The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRING BOOKS EVER WRITTEN, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has guided generations of readers for the last 25 years. Presidents and CEOs have kept it by their bedsides, students have underlined and studied passages from it, educators and parents have drawn from it, and individuals of all ages and occupations have used its step-by-step pathway to adapt to change and to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.The book opens with an explanation of how many individuals who have achieved a high degree of outward success still find themselves struggling with an inner need for developing personal effectiveness and growing healthy relationships with other people. Covey believes the way we see the world is entirely based on our own perceptions. In order to change a given situation, we must change ourselves, and in order to change ourselves, we must be able to change our perceptions. In studying over 200 years of literature on the concept of "success," Covey identified a very important change in the way that humans have defined success over time. In earlier times, the foundation of success rested upon character ethic (things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule). But starting around the 1920s, the way people viewed success shifted to what Covey calls "personality ethic" (where success is a function of personality, public image, attitudes and behaviors).

About the Authors

Prof. Stephen R. Covey, a business consultant, writer, and motivational speaker, garnered tremendous popularity with his best-selling self-help and business books, particularly the highly influential The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic (1989), which sold more than 20 million copies in dozens of countries. Covey enrolled at the University of Utah at age 16 (B.S. in business administration, 1952). After a two-year stint as a Mormon missionary in the U.K., he attended Harvard Business School (M.B.A., 1957). He then spent time as a missionary in Ireland before obtaining a doctorate in religious education (1976) at Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City, where he started leading self-help classes on campus. In 1983 he founded a management-consulting business, the Covey Leadership Center, in Provo, Utah; it merged in 1997 with time-management expert Hyrum Smith’s Franklin Quest Co., becoming the Franklin Covey Co. Time magazine named Covey one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1996. In 2010 he joined the faculty of the Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.