Seven habits of highly effective people - Stephen R. Covey [79]
The Quadrant II Paradigm
The key to effective management of self, or of others through delegation, is not in any technique or
tool or extrinsic factor. It is intrinsic --in the Quadrant II paradigm that empowers you to see through the lens of importance rather than urgency.
I have included in the Appendix an exercise called "A Quadrant II Day at the Office" which will enable you to see in a business setting how powerfully this paradigm can impact your effectiveness. As you work to develop a Quadrant II paradigm, you will increase your ability to organize and execute every week of your life around your deepest priorities, to walk your talk. You will not be dependent on any other person or thing for the effective management of your life. Interestingly, every one of the Seven Habits is in Quadrant II. Every one deals with fundamentally important things that, if done on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in our lives.
Application Suggestions:
1. Identify a Quadrant II activity you know has been neglected in your life --one that, if done well, would have a significant impact in your life, either personally or professionally. Write it down and commit to implement it.
2. Draw a Time Management Matrix and try to estimate what percentage of your time you spend in each quadrant. Then log your time for three days in 15-minute intervals. How accurate was your estimate? Are you satisfied with the way you spend your time? What do you need to change. 3. Make a list of responsibilities you could delegate and the people you could delegate to or train to be responsible in these areas. Determine what is needed to start the process of delegation or training.
4. Organize your next week. Start by writing down your roles and goals for the week, then transfer the goals to a specific action plan. At the end of the week, evaluate how well your plan translated your deep values and purposes into your daily life and the degree of integrity you were able to maintain to those values and purposes.
5. Commit yourself to start organizing on a weekly basis and set up a regular time to do it. 6. Either convert your current planning tool into a fourth generation tool or secure such a tool. 7. Go through "A Quadrant II Day at the Office" (Appendix B) for a more in-depth understanding of the impact of a Quadrant II paradigm.
Part Three
Public Victory
Paradigms of Interdependence
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity
--Samuel Johnso
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Before moving into the area of Public Victory, we should remember that effective interdependence can only be built on a foundation of true independence. Private Victory precedes Public Victory. Algebra comes before calculus.
As we look back and survey the terrain to determine where we've been and where we are in relationship to where we're going, we clearly see that we could not have gotten where we are without coming the way we came. There aren't any other roads; there aren't any shortcuts. There's no way to parachute into this terrain. The landscape ahead is covered with the fragments of broken relationships of people who have tried. They've tried to jump into effective relationships without the maturity, the strength of character, to maintain them.
But you just can't do it; you simply have to travel the road. You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself.
A few years ago when I was giving a seminar on the Oregon coast, a man came up to me and said,
"You know, Stephen, I really don't enjoy coming to these seminars." He had my attention.
"Look at everyone else here," he continued. "Look at this beautiful coastline and the sea out there and all that's happening. All I can do is sit