The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Character

Character is the foundation of Win/Win, and everything else builds on that foundation. There

are three character traits essential to the Win/Win paradigm.

INTEGRITY. We’ve already defined integrity as the value we place on ourselves. Habits 1, 2, and 3

help us develop and maintain integrity. As we clearly identify our values and proactively

organize and execute around those values on a daily basis, we develop self-awareness and

independent will by making and keeping meaningful promises and commitments.

There’s no way to go for a Win in our own lives if we don’t even know, in a deep sense, what

constitutes a Win—what is, in fact, harmonious with our innermost values. And if we can’t make

and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless.

We know it; others know it. They sense duplicity and become guarded. There’s no foundation of

trust and Win/Win becomes an ineffective superficial technique. Integrity is the cornerstone in

the foundation.

MATURITY. Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. I first learned this

definition of maturity in the fall of 1955 from a marvelous professor, Hrand Saxenian, who

instructed my Control class at the Harvard Business School. He taught the finest, simplest, most

practical, yet profound, definition of emotional maturity I’ve ever come across—“the ability to

express one’s own feelings and convictions balanced with consideration for the thoughts and

feelings of others.” As a part of his doctoral research, Hrand Saxenian had developed this

criterion over years of historical and direct field research. He later wrote up his original research

format in its completeness with supportive reasoning and application suggestions in a Harvard

Business Review article (January-February 1958). Even though it is complementary and also

developmental, Hrand’s use of the word “maturity” is different from its use in the 7 Habits

“Maturity Continuum,” which focuses on a growth and development process from dependency

through independency to interdependency.

If you examine many of the psychological tests used for hiring, promoting, and training

purposes, you will find that they are designed to evaluate this kind of maturity. Whether it’s

called the ego strength/empathy balance, the self-confidence/respect for others balance, the

concern for people/concern for tasks balance, “I’m okay, you’re okay” in transactional analysis

language, or 9.1, 1.9, 5.5, 9.9, in management grid language—the quality sought for is the

balance of what I call courage and consideration.

Respect for this quality is deeply ingrained in the theory of human interaction, management,

and leadership. It is a deep embodiment of the P/PC balance. While courage may focus on

getting the golden egg, consideration deals with the long-term welfare of the other stakeholders.

The basic task of leadership is to increase the standard of living and the quality of life for all

stakeholders. Many people think in dichotomies, in either/or terms. They think if you’re nice, you’re not

tough. But Win/Win is nice… and tough. It’s twice as tough as Win/Lose. To go for Win/Win,

you not only have to be nice, you have to be courageous. You not only have to be empathic, you

have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you have to be brave. To

do that, to achieve that balance between courage and consideration, is the essence of real

maturity and is fundamental to Win/Win.

If I’m high on courage and low on consideration, how will I think? Win/Lose. I’ll be strong

and ego bound. I’ll have the courage of my convictions, but I won’t be very considerate of yours.

To compensate for my lack of internal maturity and emotional strength, I might borrow

strength from my position and power, or from my credentials, my seniority, my affiliations.

If I’m high on consideration and low on courage, I’ll think Lose/Win. I’ll be so considerate of

your convictions and desires that I won’t have the courage to express and actualize my own.

High courage and consideration are both essential to Win/Win. It is the balance that is the

mark of real maturity. If I have it, I can listen, I can empathically understand, but I can also

courageously confront.

ABUNDANCE MENTALITY. The third character trait essential to Win/Win is the Abundance

Mentality, the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.

Most people are deeply scripted in what I call the Scarcity Mentality. They see life as having

only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big

piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else. The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum

paradigm of life.

People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit,

power or profit—even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time

being genuinely happy for the successes of other people—even, and sometimes especially,

members of their own family or close friends and associates. It’s almost as if something is being

taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or windfall gain or has

remarkable success or achievement.

Although they might verbally express happiness for others’ success, inwardly they are eating

their hearts out. Their sense of worth comes from being compared, and someone else’s success,

to some degree, means their failure. Only so many people can be “A” students; only one person

can be “number one.” To “win” simply means to “beat.”

Often, people with a Scarcity Mentality harbor secret hopes that others might suffer

misfortune—not terrible misfortune, but acceptable misfortune that would keep them “in their

place.” They’re always comparing, always competing. They give their energies to possessing

things or other people in order to increase their sense of worth.

They want other people to be the way they want them to be. They often want to clone them,

and they surround themselves with “yes” people—people who won’t challenge them, people

who are weaker than they.

It’s difficult for people with a Scarcity Mentality to be members of a complementary team.

They look on differences as signs of insubordination and disloyalty.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal

worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for

everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It

opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

The Abundance Mentality takes the personal joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment of Habits 1, 2,

and 3 and turns it outward, appreciating the uniqueness, the inner direction, the proactive nature

of others. It recognizes the unlimited possibilities for positive interactive growth and

development, creating new Third Alternatives.

Public Victory does not mean victory over other people. It means success in effective

interaction that brings mutually beneficial results to everyone involved. Public Victory means

working together, communicating together, making things happen together that even the same

people couldn’t make happen by working independently. And Public Victory is an outgrowth of

the Abundance Mentality paradigm.

A character rich in integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality has a genuineness that

goes far beyond technique, or lack of it, in human interaction.

One thing I have found particularly helpful to Win/Lose people in developing a Win/Win

character is to associate with some model or mentor who really thinks Win/Win. When people

are deeply scripted in Win/Lose or other philosophies and regularly associate with others who

are likewise scripted, they don’t have much opportunity to see and experience the Win/Win

philosophy in action. So I recommend reading literature, such as the inspiring biography of

Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity, and seeing movies like Chariots of Fire or plays like Les

Misérables that expose you to models of Win/Win.

But remember: If we search deeply enough within ourselves—beyond the scripting, beyond

the learned attitudes and behaviors—the real validation of Win/Win, as well as every other

correct principle, is in our own lives.