The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness by Stephen R. Covey, PhD

Welcome everybody to Productivity Book Group. I'm your host and facilitator, Ray Sidney-Smith. Thanks for joining us here for Productivity Book Group's group discussion of the book, The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness by Dr. Stephen R. Covey, the late Dr. Covey. So today I'm going to do a little bit about the author, a little bit about the book, and then we're going to kick into our discussion. So as I noted in our last discussion, Stephen R. Covey was an American educator, author, business leader. He was the co-founder of Franklin Covey Company, and he was a keynote speaker. He's the author of more than a dozen works. His most popular book, which we read in our last episode, so if anybody wants, they can jump back to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, among many others. Time magazine named him one of the top Most 25 Influential Americans in '96. He was the John M. Huntsman Presidential Chair in Leadership and Professor at the John M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death in April of 2012. He had complications from a bicycling accident. Covey was survived at that time by his wife, 9 children, and 55 grandchildren. And so today, of course, we are reading The Eighth Habit, and The Eighth Habit from Dr. Covey, basically, as it notes in the Amazon description, is a profound, compelling, and groundbreaking book of next-level thinking that gives us a clear way to finally tap the limitless value creation promise of the knowledge worker age. And so in essence, you know, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 25, now 30 years after its publication, you know, it's this international phenomenon. And Dr. Covey basically realized that there was this next step, that there was a whole new habit. And it notes here that accessing the highest, higher levels of human genius and motivation in today's new reality requires a change in thinking, a new mindset, a new skill set, a new, new tool set. And he says the crucial challenge of our world today is this: to find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. And that's what he calls The Eighth Habit.

And so what I wanted to do in starting off the conversation was for us to just get kind of initial thoughts about how the book resonated with you upon reading it for the first time or this time around for me, because this is many times over that I've read the book. And so I'm just curious what your initial, you know, experiences were in reading this version this time of The Eighth Habit. Who wants to get us started? I will note just as a complete aside that Dr. Frank Buck is with us and he just did publish his new book, Get Organized Digitally, and so congratulations to Dr. Buck for the publication of that book. And so if anybody is listening after the fact, feel free to grab a copy. But Dr. Buck, you want to give us first impressions of The 8th Habit?

Sure, and first of all, thanks for the shout-out. It was certainly a labor of love. It's something I definitely enjoy doing, but Get Organized Digitally. But to get back to this book, this was the first time I had read it. I had read the 7 Habits a number of times, but this was my first with the 8th Habit. And I guess to me it was sort of the icing on the cake that, you know, we have our act together, we're sharpening the saw, and then it's, you know, why are we on the planet? You know, what's our purpose here, and how can we help other people also find that? So it, to me, it just seemed like the next step, but a very complicated step.

Anyone else have initial opinions of the book? Go for it, Matthew.

Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, I first read the— I've read The 7th Habit, not exaggerating, a dozen times. And, um, this book, I read it once 10 years ago, um, so I definitely don't remember that much. Um, a lot of the things I liked in this book were things that I recognized from The 7 Habits book. I think I had a leadership experience at work where I was the temporary tech lead. And so, I sort of resonated with some of that about helping, being responsible for not just productivity, but helping the team and helping people mature and grow. And I was really in too much of a rush to enjoy reading the book. So that was also part of it that I didn't realize until it was too late. And so that was part of it.

Thanks. Anyone else with initial opinions? Anything that you want to share in that regard? I will note while everyone else is thinking, I will say that this read-around was interesting to me in a number of ways. One is I feel always that when I read Dr. Covey's work, it makes me think about what I'm doing better, if that makes any sense. It just is one of those things that helps to clarify or galvanize the reason for the doing of things for me. And because I've been so steeped in the Covey world for so many years, I think that is one of the reasons, right? It's kind of self-reinforcing in that way. But I also felt like this time around was kind of heartfelt for me in a lot of ways. So I felt really— I felt like it had resonated more with me this time around than maybe the dozen times I've read it before. And And that was actually really, really good for me. I felt really good about it. And considering the timeframe we're in and the kind of the turmoil we've been through in the past several years with regard to everything going on, I just felt good reading this at this time and recognizing that the hard work of doing principal-centered leadership was the right path and that it was right for me, at least at this moment in my life, and work. And that was, that was really good. I just felt good about this reading. Any other thoughts before we move in? Go for it, Danny.

