Summary of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

What determines success? Till World War I, the dominant view in the US was that it’s character, who you really are inside.

After World War I, the perception changed. Success is now considered to depend on personality, who you show yourself to be outwardly. This image-consciousness resulted in superficial and manipulative advice such as faking interest in someone’s hobbies to get him to do what you want. If you’re given such quick-fix advice that contradicts what you feel within you to be true, don’t ignore your instinct. Fooling people works only if you aren’t going to interact with them again. The take-away isn’t that personality is unimportant, but that both character and personality are important.

The Apollo rocket to the moon spent more energy traveling the first few miles than it did the remaining half a million miles. Why? Because the earth’s gravity is so powerful. Once you get out of the earth’s gravitational influence, you can go far with little energy. Similarly, breaking deeply embedded habits requires a disproportionate investment of energy and lifestyle changes in the initial days.

Dependence, Independence and Interdependence

We begin our lives dependent physically (others have to do things for us), intellectually (others have to think for us) and emotionally (we link our happiness to others’ approval of us). Babies are vulnerable — anyone can hurt them.

Over time, we graduate to independence, where we don’t let others’ incompetence or ill intentions hurt us. This lets us achieve far beyond anything we could as a child. Independence is a great achievement.

However, there’s a limit to what we can achieve single-handedly. When we hit this limit, it’s time to graduate to interdependence. It does involve going back to vulnerability, to giving up the independence what we worked so hard for 2-3 decades to achieve. But, in exchange, we get to achieve things a risk-averse person can’t. What got us here won’t get us there. But these old paradigms, though they may have outlived their usefulness, continue to provide pseudo-security to us, and breaking out of them can be hard. We need to sacrifice what we want now to get what we want eventually.

Here are the seven habits of highly effective people:

Habit 1: Proactivity

… means taking initiative. We’re responsible for our own lives. Sometimes, circumstances cause us to feel a certain way, which causes us to react in a certain way. This is reactive behavior. Proactive people take a step back and ask themselves what their values are and make a conscious decision to behave in a certain way. “Responsible” means “response-able” — able to choose your response.

Reactive people are affected by the weather, feeling good when the weather is good, and bad when bad. On the other hand, proactive people carry their own weather with them.

When a man told Stephen that he and his wife have fallen out of love and they’re concerned for their children, Stephen told him to love his wife. “But the feeling isn’t there”, the man protested. Stephen responded that love is also a verb, and he should love his wife, make her happy, sacrifice for her, and so on, and this will result in love (noun).

Some of us are concerned about more things than we can influence (e.g., nuclear war), as this infographic shows:

This is not productive. Think only about what you can influence. One way to figure out if you’re doing this is to listen to yourself. What language are you using? If you’re using the phrase “I can be”, such as “I can be more direct”, you’re focusing on the circle of influence. On the other hand, if you’re using the phrases “If only”, “I have to” or “I can’t”, such as, “If only there were fewer nukes” you may be focusing on things you can’t influence.

Change happens inside out: you change yourself, and then the situations around you change. If you pay off your loan, then you’ll have financial freedom. Change doesn’t happen outside in, where the world first changes in order to make you happy, like your bank calling you out of the blue to let you know that you don’t need to pay further EMIs.

On the other hand, some people make the opposite mistake: they stop being concerned about things they can influence. They invert the two circles above. This isn’t productive, either. Both circles should be the same size.

At work, reactive people can become problems to others, while proactive people can become solutions.

If you’re thinking about what area to be proactive in, it’s especially helpful to be proactive in areas which are your manager’s weakness. This lets your manager achieve more than he otherwise can. One Vice President who did this earned so much trust with the CEO that he was given influence over all areas of the company, thus earning himself more authority than other VPs.

What’s a mistake? A mistake is any decision whose consequences you don’t like. When the consequences are clear, proactive people are quick to acknowledge their mistake and change their decision the next time the situation happens.

