The Eighth Habit is a sequel to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The Seven Habits introduced the concepts used to become effective whereas The Eighth Habit continues the move from effectiveness to greatness, or to create personal significance and greatness.
The Eighth Habit is considered a new paradigm and Dr. Stephen Covey uses many examples and metaphors in explaining the concepts of The Eighth Habit. The theme of The Eighth Habit is to “find your voice, and inspire others to find theirs”. Covey begins the book with a look at the current work environment, indicating that many people are not happy with their jobs and are not satisfied with their contribution to their organizations. He indicates that this is the typical voice of the workforce. There is more pressure to do more with less, which has created the environment of doing things that are urgent, rather than important. He concludes that if everyone is not on the same page than everything becomes urgent and it takes up a significant amount of your energy to address urgent issues, while leaving the important issues unattended.
Covey explains The Eighth Habit through the “whole person”, body, mind, heart, and spirit. By addressing the whole person, you find your voice. He delves into the rationalization of the body, mind, heart, and spirit as follows:
· The body satisfies the need; provides goods and services; economic and physical needs.
· The mind provides talent and competency.
· The heart provides passion and excitement.
· The spirit is your conscience, which acts as your principle sense of integrity, meaning, and trust.
Covey further analogizes that the whole body concept, is applicable to corporations, family, and individuals, and as such can be applied and evaluated in each situation. Covey explains that most corporations miss their top priorities because there is no voice in their work force and that not everyone is on the same page. Covey emphasizes that there is be a paradigm shift in place. He is convinced and adamant that this paradigm shift will grow and move us from the “industrial age”, the age of control, based on transactions, machines, and things, to the “knowledge worker age”, the age of release. The knowledge worker age will be the transformation of people, to empower them and create social ecology. Covey truly believes that in order to succeed in the 21st century we will need to adopt the knowledge worker age and move out of the industrial age. Society needs to shift from manual labor to knowledge worker productivity. Covey continues throughout the book to emphasize the need for us to find our voice by looking at the whole person, body, mind, heart and spirit.
The book goes on at length with examples of the knowledge worker concept and how it is working today in three (3) different examples. Covey identifies that the knowledge worker is use of the whole person, body, mind, heart, and spirit and how each element creates the voice in the knowledge worker. The knowledge worker is more productive, satisfied with their efforts and value to society, they are more successful in achieving greatness.
Covey explains that in order for the paradigm shift to occur it has to start with the individual (you). Transformation from the industrial age to the knowledge worker age, will be done by utilizing the whole person concept, body, mind, heart, and spirit. The body provides the physical intelligence, the mind provides the emotional intelligence, or as Covey puts it, EQ. The spirit provides your conscience, the rights and wrongs and also, the power of choice and principles (natural laws). The heart provides your passion and empathy. Again, Covey emphasizes the development of the knowledge worker, starting with yourself, and focusing on the body, mind, heart, and spirit concept. Covey believes these can be developed with exercise for the body, reading for expanding your EQ, self awareness, and awareness for other people, as well as your empathy for others. You will develop your spiritual consciousness through integrity, following your principles, while developing a meaning and purpose for life, ultimately creating your voice.
Covey further expands on The Eighth Habit concepts to leaders while using the same metaphor, body, mind, heart, and spirit. Covey explains that the mind provides vision, the body provides discipline, the heart provides passion, and the spirit provides conscience. He utilizes an example emphasizing all leaders have the same qualities with one differing characteristic – ego. Covey points out that every leader has vision, discipline, passion, and conscience, which is driven by their ego.
The second part of the book concentrates on the techniques of inspiring others to find their voice. This requires the personal development of oneself in order to inspire others. It also emphasizes the fact that you need to take time to affirm others, appreciate their work and contribution to society. Covey points out that humans have four major communication skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
The most important of these skills is listening, especially with empathy. He recommends that we all need to improve our communication skills, primarily “listening”. Communication skills need to be developed in order for the “knowledge worker age” to succeed. Covey accentuates that the key to influencing these skills is the use the Greek concepts of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos is about trust, it is the moral guiding your beliefs, Pathos is the concept of understanding and empathizing with others, Logos is the need to seek and understand others. Covey uses an experience he had at a Native American reservation to illustrate this point. He describes how the Native Americans communicated by using an Indian stick, which when given to a person, allows that person to speak and be understood. During this time, no one else is allowed to speak, other than for clarification on what is being said. Again, the person holding the Indian stick has the “floor” or speaking right and the right to be understood. Once that person is understood, he or she then passes it to the next person, entitling that person to have the “floor” and ability to speak and be understood. This simple practice develops the human skill of listening.
Covey finally takes the concepts of The Eighth Habit into the organization and accentuates that you need to build the whole person paradigm into the organization. Again, the body, mind, heart, and spirit, flowing into the organization setting. Covey points out that today’s leadership is based on moral authority, not formal authority, as was evident in the industrial age. Leadership is spread everywhere in the knowledge worker age. Covey illustrates four roles for developing the new paradigm in the organization as modeling, path finding, aligning, and empowering. Modeling is setting good examples and creating trust in the organization. Path finding is the process of setting values and the vision and goals of the organization. It is this area where most organizations today are not on the same page. Covey emphasizes that it is important that everyone in the organization is on the same page and is focused on the same top priorities. Aligning is the bringing about of change. The new paradigm will require significant change to all systems in order to capitalize on the “knowledge worker age”. Finally, empowering the work force will unleash the knowledge worker’s voice and improve the worker’s productivity and greatness of their efforts. Covey believes there is far more talent in the work force than they are allowed to contribute in their job function. The “knowledge worker age” that organizations need to create is to allow for more leaders within the organization and to support the knowledge worker in reaching their fullest potential and contribution to the success of the corporation.
Covey ends The Eighth Habit with the quotation “Life is a mission and not a career”. This clearly sums up the whole person voice concept as outlined in Covey’s The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.
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