Let me put my hand down. There you go. So I had heard of this book and the 7 Habits, and I read neither. I mean, I probably, it was probably recommended to me by, I don't know, 25 people at least. Just one of those business books that they're like, you have to read this. And I never read it. I was busy reading other things. So when you posted this, I said, okay, Ray, I'm up for the challenge. Let's do this. And I agree with you. I feel like I'm almost in alignment with— I just don't think I might have been ready then to hear what this book had to say. And so listening to it now, given the sort of responsibilities that I've had under my belt, over the last however many years, I was more digestible. I also picked up on the fact that I noticed he really likes the number 4. He does a lot of things in fours. So I thought, oh, the book's The Eighth Habit, which is two fours, but he's very four-ish. And so I think it was pretty digestible for me to be able to, to do that. And there were really some quips in there that I was taking notes. I mean, in stuff that I was like, yeah, we're going to use that. And I'm sure we're going to go through it a little by little, but like those 5 Cancerous Activities. So I like some of the negative and I like some of the positive, and I feel like it can be implemented right away with either yourself to like level up your own, you know, life, or if you have a team of people or even colleagues, you can— it can be integrated with them.

Yeah, thanks for sharing. That was great. Yeah, I think, I think what would be helpful is to kind of structure the book for folks. Dr. Covey thinks about the 8th habit as defining it as finding your voice and then helping others find their voice. And he talks about this concept of discovering your voice and expressing your voice. And as Danny noted, there's the 4 kind of quadrants that he frequently talks about. And those include mental or IQ, physical intelligence, PQ, emotional intelligence, IQ, and then spiritual intelligence, SQ. And they kind of match up in terms of discipline— I'm sorry, vision, discipline, passion, and conscience. And so he kind of has those 4 components that match up to the different IQ, PQ, EQ, and SQ. And then of course later he talks about the discipline of execution and the concept of execute in the leadership space. So he talks about this presentment of that piece, and we could talk a little bit about that, but he is talking about this from both personal greatness, finding your voice, then leadership greatness, and then ultimately organizational greatness, and how these kind of stack upon one another, and that what we're really trying to do is go from effectiveness to greatness, and at that point, we're leaders who are not concerned necessarily about the qualities at that point, but how others perceive us, how we're basically modeling those behaviors for others as great leaders, and then ultimately how organizations implement the necessities that will allow them to find greatness, right? So you find your voice, you help others find your voice. The vehicle for helping others find their voice is through the organization. So what did you think about the concept of finding your voice? Did you find your voice while you were reading along, what were some of the, your thoughts about both finding your voice, discovering it, and expressing it? What did you, what did you think about that whole concept? Don't be shy.

You know, Ray, I guess for me, reading the book at my age, I'm 62 as opposed to 22. So I'm looking at it more in terms of how have I found my voice and how Do the things that I read in here match up with the life experiences that I've had? And what might I have done a little differently along the way? So for me, it has been more of a looking backward and also what can I tweak with these, you know, I don't know, 20— my financial planner actually says I'm going to be 90, so I kind of like that, you know, that I'm going to be around that long. So I think for me it was a different read than had I been been 22 and reading the book.

I think it's really interesting when people have more years behind them than ahead of them, and how they perceive that than folks who have many more years ahead of them than behind them, and how the book is completely different to those sets. I'm smack dab in the middle. So I feel like I have as many years ahead as I do behind. At least I hope that's the case. I'm not miscalculating. And The interesting thing for me is that I can lead a whole new life ahead of me and it would present itself as equal in terms of what I've done already in my life. And I'm pretty proud of what I've already done, but I'm always interested in, okay, I still have more time to maybe figure it all out, so to speak. There's more time to really navigate in that sense. And not that at any age you can't do that,. But I'm always curious about that sentiment. And so that's a really, really interesting insight, you know, in terms of thinking through how the book resonates with you at different, different kind of stages in that sense. Usha is noting in the chat that she loves the context of, for voice, and she ties— it ties well together with all the different elements we focused on, or we need— needed to focus on in one nice package. So complimentary note from Usha there. And so Where do we want to go in terms of— do we want to start with Personal Effectiveness to Greatness and concepts of voice? We can talk about pathfinding. What are some of the big elements of the book that you felt really stood out for you? We can talk more about the various IQ, PQ, EQ, SQ material that he talked about. I like the fact that he wove through the entire book this ongoing 7 Habits narrative. He tied to much of the 8th Habit all of the pieces and really explained how each of the 7 Habits ties back to your development of the 8th Habit. And that was really, really helpful. Connie, did you have something you wanted to say?

Yeah, throughout the whole reading of it, it was like this, the 8th Habit just sprinkled seasoning all over the other 7 Habits and just enhanced it. Like made it come up a level or 2 or 3. But yeah, exactly, exactly what you said.

