This week, we revisit a re-edited version of the re-read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

Approximately 33 years ago, I was in the middle of the second of three process improvement program reboots brought on by another bank merger. During the stress of the scenario, I picked up a copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.  I was not alone – I still have the copy, it is the 13th printing (Fireside Imprint), nor am I alone now – The 7 Habits sitting at #251 on Amazon’s Best Sellers in April 2025.  The popularity is not only a reflection of the timelessness and usefulness of the advice, but also its approachability.  So many years later, I can pick up the book and derive value from the effort.

While I prepare for our next re-read, I will reflect on the past and make several updates to the original reread. As before, I will begin with the caveat:. I am aware that there have been additions to the original book (for instance, an eight habit), however, like the original Star Wars, I think some things are just better “old school.”

As a primer, Dr. Covey, in The 7 Habits, lays out seven behaviors of successful people (hence the title).  The book is based on observation, interviews,and research; therefore, the habits presented make sense and have a solid evidentiary basis. One of the reasons the book works is the integration of character and ethics into the principles–topics that are important to me..  I have often written and podcasted on the importance and value of character and ethics in a software development environment. These are important topics..

The seven habits are:

  • “Be proactive” – We are responsible for our own lives.
  • “Begin with the end in mind” – Know what you want your life to mean.
  • “Put first things first” – Exert the will to focus on what is important.
  • “Think win/win” – Seek mutual benefit.
  • “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” – Three words: listen and hear.
  • “Synergize” – Combine ideas and create new alternatives.
  • “Sharpen the saw” – Preserve, enhance, and renew yourself.

I have revisited The 7 Habits many times as I have renewed and re-invented myself.  I suspect the urge to re-read the book is because it is time to sharpen the saw.  I look forward to sharing and discussing the impact with the Daily Process Thought community.

7 Habits Re-Read, Habit 1: Be Proactive

The first of the 7 Habits is: Be Proactive.  Being proactive means choosing how you will set your course. Many people believe that they are constrained by their genetics, their upbringing, or their environment. These constraints create a trap that dictates a response. By falling into the stimulus/response trap, we become the dogs in Pavlov’s famous experiment – we are controlled by the situation, rather than taking control.

How we react to any stimulus is our decision (Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath, which reinforces this habit).  Making a decision, actively, allows us to bring our intellect to bear on the situation. Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow (another one of our re-reads), calls this System 2 Thinking.  By being reactive, we are driven by circumstance. When we are proactive, we are driven by our values.  Covey states that we are responsible for making things happen. A daily standup meeting helps to inject a decision process into the stimulus–response equation. Instead of stimulus = response, now stimulus => decision => response.

This is not merely an intellectual exercise.  A common problem I encounter is teams that stop doing retrospectives. In one instance, the team stopped retros when the only problems they could identify were organizational.  The team couldn’t do anything to address these problems, and the facilitator couldn’t help them recognize the need to let go of things they could not change. Instead of reframing the issues so they could proactively work on them, they just became passive-aggressive and stopped doing retrospectives..

In this habit, Covey also introduces the concept of the ‘circle of concern,’ i.e., what we are worried about, and the ‘circle of influence,’ i.e., what we can affect. This is similar to the idea that the Stoic Philosopher, Epictetus, described in the Dichotomy of Control. The idea is central to Stoicism. The importance is shown in the first line in the Enchiridion (The Handbook of Stoicism based on Epictetus’s Discourses), which reads: “There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power.” Perhaps Covey was influenced by Stoicism. Recognize that unless an issue is in our circle of influence, we can not affect it.  For example, the Agile team above stopped doing retrospectives because they decided that what they identified was in their circle of concern, but not in their circle of influence. When teams and individuals focus on things they can’t control, negativity will fester. This shrinks their circle of influence because negative attitudes make it even harder to create change. A better solution is to try to increase the team’s circle of influence – in other words, be proactive! Or, move on to something you can control and use that experience to broaden your circle of influence.

Our choice of language reflects whether we are reactive or proactive.  For example, during a discussion, a team member commented: “Our team is distributed, therefore we have communication problems. That is just the way it is.” Instead, they could have said: “Our team is distributed and we are having communication problems, let’s try an experiment and maybe even turn our cameras on.” Rather than reframing the issue, it was stated as an immutable fact that they could not act on; they let the environment act upon them. Their language made the challenge become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We will always have constraints, but how we react to the constraints determines whether we are reactive or proactive. When we are proactive, we are empowered to work on changing our constraints instead of letting them work on us. Giving our genetics, parents, or environment the power to control us is not being proactive.  Being proactive empowers us and our teams, allowing us to ask, “What can we do to impact …”

Support the Software Process and Measurement Cast by buying a copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. and reading along!

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Links:

JRoss Publishing: https://bit.ly/474ul6G

Amazon: https://amzn.to/4236013