From time to time, we behave reactively. For example, I’ve reacted defensively when given feedback. If you think that scenario might happen again, plan out in detail how you’ll behave next time in this situation: “Next time, I’ll note down bullet points of the feedback as it’s given. I won’t try to evaluate the validity of what they’re saying. I’ll do that after the meeting is over. Visualise vividly you noting down bullet points and the feedback-giver being impressed by how receptive you’ve been.”

When you watch a movie, the characters seem to have freedom to do whatever they want. But, in reality, the actors can only follow a script given to them. Similarly, all of us are driven by a script ingrained in us from our parents, teachers, society at large, and our past experiences. Recognise that you’re following a script, then try to identify what script you’re following, then ask if that’s the right script for you. If not, ask yourself what might be a better script, and re-script yourself. You have already been given a script, so it’s not a question of writing a script, but of rewriting the script.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind

We’re often caught up in the thick of thin things, only to realise months or years later that the end result is not what we want. Some people have sacrificed their relationships and health for a seemingly fancy job, only to realise they it actually sucks, despite its public image. This realisation comes too late.

To avoid this, when taking up a job, note down a few bullet points of what you want to get out of it. Then ask yourself if the job you’re taking up will produce those results. Maybe you need a different job. Even a different role. Maybe you need to consult instead of working full-time… You’ll get clarity on all these only if you begin with the end in mind.

Some people really focus on efficiency, on achieving the same result in 4 hours instead of 5. But doing the wrong thing faster won’t help. It’s like driving to the wrong destination quicker. Effectiveness is more important than efficiency. Before you ask yourself, “Am I doing things right?” ask yourself, “Am I doing the right things?”

Sometimes people suffer from urgency addiction, where they feel the need to do something, anything, to appear busy, because they confuse busyness with progress.

One way to begin with the end in mind is to write a personal mission statement that defines what you will and won’t do. For example, you might choose to embrace eustress and reject distress. Your personal mission statement would also have an ethical code. Why? Because the ethics you live your life by will determine where you’ll go. Ethics is just long-term decision-making.

Habit 3: Put first things first

Once you agree that something is a priority, you should subordinate everything else to it.

One of my consulting clients said that scaling (supporting more users) is the priority. But later, when something came up, he’d ask for it to be done. When I told him this contradicts our agreed-upon prioritisation, he’d still insist. A month later, something else would come up, and the cycle would repeat. Eventually, the outcome that we agreed was important wasn’t achieved. This demonstrates a lack of clear thinking: if something is important, everything else should be subjugated to it.

Some people over-schedule: something at 10:00, then 10:30, then 11:00 and then 11:30. This leaves no room for you to deal with important things that will happen without regard for your schedule. If the activity that should be done by 10:30 isn’t, it will cause the next event to be delayed, which in turn disrupts the one after that, and so on. Rigid plans like this are like printed out driving directions. If you deviate somewhere along the way, the rest of the directions don’t help you anymore. They’ll only make you get lost further. Instead, you need a compass: if need to go north, equip yourself with a compass, and start on your journey, but partway through the journey, you lose your way, the compass will still tell you which road to take to go north.

Put building human relationships with your coworkers as the first item on your priority list. People sometimes are so obsessive about efficiency, about scheduling every minute, that they interrupt a conversation abruptly saying, “I have to go now” which signals “I don’t care about you”. Efficiency is for things, not people. If someone has an issue, and you try to deal with it in 15 minutes because you have other things to do, you may a) not solve the issue b) communicate to them not to count on you when they have a problem. If you do that, you’ll be efficient and productive in the short term, but there will be a ceiling on what you can achieve. When you’ve earned trust, disputes are less likely to arise. And, when they do, the trust lets you sort them out easily, rather than escalating. By contrast, if you’re transactional towards your colleagues, when there’s a dispute, they’ll work with you to some extent to resolve it, but then put their foot down, and it will be a problem for you. Relationships of deep trust at work raise the ceiling of what you can accomplish.

People are sometimes focused on the urgent, ignoring the important. What’s the difference between urgent and important? Urgent is how quickly you need to act, and important is how severe the consequences will be if you ignore it. Here are some examples:

• Important and urgent: rushing someone to emergency.