It's like the, it's like the umami flavor of the 7 Habits. Love it.

Love it.

So I'm curious, in this first section of the book, right, where we're talking about finding your voice, what for you is the process by which you would do that? Like what, you know, like following, you know, Dr. Covey's guidance here, what would you do or how would you do this differently now in terms of finding your voice? Like what is your, what's your intention based on reading this for finding your voice? Go for it, Dani.

So what really stood out for me that I wrote down that I'm, I definitely feel like this is going to carry forward and I'm noticing this more and more at this middle stage, like you're talking about, Ray, half behind, half ahead, is— and this isn't, I think, just in context to his book either, but the signals and cues from your body. Like, as soon as he said that, I was like, now more than ever, I find we really need to just listen to ourselves. And I feel like our bodies keep the score, and they tell us a lot of things. And so that really stood out for me because I was like, the more I listen to myself versus like what someone else is supposed to tell me is good for me. And that goes in business and organization too. Like my body is physically reacting to a situation that's happening within a business conversation. I know something is not right. And so I'm learning to listen to its cues more. The other thing that really stuck out to me was when he said, your awareness of the space between the stimulus and the response, again, related to the body. So like if your body is sending you that cue, to me it's like how many times, like, you know, are you in a conversation where you're talking or someone else is talking and you're already thinking about what it is that you wanna say? And so it's almost like a trigger finger. So if somebody says something, especially if somebody's, if you're in a situation and somebody's not polite, or, you know, there's something that's happening or something's being directed to you. I find, you know, not, not a lot of people do this particular thing. And I think that's where the voice comes in. Sometimes pausing and staying quiet and really digesting and taking in as an observer will allow you to get into that space. So, this is something that I will definitely put in my queue for 2022.

And Dr. Gaby has a lot of mindfulness practice built into his, his work here. And of course, he's, he's lending material, he's borrowed material, so to speak, from the great world religions and all of these moral practices of yesteryear. And he's kind of modernized it in business language, but you can definitely hear it resonating. What you're talking about, the space between stimulus and response, is of course from the great Dr. Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and psychologist. And he does this great thing with regard to weaving these narratives that the more present you are, the more active listening you are, the greater you can seek out win-win and all of these components that just allow you to really understand that it's not like he's not telling you like shut up and listen, right? Yeah. He's, he's, he's explaining to you that the deeper you try to empathize with the other person, the greater your, both of your outcomes will be.. And that the more you do that with others, like the stickier that ball of twine gets, and it just keeps expanding into this virtuous space. And I don't know why, but it just always feels good listening to it. And it always feels good reading that material. And it always feels good trying to embody that set of principles. And he talks about the idea of finding your voice, which is of course finding this engaging work that binds together your talents and your passion. And I'm always curious how people find those things. Like if you're out there trying to find your voice and you're doing more listening, right, as Dani talks about, how do you get to that place where you find like the Venn diagram of your talents and passion, what you want to do there in the world? Does anybody have any suggestions or thoughts for others? Go for Dani.

Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, so no, I was just gonna add, so in your response, it also made me think, since you're talking about conscious creation, right? I feel like there's a statement that I heard, which is when you're praying, you're speaking, and when you're meditating, you're listening, because you're able to take in, right? And so you hear versus like prayer, you're talking outwardly. So I feel like when you're in that space of being able to listen and being that active listener, I also think that that allows flow instead of kinking the hose. And so if we talk about like the law of attraction or being, you know, bringing things into your life or that flow that goes in and out, if you're constantly in the talking, in the doing, right, and you're not being, then you're kinking the hose essentially in order to allow those thoughts, like how do you get, you just said, how do you get those, you know, where the rubber meets the road or how do you get the million-dollar idea? You're usually getting it because you're quiet. It's not because you're talking.

That's like why you get great ideas in the shower because, you know, it's like all the other chatter is all of a sudden paused around you, right? You're allowing that flow to happen. And I will take a moment to nod to Dr. Csikszentmihalyi who passed away this year, the psychologist behind the flow research. So nod to him, and I'll have a drink for him later this evening. Usha's noting here in the chat, "While being grounded in values, consciously creating value and empowering others through listening and courage on a foundation of humility, competence, and character." Dr.

