Discussion On The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Book
layout: post title: “Discussion on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book” date: 2016-11-08 categories: Events, Talks, Visitors author: kavous —
At 5th November of 2016 (Sat), CHEC members attended in an event to discuss a book entitled “the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written by Stephen Covey. Covey’s best-known book has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide since its first publication in 1989. The book covers seven chapters (Habits): (1) Be Proactive (2) Begin with the end in the Mind (3) Put First Things First (4) Think Win Win (5) Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood (6) Synergize (7) Sharpen the Saw.
The discussion was held in SEA-HOUSE [1] restaurant. The building of the restaurant is a complex architectural structure over the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. Members enjoyed discussion while seeing ocean, beach, green, sunset, and eagles who were flying over the building.
Discussion was started by Dr. Sayan who introduced members about how being proactive can be the most important and first step of a successful people. Dr. Sayan introduced that how reactive and proactive people are different in response to their society, friends, jobs and environment. Later Prof. Ren narrated a story about a black guy in U.S. which his kid was so noisy and other people at first blamed him for that, but when they were informed that his wife just died, they suddenly changed their attitude to him and kid. This story showed us that how a paradigm shift in thinking model can change the perspective of a human point of view. In addition, Prof. Ren said that Jim Collins (the author of book “Good to Great”) said that this book is a user-friendly framework, like the GUI for personal effectiveness, and Covey made it easy to use.
The second habit was “Begin with the end in the Mind”, which all members agreed about the significance of personal leadership and having a goal in our life. Writing a personal mission statement was recommended by the author. The third habit was introduced by Chen WANG (visiting master student). Put First Things at the First. Chen described us about making delegation in our life between different tasks according to their importance and if they need immediate action. The author of the book proposed a very useful square model and advised readers to put important-non-urgent tasks in priority rather than non-important tasks. The book also teaches the reader to give some work to their co-workers, students or colleges which can reduce their workload, and also lead other people to learn more when they are doing.
Lirist and Lancy (bachelor visiting students) introduced about habit 4 (Win Win thinking). They talked about 6 major deposits including (1) understanding the individual (2) Attending to the little things (3) Keeping Commitment (4) Clarifying expectations (5) Showing personal integrity (6) Apologizing sincerely.
While discussing on habit 4, Prof. Ren asked different members to say their expectations about the lab and also each other. Dr. Sayan talked about the focus on specific projects on CHEC. Prof. Ren and Sayan also agreed that new multi-disciplinary research perspective on the human brain and HCI is promising. Kavous (SSP Ph.D. student) talked about his expectation from short-term Chinese students to fully use the time when they are living in KUT. Diana (new visiting master students) showed her interest to keep on her education as a Ph.D. student. She likes to learn how to do a time management to do efficient research in the lab. Mooncake (visiting master student) told that she has expectation from herself rather than other people! She had only 115 days in KUT, and she wants to learn more about research, time management and being better. She also hoped to have a better relationship with Japanese students. Tao (new visiting master student) also talked about his interest in research and improving English. Chen only said PEACE! Lirist told us that she want to experience. She thought that mistakes are part of the life. Do not think much just do it! Lancy also wished better communication with everyone and improvement in English abilities. Finally, Prof Ren said: “When you die, if the world becomes even a little better than when you were born, you would be one of the people who have contributed to making the world better.”
Kavous gave a short talk about the definition of habit 6 (synergy) and some examples on that. He emphasized on appreciating differences between people and using strengths of different people to make a synergy between them. Finally, he discussed on the technological point of view on synergy. He discussed the relation between synergy and HEC and the difference with HCI. Mooncake later explained habit 7 (Sharpen the Saw). Members discussed the content of this chapter and then understood the importance of the link between physical, mental, spiritual, and social aspects of the human. Prof. Ren explained why we need to do exercise, read the book, do meditation, and have a good communication with other people?
After such a fruitful discussion, members expressed their feeling about the event.
Chen: “It was very useful. I learned a lot. I will read the whole book.”
Kavous: “Thanks for Mahmoud for organizing this event. Thanks for Prof. Ren. I will read other chapters of this book, and I will buy and read this book in future again and again.”
Prof. Ren: “I appreciated all people who attend such events. I enjoyed the beautiful landscape and nice discussion.”
Tao: “I wondered how in 4 hours can finish a book. It was an amazing to experience for me.”
Lancy: “Eagle always fly when I was explaining my chapter! Nice day!”
Sayan: “Very good event! This kind of discussion can improve English speaking for undergraduate students, can improve our thinking model. We should always remember book reading as the most useful habit.”
Mooncake: “I was really happy during this event. I did not have time to fully read the book. I thoroughly read it and got the essence. But now I want to read the whole book to fully understand it.”
Lirist: “Thanks, Jimmy! (She meant Prof. Ren) I was so excited and I learned a lot.”
Diana: “Thanks, Today will be a nice memory on my mind. I will try to always improve to be a better member of the society. I will try to be better compared with myself. I think this is enough!”
END.
Written by Kavous
[1] https://goo.gl/maps/B9Ly9QnwJu42