• Urgent but not important: a meeting about mundane stuff, which you can’t attend hours later.

• Important but not urgent: Any kind of preventive activity. For example, at a personal level, exercising and recreation. At work, building relationships with people, planning, and recognising new opportunities. This category of activities increases your ability to do more in the future.

• Neither important nor urgent: time-wasters like internet forums, social networks and news. Are you going to do something different tomorrow having learnt of the Israel-Hamas war? Some time-wasters can be pleasant, which is why we do them.

Many people just work on whatever is shouting for attention — the urgent — ignoring the important. Don’t do that. When you’re lurching from crisis to crisis, you don’t have time to fix the underlying problems. This results in more crises, eating up more of your time, resulting in a vicious cycle. This happens for companies. And for individuals who, for example, never focus on upskilling themselves for the remainder of their career and so become irrelevant sooner or later.

Prioritise results, not activities. Then plan the activities in sync with the goals. You can’t prioritise activities unless you know what goal they contribute to and how important that goal is to you.

Some of us struggle to say no. It becomes easier if you have a bigger yes burning inside you. Then you can tell yourself and others, “I’m saying no to X so that I can achieve Y”.

Habit 4: Win/win

If you can’t get to a win/win deal, walk away, because other deals are not sustainable and long-term beneficial.

Sometimes people think, “I can’t be nice; I need to be tough.” But win/win is nice and tough.

Have an abundance mindset (there’s enough for all of us). Not a scarcity mindset (there’s only one pie, so if others eat it, there won’t be enough for me). People with a scarcity mindset don’t want others to succeed too much. That’s because they believe that when others succeed, they eat too much of the limited pie, leaving little for them. So, they may not help others succeed. When others succeed, they may clap outwardly, but inwardly, they’re hoping for them to fail so that they can succeed. Not suffer terrible misfortune, but enough to put them in their place. By contrast, people with an abundance mindset wholeheartedly want others to succeed. Since there’s more than enough for everyone, other people’s successes don’t come at their cost. In fact, those successes can give them ideas on how they can grow, too.

People with an abundance mentality work well in a team with different skills and approaches. They support others, knowing that if they try a different approach that works, they can adopt it, too. People with an abundance mentality have a strong sense of self-worth.

In stark contrast, people with a scarcity mindset don’t make good team members. They’re way of diversity and differences in approach. They’re afraid that if others following a different approach succeed, they’ll look worse in comparison. So they don’t help others, and may even sabotage them. They hoard information, so that they alone can succeed, rather than sharing it with the team. They brand people following a different approach insubordinate and disloyal. They surround themselves with weaker copies of themselves. They don’t have an internal sense of self-worth, only an external sense by comparing with others.

As Steve Jobs put it:

A players hire A players. But B players hire C players, and C players hire D players.

You maintain a bank account with each of the people in your life. When you help them, you’re depositing money into this account. When you mistreat them, or take their help, you’re withdrawing. We should make sure our accounts with everyone have a positive balance.

When you don’t have positive balance, differences arising from position and personality will engender negative energy. With positive balance, these differences will still be there, but engender a positive, cooperative energy focused on thoroughly understanding the issues and resolving them meaningfully.

Win/win relationships rarely happen automatically. You need to put in effort into creating a win/win atmosphere. If they’re not approaching it in a win/win manner, go first: make multiple deposits into the emotional bank account. Listen to what they’re saying even if they’re trying to be win/lose. Respect their point of view. Show consideration to them as people. Don’t react to what they’re saying. Slowly change the tone of the conversation from win/lose to win/win.

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood

We’re all trained in school in how to convey our thoughts effectively, both in speaking and writing, but not in listening.

Many people do one of the following in a conversation:

• Not listening

• Pretending to listen

• Listening a bit and connecting that to our experience and switching from their story to our story and assuming the rest is the same. If someone talks of how their startup didn’t do well, I might stop listening and assume the rest of the story plays out as it did in my startup.

• While listening, planning our response.

