First Things First

by Stephen R. Covey

People scurry around being incredibly busy, wanting to create the feeling that they’re indispensable. Busyness on the job becomes their primary source of justification and security—regardless of the fact that what they’re doing is essentially in Quadrant III.

Just think of the cost in terms of time and effort wasted in organizations because people don’t have a clear sense of shared importance!

The principal reason behind these differences, in most cases, is in the degree of clarity about what is important.

The degree to which urgency drives the organization is the degree to which importance does not.

But so much time is wasted in Quadrant III because importance isn’t clear!

Most every Sunday for eight months we met for a half hour to an hour in the afternoon or evening to deal with the deeper questions. ‘‘What is it we are about? What is truly important? What kind of home do we want? What makes you proud to bring your friends here?”

We still find areas of misalignment and weakness, but we keep coming back to it. It keeps us focused on what we are potentially.

The most empowering organizational mission statements are in harmony with what we’ve come to call the universal mission—“to improve the economic well-being and quality of life of all stakeholders.”

The end result is more than just shared vision. The process changes us. It changes our relationships with others who are part of it. It transforms the quality of our lives in fundamental ways.

It’s also important to specify what will be done to enhance the ability to produce desired results in the future—to nourish PC or production capability.

And it’s vital to make sure that the desired results are results, not methods.

The important thing is to match the level of initiative with the capacity of the individual.

Accountability deals with how we can tell how we’re doing.

In the process of accountability, the individual evaluates himself or herself against the desired results specified in the agreement.

There are two kinds of consequences: natural and logical.

It’s important to identify both negative and positive consequences.

Both logical and natural consequences must be dealt with, and both have their place.

Frustration is essentially a function of expectation. Clarifying interdependent expectations up front does a great deal to contribute to quality of life.

Difference is the beginning of synergy!

You want to work on both short-term and long-term solutions.

By thinking win-win, seeking to understand, and creating synergy, your time and energy are spent generating solutions instead of creating conflict.

Remember: think win-win, seek first to understand, synergize.

The point is not that this solution is the ideal, or that third-alternative solutions are easy to come by. The point is that when the problem is before you instead of between you, you avoid generating negative cycles in a critical relationship that could take months or years to resolve, and this powerfully affects time and quality of life for everyone involved.

It can apply to most any divisive issue imaginable.

“Wait a minute. You won’t lose. You will both win. ”

Remember not to capitulate. Don’t give in. Don’t compromise.”

This spirit of true empathy is foundational to effective synergy.

We’ve seen this spirit of empathy transform situations time and time again.

And people were totally astounded at the power of this interdependency.

We’ve seen the power of this process in the most tense, difficult situations imaginable.

You don’t want to create an expectation you cannot deliver on.

Win-win is not adversarial; it’s synergistic. It’s not transactional; it’s transformational.

Anytime we think the problem is “out there” that thought is the problem.

Anytime we think the problem is “out there,” that thought is the problem. We disempower ourselves. In other words, we give away our space—the space that allows us to choose a constructive response.

We may not be the leader, but we’re a leader.

the power of working in his Circle of Influence.

At the heart of empowerment is trustworthiness—which is a function of character and competence.

Both character and competence are necessary to inspire trust. And both are completely within our Circle of Influence.

To nurture character and competence is the most high-leverage thing we can do to create empowerment.

In a high-trust culture, who supervises? The agreement.

And we can build this capacity in others not by supervising methods but by holding people accountable for results and being a source of help to them in achieving those results.

In any sphere where we interact with others, we can raise the issues and help create structures and systems that are based on true north.

how does accountability take place? Largely through self accountability against the criteria of the agreement.

Criticism or praise from others is secondary to our own connection with conscience.

But we also have the humility to seek feedback from others as a vital part of our evaluation, planning, and decision-making process.

Building character and competency is a process, and one of the highest-leverage things we can do in this process is to regularly seek 360 degree feedback.

Because of its value, some people have called feedback “the breakfast of champions.” But it isn’t the breakfast; it’s the lunch. Vision is the breakfast. Self-correction is the dinner. Without vision, we have no context for feedback. We’re just responding to what someone else values or wants. We’re living out of the social mirror. We fall into the trap of trying to become all things to all people, meeting everybody’s expectations, and we end up essentially meeting nobody’s, including our own.

But with a clear sense of vision and mission, we can use feedback to help us achieve a greater integrity.

Because people are important to us, and because part of our leadership is creating shared importance, this dimension of feedback is vitally important as well.

But we aren’t governed by feedback; we’re governed by the principles and purposes we have built into our mission statement.