The 8th Habit

I appreciate the feedback from last week’s summary of Stephen R. Covey’s 7 HABITS. Many of you had not heard that he had passed away.

It struck me over the weekend that there was an 8TH HABIT. Found it on my bookshelf (Christmas 2004).

In Covey’s own words, “The 8th Habit, then, is not about adding one more habit to the 7 — one that somehow got forgotten. It’s about seeing and harnessing the power of a THIRD DIMENSION to the 7 Habits that meets the central challenge of the new knowledge worker age.”

This 8th Habit is: FIND YOUR VOICE AND INSPIRE OTHERS TO FIND THEIRS.

As always, Covey has loaded this book (all 400 pages!) with super-rich and super-valuable nuggets.

Here are 3 samples:

1. ‘VOICE’ is about unique, personal significance! Covey says, “VOICE lies at the nexus of talent (your natural gifts and strengths) plus passion (those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate and inspire you), need (including what the world needs enough to pay you for) and conscious (that still, small voice within that assures you of what is right and prompts you to actually do it).”

Here’s the visual:

Again, in his words, “When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion – that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscious to meet – therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.”

WOW!

2. Both LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT. Here’s a simple two-part sampling of Covey’s thinking on this.

First are 6 quotes to help define LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT.

Second is a simple summary/list of the differences between LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT.

3. MANAGEMENT PRACTICES that produce superior results. Covey summarized the Evergreen Project, which was a study of 200 well-established management practices over 10 years by 160 companies. The compelling conclusion was that, without exception, companies that outperform their industry peers, excelled at 4 primary management practices:

1. STRATEGY: Devise and maintain a clearly stated focus strategy.
2. EXECUTION: Develop and maintain flawless operation execution.
3. CULTURE: Develop and maintain a performance-oriented culture.
4. STRUCTURE: Build and maintain a fast, flexible, flat organization

Here is a visual representation of those 4 things.

Would certainly seem to work for any FOR IMPACT ORGANIZATION.