• Responding.

• Listening to the words and not the message behind them.

• Listening and understanding, also called empathic listening. ← This is the ultimate level of listening.

Empathy is different from sympathy: the former is about understanding the other person in their shoes, while the latter is about agreeing or judging. If you’re negotiating with a terrorist, you should listen empathically to understand what drives him, not sympathetically (approving his goals and methods).

Empathic listening is also different from reflective listening, where you parrot their words back to them to try to manipulate them into thinking you’re truly listening.

We spend little time truly listening. It’s okay if, when they’re done, you don’t have a response ready. You’re not on TV where you need to appear smart by saying something immediately.

When people speak, 10% of their communication is in their words, 30% in their voice, and 60% in their body language. So, you have to listen 10% with your eyes, 30% with your ears, and 60% with your heart.

Diagnose before you prescribe. Otherwise, they won’t be sure that you considered all the facts of the situation and so whether your prescription is correct. So they won’t follow it.

When we respond, we tend to respond in four ways:

1. Evaluate (either agree or disagree)

2. Probe (ask questions from our own frame of reference)

3. Advise (based on our experience)

4. Interpret (we figure people out and try to explain their motives and behavior based on our own motives and behavior)

Evaluation makes the other side want to stop the conversation.

When probing, we should be careful not to come across as an interrogator.

Before we can influence others, we should listen and be influenced. Only if you let yourself be influenced by the other side can you then influence them.

The Greeks say that persuasion comes first from ethos (your credibility or authority), then your pathos (emotion) and from logos (your logic) — in that order.

You’ve truly listened only when you can articulate their point of view as well as or better than them.

Habit 6: Synergize

Synergy is when two people achieve more by working together than the sum of what they can achieve separately. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. 1 + 1 produces 3, not 2.

Most people spend their lives achieving limited results because they operate non-synergistically. They believe that others can’t be trusted. They think about protecting themselves, and communicate defensively. They don’t operate win/win. They experience synergy rarely, such as when a person is drowning, when people cooperate to an unusually high degree without regard for ego or pride. They conclude that synergy is out of character with life, and happens rarely due to some miracle. This is not true. Synergy can be created deliberately and regularly.

Creative endeavors are unpredictable and trial and error. There isn’t a defined process you follow step by step to ensure the result. What kind of people can participate in such an endeavor? Only those who have a high tolerance to ambiguity, a sense of openness and adventure. This, in turn, arises out of a deep sense of personal safety. This could be the feeling of confidence that we’re following the right principles, so the result will be good, even if we can’t see it yet. Unfortunately, most people are not fit for creative endeavors. They’re obsessed with structure, predictability and certainty. They’re unnerved by ambiguity.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Organisations need to have a P/PC balance. P stands for Production, and PC stands for Production Capacity. If the company owns a machine that makes chairs, the production is the chairs. Many companies make the mistake of forcing the machine to run 24 hours to make more chairs, without giving it a rest or maintaining it. The machine then breaks down, and no chairs can be made any more. Then management goes around asking, “Why did this happen?” It happened because they were greedy about maximising Production, neglecting Production Capacity. This greed backfired.

The concept of P/PC balance also applies to teams, such as giving them a break to de-stress or develop skills, or have some weeks of less work to offset weeks of overtime. If you keep them on their toes 24 hours, they won’t be productive.

The concept of P/PC balance applies to individuals: spend at least an hour a day increasing your Production Capacity. This includes physical renewal like exercising (both stretches to maintain flexibility and cardio for your heart) and healthy eating and sleeping. It includes mental renewal like reading a book or trying something new. It includes social renewal like spending time with loved ones or friends. It includes emotional renewal like relaxation and entertainment. Otherwise, you’ll break down.

A woodcutter would spend all day cutting down trees. As the days went by, each tree would take longer and longer to chop. The woodcutter was drowned in sweat but still kept trying diligently. A passerby told him to stop and sharpen his saw. The woodcutter retorted, “I don’t have time for that! Can’t you see I’m busy sawing?!” and went back to his work.