About this title: This bestseller in the self-help and management fields offers a new paradigm for personal and professional success. Covey advises building from the inside out and offers strategies for moving from dependence to independence and then to interdependence.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: Free Press
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671708634ISBN:0671708635
Description: Fair. Paperback, a good reading copy. Cover image is a stock image and may vary. Your book will be securely packed and promptly dispatched from our UK warehouse. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Highlighting/underlining. Slight edgewear and faint spine creasing. Some highlighting. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover shows some wear, some highlights in text, binding tight. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. trade pb, 6b3, minor shelf/edge wear, Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Free Press
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671708634ISBN:0671708635
Description: Very Good; May have minor tanning, name insode front cover, or dog-eared page. No creases. Will send best copy. Shipped, usually within twenty-four hours, from a smoke free environment in Michigan. (GPSYC) 0671708635. 1.1 x 8.3 x 5.4 Inches; 358 pages. read more
Edition: Later Printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Free Press, The, Old Tappan, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671708634ISBN:0671708635
Description: Very Good. Very good condition, clean and tight, clean covers, no creases, square spine, light wear, pages and text clean and unmarked. Later Printing. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Free Press
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671708634ISBN:0671708635
Description: Very Good. 0671708635. Nice clean pages. Excellent cover with some light edge wear. Very slight to no spine wear.; Trade PB; 1 x 8.4 x 5.8 Inches; 358 pages. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Fine, unread copy. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. First Fireside edition. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Clean text, tight binding. A little shelf life on the edges of the pages, but a great used copy! Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Later Printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Free Press, Old Tappan, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671708634ISBN:0671708635
Description: NEAR FINE/Tight Clean Inside. 8vo 0671708635 TRADE PAPERBACK. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Free Pr, Old Tappan, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1990
ISBN-13:9780671708634ISBN:0671708635
Description: Good. Has corners turned up a little light discoloration from age. In good condition but does have the name FORD wrote on side of page edges. ALSO 4-96 WROTE ON TOP OF PAGE EDGES. read more
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Well-used copy, but the ideas still work! read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Highlighting/underlining. some underlining. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"I borrowed this book from the library and I liked it enough to buy my own copy.
Unlike other self-help books, there is no flim-flam here. Right at the beginning of the book Covey tells readers that none of his advice will work unless the reader works, hard. At the end of the book Covey reveals that he struggles with his own advice.
If you are an amotivated person who starts things and who does not finish them, this book will not give you a trick to make sticking to a plan easy.
What this book tells you to do is to discover what you truly value, not what you tell yourself you value. The idea is that once you are in touch ( honestly ) with what your values are you can use that knowledge to motivate yourself to work hard at following hard to follow time honored advice for success.
As far as complaints go I could have done without the corporate buzz terms and diagrams. I guess it is a sign of success of the book that the terms from the book have degenerated into corporate buzz terms.
I also thinks it sucks that Covey tried to cash in on this insightful work by putting out a series of lame sequels, office supplies and over-priced bloated courses.
Some reviews claim that the book pushes Christianity. I am an atheist, I read the book, and I think that claim is rubbish. Towards the end of the book Covey mentions that he is a Christian and that he turns to religious readings in his spare time for inspiration. That is about as far as it goes.
If you are wary of this book be aware that it was very successful. Many copies of it exist in libraries and used book venues so the risk is small."
"Why I Read this Book: There is nothing more valuable than personal development and improvement. This got me off to a wonderful start.
Review:
Stephen Covey is an absolute master mind when it comes to personal change. I received this book from my family one Christmas while I was at university. At first I was skeptical; no I should say I was pessimistic. That is a bit more honest. Does it not seem that most people perceive books on personal change and self improvement in a negative way? Pretty ironic wouldn't you say? Well this was the first such book that I owned that fell into the "personal change" category. Since then I have read it numerous times and have read countless other books on the subject. It is safe to say that this book completely changed my perception on reality and it put me in a place where I was not only comfortable, but motivated, to read every other book like it that I could get my hands on.
As one can probably understand from the title, Stephen Covey presents his strategy for personal change and development through these seven habits that he has created to lead individuals in being as effective as possible. I will not get into detail about what the seven habits actually are because that of course would greatly take away from the power of this book. Do you really think Covey would spend over 350 pages discussing these seven habits if he could get the same point across by just listing them on one page? The things that make this book so powerful are not only the seven habits, but the stories, examples and explanation that thoroughly support each of them.
Through the seven habits Covey gets across so many fundamentals of leading a powerful life. I credit this work with so many positive things that have since done wonders for my life and my outlook on it. These include writing a personal mission statement, understanding the power of setting goals and then setting them, establishing clear values by which to live, effectively managing my time, understanding the significance of honesty and integrity, focusing on results and leading others.
If I had to claim a single most powerful benefit that I received from this book, (which is difficult because there really are so many) I would have to say it was learning the value of having my own personal mission statement. Unfortunately the idea of a personal mission statement does not go over well with most people. That is at least the experience I have had. The truth is that without a personal mission statement and a definition of what it means for you to be successful, how is one ever going to know when they have succeeded and what they should and should not do to get them closer to their goals? This clear definition does wonders for your motivation, drive and excitement with everything you do.
I now have a personal mission statement that I can look to at any part of my day and ask myself "is what I am doing right now getting me closer to my mission". If the answer is no then I should not be doing it. I just looked up at my statement as I was writing this and I can confidently say that writing these words to you is very in line with my life mission. It is pretty simple really. Do you know how good it feels to be doing things that get you closer to your mission? It is time to find out.