Buck? Yeah, Ray, you actually took the words right out of my mouth as I was listening to Danny. Yeah, you know, ideas in the shower. And for me, walking on the treadmill. You know, of course, I'm watching TV, I'm watching what I had recorded so that it makes it a little less boring to walk on the treadmill. But I keep a notepad and pen on the treadmill because there's nobody to talk to. You know, it's me and the TV and whatever thoughts come to mind. And I find that the more I'm writing on that notepad, the the quicker that 30 minutes on the treadmill goes by. It's like, wow, time's up already. So, was it Lyndon Johnson? And of course, I'm maybe the only one here old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson, who said, you know, you ain't learning anything when you're talking. And I think that's so true that it's in that quiet reflection that the right voices speak to us.

And this blends back to what Dani was talking about, which is that I find that, especially for me, I've recently had two of my mentors announce retirement, which has been a bit of an impact. I didn't expect it to be as emotionally, you know, jarring for me to note that, you know, at this time in my life, all of a sudden, I have these kind of bedrocks of my world, you know, now leaving their world. And, you know, I feel like Oh my gosh, I have to spread my own wings now. They're kicking me out of the nest. So it's been a little bit strange. And in that process, what I recognized and what I was lucky to have had experienced in the time when I was in more my formative years in my own career was that I was listening to them. They had the experience, they had the knowledge, they had the wherewithal.. And they were open enough to give me an opportunity. And so, listening was so important to me at that time. And I'm glad I did it. I don't know if I had any special skills other than having been reading Dr. Covey's work and doing a lot of work in the Harvard Negotiation Project. I was training as a mediator. And so, I just was open to the idea of listening. And so, I was there at the right time, at the right moment, and I had these mentors who told me what they knew, and that was really, really helpful. And so I think that part of figuring out your voice or finding your voice has a lot to do with, what are they called, informational interviews nowadays. That's kind of the corporate speak for it, but going out there and talking to people who have divergent views and give you the opportunity to be able to tell you their piece without you feeling like they're having to sell you anything or you're selling them anything. You're just experiencing their perspective. And it's through that amalgam then that maybe through some spark of enlightenment, you get to understand maybe where your voice is, what that unmet need is in the world that you can then fulfill. And I always love hearing his story about the Grameen Bank and why it was launched and it really just makes so much sense. And I have a colleague and friend who did a lot of work in microfinance in that same timeframe subsequent to the Green Mean Bank launching. And it's always fascinating to hear how just what seems to be like a stupidly simple concept of serving an unmet need of giving these micropreneurs just a little bit of seed capital goes so far in improving people's lives. And that's just like, you know, having your ears open, being available to the world to put your skills to use there. So we go from finding our voice. Hopefully you figure that out. And I will note, we talked about this before we started the recording, but there is a personal workbook for The Eighth Habit. And right now, if you go to Amazon, it unfortunately is the wrong cover on Amazon. So when you go to The Eighth Habit to The Eighth Habit. Yeah, the personal workbook looks like it is The Eighth Habit and— or The Eighth Habit looks like it's the personal workbook, but it's actually The Eighth Habit. But either way, the personal workbook is a very detailed guide for enacting what Dr. Covey's really proposing here, right? Which is finding your voice, then finding focus, and then executing on that. And so I would recommend to anybody to grab a copy of the workbook if they are really thinking about deeply diving into The Eighth Habit. But let's talk about inspiring others to find their voices, which takes us up that level from personal greatness, now going out there and moving the peg forward to leadership greatness. And so what did you think about the concept of inspiring others to find their voices? What did you think there? And I'll note here, Derek is noting that he has to keep He's kept a waterproof writing tablet in the shower for unexpected ideas and thoughts. Yes, there are actually those waterproof tablets that are like pencils and paper that's waterproof. A colleague of mine got me a packet of those notepads, but I never quite got myself to putting it up in the shower because I always had the voice assistant to like say, you know, hey, Big G, you know, the messages that I want to. So I should I should find that because it is useful in some probably way. Probably by the sink, because I do a lot of things at the sink and then in the kitchen, it'd be helpful to kind of have it there because water gets all over the phone when I put the phone down next to the sink. Anyway. All right. Inspiring others to find their voice. What do you think about helping and helping inspire others? What was the methods or what were the kind of key components there that maybe stood out for you? In that process of helping others. And I'll just briefly note that for me, you know, it, again, just because of recent experience, it has reminded me that now I'm in that position where, you know, in probably 20, 25 years from now, uh, you know, when all is said and done, I don't want to look back and think that I didn't help the next generation of people come up, not have had someone like I did in, you know, just being able to help them in that sense. And so, you know, I've really been looking for those right people who are entering the industry and are in that economic development space and really want to impact small businesses' lives in a way that's really fruitful and useful, at least in my perspective. And so, you know, I'm looking for those key players to go out there and say, okay, if you're really committed to this, then I'm willing to help you in the way that I was helped and really finding those people. So that's definitely something that is now on top of mind right now, especially as we've started this new decade and all this change is happening really at once. Plus we're doing this virtually now, right? And so much of our work is being done in a virtual space. You don't get a lot of time to see people in action. You're just seeing the outcomes of their work and talking to them occasionally. And so that's a little bit more difficult for me to kind of, to identify that someone is really committed to something in that way. So I really am trying to do the extra work to make sure I'm identifying those key players. What are your thoughts on inspiring others to find their voice?

