keep a promise to yourself.

These problems were deep ones, the kind that cannot be fixed quickly. Stephen and his wife Sandra had one of these problems, too. Their son was struggling in school. He was bad academically and athletically. He was socially immature, often embarrassing, and just inadequate. Like any other caring parent, Stephen and his wife tried to help him. First, they tried using a positive mental attitude to psych up their son. When their son did badly, others laughed, but Stephen and Sandra reprimanded them by encouraging their son. It didnt help. Their son eventually cried while insisting that hed never be any good.

Then, it was not long before Stephen was involved in leadership development work. In one of the programs, there was a subject of communication and perception for IBM. When hes about to present them, Stephen studied the subject and grew interested in the topic. It led Stephen to be fond of how perceptions are formed, how perception leads the way we see, and the way we see controls how we behave. His study taught Stephen the importance of looking at the lens through which we perceive the world. Also, as the world that we see, and realize that the lens that connects us controls how we interpret the world. Now, Stephen and Sandra realized that what they did was not aligned with how they saw their son. Their honest feelings and perception of their son was inadequate and left behind. So, all their hard work was ineffective because what the couple communicated was that their son wasnt capable, and he must be protected. So, if we want to change a situation, we must change ourselves first. To change ourselves, we first must change our perception.