Book Review

THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE, BY STEPHEN R.

CONVEY

Personal Growth Lab

Assignment
Submitted by
Group 4
Ajay Haran (241008)
Nikhil Sondhi (241086)
Sudhanshu Dhawan (241149)
Aman Mittal (241016)
Anmol Verma (09306)

Summary
The author, Steven Covey, talks about how some changes in the habits of the people can
make them effective in their lives. To accomplish these goals, the author proposes the
practice of seven main principles or habits. These include: being proactive, beginning with
the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking win-win, seeking first to understand
rather than to be understood, synergizing and sharpening the saw. These are the habits
that will be used by every person at all the stages of his life and are easy to understand and
incorporate them in our lives to be more effective.
The first habit teaches us to be proactive. It is seen that people usually are very adamant to
change. This leads to them complaining about the work and reduces their effectiveness
towards work. This shows that a person should rather be proactive and this would help us
in being effective at our work. The second habit talks about having the end in our mind.
This is one of the most important habits because we often see that we do a work but do not
have any plan how to end it or how it would look at the end. By having an image about the
end, it would actually help us in being directed towards our goal and would not let us
deviate from it. By doing this, we also link our habit of putting first thing first. Because of
having a proper path in our mind we would know how to have the important things
accomplished first before they eventually turn to be urgent. We should be proactive in
completing the important things in life keeping the end in our mind. We should also plan
the things first and have a proper path of actions that will lead us to success. This is
conveyed by the habit of sharpening the saw. This means that having a proper action plan
will help us save a lot of time then just doing the work without any plan in mind.
The fourth habit emphasizes on having a win-win strategy in life. This would not only help
in achieving better results but also having a long term relationship with the person which
is the most important thing today. This can be combined with the habit of synergizing
where we associate the individual efforts with the other individual which would help us
both have better results. The fifth habit talks about seeking first to understand and then to
be understood which means that a person should be a good listener at all times and should
focus on understanding the viewpoint of other person before jumping to his comments on
the basis of his own understanding of the situation which might be different.

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Critical Analysis- Agreements & Disagreements

The book has mentioned about seven habits that need to be changed or considered that
could make a person highly effective in his/ her work. The seven habits are: being proactive,
beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking win-win, seeking first to
understand rather than to be understood, synergizing and sharpening the saw. We would
now discuss these in detail to evaluate the points given by author:
1. Being Proactive
The author explains that there are various events that happens daily in the lives of
the people, some of which are in control of the people while others are out of their
control. If there is some event because of which the lives of people will be affected,
a person should always focus on the things that are in his control. Rather than just
cribbing about how the changes have affected him and that he will not be able to
sustain these changes, he should focus on ways for improving them or adjusting to
the changes. The author calls this to be being proactive in adjusting himself to the
changes rather than being reactive to the situation. I completely agree with this
because in the dynamic environment, a person would learn to adopt himself to the
changes to be a better manager.

2. Beginning with the end in the mind

The author also suggests that before beginning a work, one should always have the
image of how he wants to end the work in his mind. This helps the person to be
more focused about his work. This way he would only do the activities that will get
him closer to the end result and he would not get deviated from his path to achieve
the end. A beautiful example of this can be thinking what one would say on own
funeral. By thinking what are the things by which the person wants to be
remembered, he will eventually end up doing the things, which are better for the
end.

3. Putting first thing first

There are things that are important to a person and things that are urgent for him

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to do. A person should always focus on completing the things that are important for
us. Not doing a work till the time it becomes urgent to do is a common practice for
people. One should understand that by doing the work when it becomes urgent only
means that it would lead to stress and other related problems. Thus one should
always complete the things that are important to him and dont let anything
interfere with them. Because these items are not urgent, you have some flexibility
on when to do them, but because theyre important, you must schedule them and
keep it on the schedule. I agree with this because it helps a person being healthy in
life by not having stress and other related diseases.

4. Thinking Win-Win
In the competitive world like that of today, a person only thinks of his own benefit
even if it is at a cost of others. The author criticizes this thing and argues that one
should rather think of a win-win solution for both the players at this would not only
be beneficial for him to achieve better results but also help him in the long term.
This can be understood by the simple example of a restaurant review. If being the
owner of a restaurant, I tell the customers that you might consider the neighbor
restaurant as well and not criticizing it, then not only I get his recommendations
too but also the customers that would come because of his recommendations.

5. Seeking first to understand rather than to be understood

A person should be a good listener and should first try to understand what the other
person has to say rather than simply jumping on his suggestions on the basis of his
interpretations. The author emphasizes on the point that one should always seek to
understand first and only then should he seek to be understood. This is a trait that
should be adopted by everyone because not only is it an important one to do but
will also help us in being a good manager and a good person.

6. Synergize
As the name suggests, one should always try to work together and synergize with
each other. The author mentions that synergizing in the work with one another will

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eventually help you gain more than the person would have gained alone. This can
be understood with the example that two people who want to take apples from a
tree. They cant reach the apples alone but if they synergize their efforts by simply
helping each other, they can have many more apples that they would have gained
individually. This is a trait that everyone should encompass because people prefer
to work alone and dont really think of helping others but by synergizing their efforts
they both can gain much better than they would have achieved alone.

7. Sharpening the saw

This habits talk about how streamlining our efforts and spending some time to
actually plan the work can save a lot of time doing it normally. I completely agree
with it because a person trying to complete a project without planning how to do it
will eventually spend much more time than a person who spent 30 minutes before
starting the project to plan the action plan for the project.

How it would help in personal growth??

The seven habits stated in the book would be a great help in building personality traits
such as being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking
win-win, seeking first to understand rather than to be understood, synergizing; and
sharpening the saw. Being proactive would facilitate self-initiated behavior in situations
making a person self-reliant, independent and responsible for his own actions. The habit
of beginning with the end in mind makes a person goal oriented so would help in being
focused in the desired direction. To live a more balanced life habit of first thing first would
help in prioritizing things their issue, roles and purpose. Win-Win habit would help in
developing winning instinct inculcating confidence, integrity, maturity and abundance
mentality. Seek First to Understand, then to Be Understood would develop habit of
listening enabling a person to understand other person hence helping in developing
empathy and cooperation. Synergize is the habit of teamwork, open-mindedness, and
finding new solutions to old problems Synergy would help us to discover jointly things we
are much less likely to discover by ourselves. Sharpen the Saw means preserving and
enhancing the greatest asset you have this habit this would help us to handle challenging

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roles. As a whole this book presents an approach to be effective in attaining goals by

aligning oneself with principles of character ethic that are universal and timeless.

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