Right.

One thing I think so often it happens accidentally, you know, and you don't know sometimes until a decade later that you've inspired someone to find their voice by the things that they have told you, the stories that they have told you from, you know, this thing that you said to me 15 years ago, or as I watched you do XYZ and realize, you know, I could do that too, so forth and so on. And so, you know, who knows what each of us is doing doing today to help somebody find their voice, and we're not doing it intentionally, and we won't know the outcome now. And for that matter, we may never know the outcome.

Absolutely.

Shawnee, did you, did you want to say something? Okay. Yeah, no, I think that's really fascinating that many times the things that are indelible for people are not things that are on the surface known to you when you do it. And it also reminds me to always be kind because it's— or, you know, like tough love is tough love, right? Sometimes people need to be given a little tough love, but you need to mean it always in the best way. I've had people come back 10, 20 years later and say, "Oh, you said that thing to me once, and it was really harsh at the time, but it was what I needed at that moment." And not everybody's going to appreciate that. Not everybody's going to be able to use that. But I always realize that if my heart is in the right place when I'm saying it, I'm not saying it from a perspective of malice. I don't believe that I have that in my heart necessarily. I want people to be better and I say things so that people can be. And you just have to hope that people take it in the right way. Because sometimes it can be a little bit a little bit rough around the edges when it comes out, and that's just real life. But Lee is noting that he agrees with what Frank said, and he's had people say that interactions, say that from interactions that he barely remembers.

Matthew? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I was really regarding helping other people find their voice. I really like that anecdote in the book about the submarine captain who instead of ordering his people under him around, He would have the people under him say, "I intend to do this. I intend to do that." So, you know, really being intentional about maintaining authority, but also to the maximum degree possible, allowing other people to feel responsible for outcomes and responsible for their own growth and development.

And again, back to that word responsible, being response-able, able to respond. I just, you know, it's funny how he has this kind of wordsmithing that he is so good at doing. He looks at the roots of words like inspire, you know, to breathe life into in the Latin sense, response-able, being responsible means to be able to respond to something. And he uses those words very clearly and strategically throughout the book to impress upon you the importance of that. But yeah, the submarine captain, you know, story was really a good one. Not that there aren't really great ones all throughout the book, but that was definitely one that was really good.

Any other thoughts, Pietro? Hi everyone. Hey there. If you're wondering why I had two sets of headphones on, it's because fire alarm testing is going on in our apartment building today. All fun, all fun. And so I'm pretty sure that the testing has stopped. I think that If you're able to find your voice, you would probably want to be altruistic and tell other people how they might be able to find theirs by describing to them and explaining to them how you found your own voice. I think that one good way of finding your voice, not the only way, is to look at your volunteer experiences, to look at your interests, your hobbies, how you spend your time recreationally. Long story short, I've been a lifelong devotee of weight training, and I had volunteer experiences where I was asked to edit or proofread documents. I never had any aspirations to become a proofreader or copy editor, but my Long story short, my first paid position as an editor and proofreader was for a bodybuilding magazine. And given that many of us are going to undergo perhaps several careers in our lifetime, the last little while I've been thinking about whether I need to change careers again. And I'm in my mid-50s and it's a bit daunting. Finding a new voice? Yes, so I think that, you know, we inspire others to find their own voice because we got great gratif— we got great satisfaction and derived a lot of gratification from doing some brainstorming, from trying to find, okay, what's the intersection of my interests, my skills, my expertise, and, you know, all of a sudden you come up with a few ideas and you start exploring them. I don't think you get your own voice by some sort of like flash, you know, some sort of insight, although that certainly does, you know, happen to people. But yeah, I try every day to think, well, who can I help today? Especially if I'm having a day where I'm not even getting through my own to-do list. I just find that that helps me.