"Note: The 4 star rating for the book applies under the assumption that you're reading it for a reason. If this is the sort of thing you're looking to read, I'd recommend it. It's not something I'd push upon everyone I know, or suggest reading as entertainment.
I never read books like this, and am, in general, opposed to even the suggestion that I do so. However, some additional incentive recently presented itself, and it lead to me taking a leap into undesirable waters. I've been reading outside of my box a fair amount lately, and a nice side effect is that it makes other types of reading easier to get into. In this specific case, I received a 1 hour presentation on the book at work. This was during a lunch meeting. I'm on the invite list with all of the other recent hires, and some of the recent transfers. They typically revolve around cultural ideas and issues, and give us an opportunity to ask questions. This time the subject was the "7 Habits" book, but it was presented this time. The presentation delivered a good chunk of information that I consider boring or obvious, but did delvier an interesting way of categorizing tasks or activities undertaken in life. I'm exceptionally thankful for this portion, because the manager asked me shortly thereafter what I thought of the whole thing. I was very greatful that I could honestly make a positive remark on a subject that I am, perhaps even unreasonably, cynical about to begin with! The decision to do the reading however, came near the end of the presentation. I realized that if they valued this book highly enough to have one of the up and coming staff members present it to all the new folks, I could gain significant insight into what is valued and how "effectiveness" in the workplace is viewed. At the very least, it would allow me to understand the environment better when people are expressing plans or goals in similar language used in the book. These opportunities are rare, and the better I know the people I work with, and especially the people I work for, the more comfortable I am.
My motivation aside, the book has been a phenomenon of American business/success literature. Many copies sold, etc. and Intel was providing classes on it on a regular basis at one point. I'm not sure if they still do or not, but I know they did at one point. I've seen it referenced a number of times elsewhere, and seen it for sale all over the place. This does raise questions about the value of popularity, the strength of marketing, and others, but I still believe it to be significant. Honestly, that made me even more skeptical. One of these days, I'll probably learn to be less skeptical of books that have been received well by a large audience, regardless of my affinity to the immediate content. We'll see.
I'm pleasantly surprised to say that overall it was a good read. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to everybody I know, but I do think that everyone I know would probably get at least one useful thought out of reading it. That may seem like a contradiction, but I don't believe it really is. The deal with recommendation is that I would prefer to save my literary influence for something that these folks would be more inclined to start, finish, and enjoy in a comprehensive sense.
The book is very cleanly written. There is little rambling, and I get the feeling that all of the repetition is intentional. Most of the time, I agree that the repetition was a reasonable decision. There are many stories mixed into the lessons, and I have mixed feelings about these. A small number of them were honestly interesting and illuminating. The majority of them did illustrate a point a little more fully, and served to break up the flow to keep it from getting too entrenched in the same voice. Enjoying these portions makes me feel like I'm having a short attention span catered to, but I imagine that it makes the book as a whole more accessible. It certainly did serve to make it more palatable for me to read larger chunks in a sitting. Some of the stories seemed so contrived that, even if they were true, they shouldn't have made the cut. Anecdotes which make the author seem clever, or make difficult solutions seem easy are a pretty big turn off. Fortunately, there aren't too many of these, and enough of the others are sincere and believable that it isn't too much trouble. The book is broken up well, and the concepts flow easily from one chapter to the next. Again, this contributes to the book being pretty easy reading.
I'm impressed at how a lot of weight is given to figuring out your own way to do things. There are specifics at some level of course, but they're quite broad, and leave a lot of ways an individual could implement the ideas. Additionally, they talk about this stuff as ongoing work, which I like. I'm massively irritated by ideas that a quick shift in perspective will make everything work. This addresses personal effectiveness as an ongoing effort to be refined as time goes by. This was quite nice to see. The language surrounding interactions with other people is also coming from a philosophical point of view that is appealing to me. There is a lot of emphasis on respect, patience, and understanding as an ongoing effort. It talks about relationships with people as constantly evolving, and the importance of being good to the people around you. That's a great thing to hear from a "success" book, and to me, it does lend a lot of credibility to the rest of the book.
The biggest thing I got out of it, was some new ideas of how to think about my projects and responsibilities. It's not a huge shift, but it did add a few new things for consideration as I make plans and work on things. It's also excellent to hear discussions of the development and maintenance of good, honest, relationships as good professional practice as well as a good personal and philosophical endeavor. I've found ideas from it impacting my thoughts on scheduling and interaction from time to time, and haven't been irritated when it's come up. I haven't had any great breakthroughs from it, but to have more information or ideas at hand is helpful, and I feel like it gives me a better chance of doing the right thing. I've got a little more insight into my work environment, and will recognize vocabulary from the book when used. So, the book gave me pretty much exactly what I wanted."
"This was the book that made Stephen Covey at familiar name in the workplace in the 80's and 90's. We were asked to read this in relation to a company-wide training on the same in the mid 80's and my friends from other companies were also required to undergo the same training. The 7 habits will always be applicable as they are all based on common sense. However, there are some that was new during the 80's like the paradigm shifting and the visualization. Now we have the "secret" - law of attraction which is basically similar to visualization (thinking with the end in mind). I think the business gurus are just renaming things in order to appear new. They are the ones laughing their way to banks while HR people in companies appear to have brilliant ideas for productivity by using those new ideas or propositions based on these books. I have been working for almost 3 decades now and I can't help but see this cycle of foolishness."
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