Begin With The End In Mind
By Guest Blogger, Corey Jahnke
I opened up my Facebook page today and learned of the loss of one of America’s great thinkers Dr. Steven Covey. Dr. Covey changed my life in 1992 when I read his iconic book “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People”. I picked up the book as a result of my incredible fear response to a new job I was undertaking. I would be managing 4 times as many people as I had ever managed before. Quite frankly, I was scared to death! But, circumstances being what they were, I had no choice but to swim or I would sink.
I thought: “What a great title!”. So, I began to read and I literally couldn’t stop! It is truly one of those books that takes you hostage and holds you captive until the very last page. It is also one of those books that frames it’s case so well that you would have to be absolutely brain dead to not jump all over the implementation of the 7 habits!
The short version is Dr. Covey made me look like an incredible genius and all I did to create outstanding relationships will my new staff was to do exactly what he said to do.
If you haven’t yet read “The 7 Habits…” you should! All of the habits are pure genius, but let me tell you about MY two favorite habits:
1) Seek First To Understand THEN To Be Understood-People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care! It is so critical to understand that leaders have no VOLUNTARY followers until they touch people on a heart to heart level. Make your most important life goal to be to listen more than you talk! This one goal (if accomplished) will open the door to the achievement of any other goal that you can possibly dream up!
2) Begin With The End In Mind-Dr. Covey asked us to envision our own funeral and determine what it is that we want people to be thinking, saying, and sharing about us and the people that we were! Imagine the perfect eulogy and work backwards from there to create an amazing legacy. If the eulogy that you want and the eulogy that you are currently on course for are not the same, you have the opportunity to change that! WILL YOU??
Reading the 7th Habit made me a better manager and a better person. When “The 8th Habit~From Effectiveness To Greatness” came out, I was first in line to experience it! If I’m not great yet, I’m working on it! Are you?
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Bio:
Corey Jahnke is the author of “We Are Not Here On Rehearsal” and the creator of SuccessEqualsValue.com. Corey is a John C. Maxwell certified success coach AND a Bob Burg certified Go-Giver Coach. Corey’s company, Legend Crafters, helps people go from stuck to unstuck, from unstuck to remarkable and from remarkable to legendary. Will YOU become a legend?
Links:
www.coreyjahnke.com
www.SuccessEqualsValue.com
www.facebook.com/cwjahnke
30 Minute “Exploration” Session.
Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People profoundly affected me. After taking command of the USS Santa Fe I thought I might apply some of his lessons to running the nuclear powered submarine even though it was essentially a personal self-help book.
One of the lessons we applied was the concept of Begin With the End in Mind (Habit 2).
We would have weekly strategy sessions with each of the senior officers and Chief of the Boat. We rotated, one a day, 6 a week with Sunday off. During these sessions we practiced the discipline of only talking about long term issues and issues that involved people. Maintenance and operational planning discussions were forbidden. When we started most of the officers only had a vague notion about what they wanted to accomplish personally and with their departments during their tour on board so we developed this exercise: write the end of tour award (for 2-3 years hence) that you want to receive. Be specific about the accomplishments.
During the first go-around many of the hypothetical award write ups included laudable but imprecise phrases about improving morale, performance, promotion, or the health of their men. With discussion and work, we were able to take these imprecise goals and work them into measurable objectives. “Help my people get promoted” for example, would become “Promote 10 first class petty officers to Chief Petty Officer.” Once we had precise descriptions we could measure our progress toward the goal.
I particularly remember Dave Adams’ write up which he did in the spring of 1999. When he transferred from Santa Fe in the fall of 2001 the award my boss, the Commodore of Submarine Squadron Seven approved for him read almost word-for-word like his write up. Dave went on to command the NATO Provincial Reconstruction Team in Khost Province, Afghanistan and is currently in command of his own submarine.
I thank Stephen for giving us this mechanism for achieving operational excellence and have him write the foreword to my book, Turn the Ship Around!
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