Absolutely, yeah. I like the idea of finding your voice as being like a sculptor where you're basically chiseling away at the boring bits until the shape of the sculpture comes into fruition and that ends up being your voice,, right? And if you do enough in different areas of your world that you find interest in, little bits of them kind of start to peek out of the chiseling away until it comes into full view. And you really don't know it's the full view until after the fact, and I feel like that's okay.

Matthew? Yeah, I just wanted to add also about kind of my personal experiences. I feel like I've had isolated experiences where I've found my voice and helped others, but I definitely feel like that's been the exception. So for me, for example, I've done both paid and volunteer math tutoring and computer science tutoring, and it's something that I really enjoy. And so I've had a couple of experiences of where I did math tutoring, and because it's— because I really enjoy it, you know, and also— so I've had what initially was a teaching relationship it kind of seamlessly turned into a mentoring relationship. And now there's somebody who, when she was in high school, I was her math tutor, and now it's been 10 years. So now she's working in the software industry, and her mother reached out to me, oh, thank you, Matthew. And I don't know how much credit I should claim. But, um, you know, it is really, um, you know, it's very nice to see how other people, you know, when, when I do love something, and then it radiates outward, how other people, you know, after you plant the seed and you let it grow for a while, how after some time it affects others in that way.

That's great. I love seeing those things come to fruition. So let's talk a little bit about organizational leadership and how the book kind of rounds out there in terms of basically empowering and aligning the organization's voice. And a lot of that has to do with execution, and he talks about the 4 disciplines of execution, which is its own separate book if anybody has any interest, but it's The Four Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals. And it's written by Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey, who wrote some additional pieces in The Seven Habits in the 30th anniversary edition we read in the last discussion. And so we learn that the Four Disciplines of Execution are kind of outlined here. In The Eighth Habit, and he talks about it from these 4 components. Again, going back to Danny's point about the 4s, right? And so the 4 disciplines of execution are focus on the wildly important, what they call wildly important goals or WIGs, a little different than the big hairy audacious goals of the Jim— somebody remind me of his name. Whatever. And so— Collins? Jim Collins, yes, thank you, from Good to Great. And so they have the WIGs, which is under Discipline 1. Discipline 2 is act on the lead measures, right? So we have lead and lag indicators. They want, they want you to focus on, or Dr. Covey wants you to focus on those lead indicators, those lead measures. Discipline 3 is create a compelling scoreboard, which you can see was like pulled into the 12-week year and that kind of material. And then Discipline 4, which was create a cadence of accountability. And you all know my feelings about accountability, so I will not belabor the subject there. But you can see how these 4 disciplines of execution really make their way into the organizational structure and how they can not only help empower people, but also help them focus on the right direction to move in. And I, I, always enjoy this part of the book because the concept of empowerment is kind of, you know, became kind of a fad in the late '90s, early 2000s, and Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute by Dr. Ken Blanchard, a really great book, brief, you know, allegory-focused book, but it's missing that component of that you need to direct people someplace, right? So you can empower them, but empowering them without direction is kind of a fool's errand. And he does this great job of matching those two together by explaining that all. And I was just curious if anybody had any insights, thoughts about if you work in an organizational, whether you have those struggles or not, there's no organization that doesn't have these struggles on minor or major levels. How do you navigate the concept of the organization's voice no matter where you are in the organization and kind of like breaking the bubble here, you do have power no matter where you are in the organization, right? So it just requires you to assert that power and influence at whatever level you can. But I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts about how you go about working to help the organization not just find its voice, but elevate its voice in ways that are positive and productive. Does anybody have any thoughts there?

Go for it, Matthew. Well, I think one of the things both in this book and also in Seven Habits, he talks a lot about people, about the difference between having an official position of authority versus— I forget what language he uses, but like, for example, Gandhi never held an elected official position, and yet because of his exercise of the 7 or 8 habits, Gandhi basically had influence over hundreds of millions of people. So one of the things that I'm starting to be more aware of is I've had some experiences where people feel disempowered by organizations and they feel like it's the responsibility of people, quote unquote, in power to change things, you know, whereas I think one of the things that I think Kavi is encouraging us to do is that regardless of where we are in the organizational hierarchy, to see ourselves as responsible for not just doing the work in our job description, but setting a good example and ultimately interacting, I don't know how to phrase it the right way, but like interacting with your supervisor in a way that expands your leadership without being inappropriate.

