Written by Stephen R. Covey in his #1 best selling book, he presents a framework for individual effectiveness. However, this can also be applied to a team, as a team is made up of many individuals. So what are the 7 habits that Stephen Covey is talking about?
Habit #1: Be Proactive
Being proactive is about taking accountability for our lives. Each individual is in charge of their own lives and are given the ability to make their own choices and decisions.
There are 2 kinds of people – reactive people and proactive people. Reactive people tend to have an inactive and passive attitude while proactive people tend to understand that they have the power to choose how they will respond in a situation.
To put it simply, team members must be proactive in order to achieve effectiveness. To be proactive, team members must focus and work together to improve the things that can be changed or about which something can be done. At Jambar team building we specialize in finding the reactive and proactive people in your team and work on them to change thereby increasing the productivity.
Habit #2: Begin With The End In Mind
Beginning with the end in mind is basically starting everything the team does with a clear end goal. This way, it will ensure that the team is marching towards success.
In an organisation, team building is extremely important as the team leader has to bring in his/her whole team, to set the right strategic vision for the team and to make sure that the team works towards that vision.
Habit #3: Put First Things First
In order to be effective, the team must first be able to prioritize every action based on importance instead of urgency.
All activities can be classified into 4 parts:
- Important and urgent
- Important but not urgent
- Not important but urgent
- Not important and not urgent.
Normally, individuals would react to urgent and unimportant matters but the real focus should be laid upon what is important but not urgent, for example planning, relationship and team building, etc. Focusing on these matters indicate that the team is working on the core issue and preventing problems arising from the start.
Habit #4: Think Win-Win
Thinking win-win is basically committing to establish win-win situations that will benefit and satisfy both parties. This is because with win-lose or lose-win options, only one party appears to get what they want at that moment but will have a negative impact on the relationship between the parties in future.
To be able to think win-win, the team must always concentrate on the results instead of the methods used and on the problems instead of the people.
In an organisation, the team leader needs to ensure that the reward system is aligned with the organisation’s goals and values that employs systems supporting win-win.
Team building can help people understand the goal of organization and also how to play their part in helping the organization in achieving it.
Habit #5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
This habit primarily means that before a person can actually offer advice or solutions to others, they must first fully understand the other person and their mindset by practising empathetic listening.
In everyone’s daily interaction with others, they tend to stipulate actions to be taken before they truly identify the root of the problem. Hence, they should seek to fully and deeply understand the problem first by listening.
To practice empathetic listening, there will first need to be a paradigm shift as individuals generally seek to be understood but are frequently listened to with the intention of replying instead of understanding.
Practicing empathetic listening can improve communications between different parties and also, aid in attaining win-win solutions.
Facilitators at Jambar team building are NLP certified, They induce the importance and the advantages of having empathy over fellow employees during team building sessions.
Habit #6: Synergize (The habit of creative cooperation)
By taking into consideration the perspectives of others, the team will be able to synergize, which results in discovering new opportunities from open mindedness and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems.
The saying goes “two is better than one” and similarly synergy allows the team to come up with better plans and alternatives because of the various shared ideas.
By applying the first 5 habits, the team will be able to synergize, look, understand and solve problems together from the same side.
In short, synergizing is considering the differences such as the mental, emotional and psychological aspects between people.
Habit #7: Sharpen The Saw
Last but not least, sharpening the saw is essentially making time to restore oneself physically, mentally and spiritually. This will help the team to continuously practise all the other 6 habits together and improve the most important asset which is each individual.
This is an important habit because it empowers the team to keep growing and changing to make themselves a better and more effective team.
