The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey - Article Example

Covey (2009) explains synergize as the ability for two people to bring their resources, skills, and knowledge to work together as one people in order to achieve a common goal. Synergize as elaborated by Covey may best be explained in regular communicative terms with the maxim that two heads are better than one. Explaining further, Covey (2009) elaborates that the ability to work together in a very fruitful manner is as a result of an appreciation of the differences that exist between us, and that they need to value differences is an important tool for driving synergy.

This opinion shared by the writer is rightly supported by me because of the value that resources coming from two people have in the creation of wealth. Clearly, once we are unable to accept other people and work cordially with them, we lose out on adding the value of what they possess to what we have already. This way, we only become half useful as we would have been if we joined our forces together."Sharpen the Saw" When military people are going for war, there are several arms and ammunitions that they are presented with.

Among these, there are those that they decide to take with them and others to leave behind, depending on the task of a battle that is presented ahead of them. In this section, Covey makes meaning of this analogy by explaining that even among the weapons and arms that the military takes with them, there are those that they give much value and attention to, ensuring that these once are always in good shape to perform. The same kind of scenario applies to the skills, knowledge, talents, and gifts that we have as individuals.

The opinion of Covey that it is important to identify our best values and attributes is rightly supported. I, however, disagree with the writer that our focus of personal empowerment should be based mainly on our major strengths. In my opinion, if we are able to sharpen our weaknesses also, they can become our strengths someday."Inside-Out Again"The book concludes with the write up of ‘inside-out again’. Under this topic, there is a summary and reflection of how all 7 habits learned from the beginning of the book can be put together into making a person complete.

The writer, therefore, expects that the 7 habits will give a person an ability to work from inside out, as a way of developing total character integrity. In effect, Covey (2004) argues that for a person to make good of himself or herself, he or she must be in a position to look within him or herself to bring out the best values in him or her. Personally, I find this conclusion contradictory to most of the lessons that the writer had developed right from the beginning of the book. This is because right from the onset, the writer emphasized the need to be interdependent and value the skills and abilities of other people as a model for developing our own selves.