I don't know how to say it. Yeah, managing up, as they call it. Managing up is kind of the term of art that I've heard, or maybe I made it up and I don't know. But that's the term I've come to use in a lot of ways. And it's true. I mean, you have to spend time thinking through, and I really always try to say this to my own staff, which is, I'm, yeah, okay, I'm the one with CEO in the title, but you should be really managing me, not vice versa. And so, if you're doing that and making sure that you're helping facilitate my excellence, then I'm going to do the same for you. That's a virtuous cycle, right? Because no matter what the hierarchy is, if we know that you've got my back and I've got yours, then we're equals in that sense. And I think a lot of folks forget that when they think about an organizational hierarchy. It's like, "Oh no, that's his job," or "That's her job," or "That's their job." And forgetting that, no, no, it's the organization's job. We have a mission.. And if we, if we lose sight of that mission, then we're all failing. You know, my failure is as important as anyone else's failure in that regard.

Dani? That was awesome, Ray. So that actually leads into what I was going to say, because one of the, you know, there were several things that stuck out for me in this section. One of them was about, you know, when they were talking about places that are either vastly overmanaged or under-led. And then, you know, having that relationship with your boss, because if you are in an organization where your boss, let's say, is controlling or likes to minimize or, you know, like really likes to get involved when they don't— they shouldn't have to, but that's just the way that they are. They manage, right? And so I feel like if you can strike that, that balance and you can show them that you have their back, right? And, and I like that video, you know, how which they were saying, like, you know, that the one guy had showed the boss that he, you know, you know what I'm trying to say. So it was a university professor, university, like, dean or provost or something like that, that one. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So they, so they show that, like, they have it. So you want to show your boss, like, it doesn't matter that I'm below you or whatnot, like, you're really there to support them. And to go up and say, how can I support you? How do I build the trust with, with you? You know, little by little by little, but it happens. And then they get more and they get more and they get more, right? And so I feel like that's part of it is you're not just building trust down and letting the team have, have that responsibility and holding them accountable, but also going up and then, and then having that managing up effectively. And I think also, it's easy to get into those those cancerous activities, like we were saying. And then, you know, they talked about that and then they went even further into like, like with the scoreboard and like how to hold that effective meeting, right? Because, you know, if you're in, let's say you're in a daily standup, right? So I started doing these daily standups with my team every day. And sometimes I just canceled them. I said, A, if we're not going to do what we need to do in the time that's allotted in the 30 minutes, because sometimes they were going an hour, hour and a half. Because people were in the space of complaining or comparing, or they were competing, like, instead of, you know, keeping a scoreboard or saying, where are we at with this? When the meetings were held in that way, they went so much smoother and so much faster, you know, if it really was an act of triage versus, well, you know, we can't do anything about that, and the decision maker's not here, and like, you know what I mean? Like, it really You can really— it can get off track. But I think that that's— it really pointed it out for me that it was like, I have to be extremely diligent when I see it going in that direction to say, listen, I hear you. Let's bring it back to this and go, you know, and make it so that it's effective for everybody that's here. Because this year specifically, my team in general just because of the nature of our business going from live to online, got completely defecated. There's, there's literally 3 of us and there used to be like 9. So one by one they've all been picked off at some point. Um, and so it's very important that we are as streamlined as possible. So I, I agree with you and I love the scoreboard idea. I just want to say that, and the, and the accountability, because I think I think that that's really what I take away from this whole organizational piece of it is the scoreboard. And I never thought of it like a thermometer. We've done those, but I didn't, I'm thinking scoreboard is an actual scoreboard. And I'm like, oh yeah, the thermometer, we did that years ago. Like, so I was all kinds of ahas were going off in my mind.

Fantastic.

Fantastic.

Carl, you had a comment? Yeah. With what Dani just said, that brought up another one of Stephen Covey's books there, Principal-Centered Leadership, and chapter 23 is about completed staff work. I had a boss that Xeroxed that and handed it to everybody, but he expected everybody to do completed staff work in complete isolation. But you need to— I mean, and he was a— well, he was a colonel in the Army, graduated from West Point, and that you don't make general, there's kind of speaks volumes and stuff if the few people who do get into that. But I think that gets to the point of really being the team and stuff. I mean, you have the group of colonels that sit around and how can we make the general successful kind of.

Absolutely.

