The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes

time and patience, and it doesn’t preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their

competency can rise to the level of that trust.

I am convinced that if stewardship delegation is done correctly, both parties will benefit and

ultimately much more work will get done in much less time. I believe that a family that is well

organized, whose time has been spent effectively delegating on a one-on-one basis, can organize

the work so that everyone can do everything in about an hour a day. But that takes the internal

capacity to want to manage, not just to produce. The focus is on effectiveness, not efficiency.

Certainly you can pick up that room better than a child, but the key is that you want to

empower the child to do it. It takes time. You have to get involved in the training and

development. It takes time, but how valuable that time is downstream! It saves you so much in

the long run.

This approach involves an entirely new paradigm of delegation. In effect, it changes the

nature of the relationship. The steward becomes his own boss, governed by a conscience that

contains the commitment to agreed upon desired results. But it also releases his creative energies

toward doing whatever is necessary in harmony with correct principles to achieve those desired

results.

The principles involved in stewardship delegation are correct and applicable to any kind of

person or situation. With immature people, you specify fewer desired results and more

guidelines, identify more resources, conduct more frequent accountability interviews, and apply

more immediate consequences. With more mature people, you have more challenging desired

results, fewer guidelines, less frequent accountability, and less measurable but more discernable

criteria.

Effective delegation is perhaps the best indicator of effective management simply because it is

so basic to both personal and organizational growth.

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.4

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 fifteen-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.5