The first thing I want to know about Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is what is the deal with the different names credited to the title/concept?  I remember when the book first came out, and at the same time do not recall any controversy about who had the idea first, who is collecting the royalties on Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or who is breaking one of the commandments therein.

Today, doing a search for Seven Habits of Highly Effective People—with no author name or punctuation marks or anything, just the six words (I did not use the preposition ‘of’ in the search)—I get the title with Franklin Covey and the same title with Stephen R. Covey….  And before I investigate further, I just had to ponder a bit.  (Does this mean this is a rant within a rant?) I know one big, big, big corporation, like MSN or someone (though DO NOT QUOTE ME) who purchased the keyword phrase for another corporation’s product/logo, so when someone does a search, the first result offered is the one listing the phrase it bought.

Okay, enough rambling paranoia: I will now investigate and let you know who is saying what about doing what with Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Oh, okay.  This is easy.  The WEBSITE is Franklin Covey and the author, as always, is Dr. Stephen R. Covey.  OK, rant off.

Dr. Covey has sold more than 13 million copies of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  And the many-times revised since the seventies book has been named by FORBES one of the top ten most influential books of all time.

What are the seven habits of highly effective people?  Well, given Dr. Covey’s skills, abilities, experience(s) and reputation, you can think in terms of leadership; time-management; family matters; and organizational strategy: Covey is a teacher, a guru, in all these areas.  Or, you can consider the contents, those which promise optimum conditioning and optimum results.

Be proactive

Begin with the end in mind

Put first things first

Think win/win

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Synergy

Sharpening the saw

I will provide more detail when I do my real review of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.