So that came to mind. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Usha noted that managing up is very real and effective and can be done genuinely. I agree. I agree. We are coming up on the end of our discussion today, and I just wanted to ask, what was your greatest takeaway? If anybody wants to share their greatest takeaway from The Eighth Habit, your reading or your listening, if you listen to the audiobook. And before we, before we wrap up, and you can note in the chat if you would recommend this book or not. So I'm curious in the chat if you would recommend the book, toss that into the chat. But if anybody wants to share their biggest takeaway from reading The 8th Habit, I am very curious to hear what your biggest takeaway is. While you're all thinking, I will say that my— I hesitate to say that there's only one greatest takeaway, but I think in this particular reading, I felt that— it's funny because in the GTD DC meetup, we have talked, we've spoken frequently about the 4 disciplines of execution because one of our members is very big on that. And it never really, it really never jumped out at me until this reading of the 8th habit when I was like, oh, I don't know, this, the light bulb went off and there was like a synapse that connected all of the pieces. And I was like, I need to relook back at the 4 Disciplines of Execution and how it ties back to my other systemic components within the organization. And there was just a click there. So I think in this particular reading, that was really good. And of course, as I noted at the top, I really just— the reading it this time around at this moment in time was just really, it had great resonance for me. And Shawnee saying she would definitely recommend after reading The 7 Habits. Great. Anyone have any big takeaways? Frank, did you have— what was your biggest takeaway, Frank, from this reading of The Eighth Habit?

You said this is your first time reading through, right? Yes, it was. And had really not even read summaries or even heard anything about the book other than I knew of the title. To me, as I said a little earlier, it just seems to take the next step. It's like you've got your act together and you've got the other 7 habits down, you're sharpening the saw, but then what's my purpose here on the planet? You know, how do I fulfill that? And then How do I help other people to do the same thing?

I find that The Eighth Habit is remarkably one of those books that doesn't get as much hype because of course, you know, The Seven Habits, you know, 25 million copies sold worldwide. It's such a phenomenal book and a phenomenon in its selling capacity. But The Eighth Habit really is, I think, one of Dr. Covey's best books. And I will hands down argue that any day because I feel like it just has such great capability for people. If they really understood it, they would then be able to live the 7 habits so much better. And a little bit of contrarian though, Lee is noting that he really wanted to like the book. He likes the idea of finding and sharing your voice. The book would have made a really great article. Too long, too many lists and gimmicks for him. And he's a Covey fan. So a little bit of contrary opinion there. But I'll go back to noting my praise for the book, which is that I really, I feel like the amount of time you spend with the book, for me at least, is one of those things that helps to kind of like have it wash over you in that sense. And so it's through that washing over, and I would, I think for anyone who has difficulty, definitely listen to the audiobook, because the audiobook provides just Covey doing what Covey does best, right? Which is just talking to you and connecting with you in that way. And I really found— I go back and forth between the book and the audiobook every time I read it. And I just always find the audiobook— and that's probably the case with 7 Habits and with The 8th Habit. I really enjoy listening to it as much as reading it. And maybe just listening to it may be a little bit better for some if if you feel like the book is too long, it really does give you that. Usha's noting that her biggest takeaway was thinking about it in context of voice and echoing what Frank just said, putting it in context of the world around her and how she can empower others and help them find their voice. And so with that, I just want to thank everybody for joining us for this book discussion. I really enjoy and love all of our conversations.

And so we've reached the end of this book discussion about The Eighth Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness by Dr. Stephen R. Covey. A few comments and announcements before we end this episode for you. So here we go. First and foremost, we host quarterly live discussions of personal productivity, productivity books just like the one we discussed now. You're of course invited. Simply head over to productivitybookgroup.org and visit the upcoming books page for full details. It has all the dates for the year. Handy Google Calendar that you can subscribe to, and that will put the events automatically into your calendar if you'd like them to. There on productivitybookgroup.org, you'll also find all of our past book discussions, our review episodes, author interviews, otherwise, all under episodes. So click on episodes, you'll find it there in case you can't find it in your podcast book group inside of your podcast app. So Productivity Book Group's episodes are all in the podcast app. Maybe some of them won't appear appear in your podcast app. So just click on episodes on the website and you'll find them there. Directions on how to subscribe or follow the Productivity Book Group podcast is also on the website. And so if you use Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, whatever you use, you could take a few minutes to go over there and subscribe or follow. And if you can, feel free to leave a rating or review. That really helps us expand our readership and brings new readers and callers to Productivity Book Group. And so thank you for helping spread the word about Productivity Book Group to other productivity book lovers. Finally, we do have a digital community at productivitybookgroup.org/community. It's inside of my larger community, which is Personal Productivity Club, but there is a section in there, a channel called Productivity Book Group dedicated to just Productivity Book Group. So if you want to join us, there's a web application and then of course Android and iOS apps. That match up to it so you can, you know, discuss personal productivity books year-round, post thoughts and comments in there as you feel like it. And so we'll see you there. And with that, thanks everyone for listening to us here on Productivity Book Group. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith.

Here's to your productive life.