GeoffJ thinks Steven Covey's secularized version of the Gospel is cool. But, we here at the Nacle find the Covey-Franklin Secret Combination irritating to no end. Not because the products or concepts are bad, but because they are intuitively obvious to anyone who is highly effective. Only people who aren't highly effective use them and still remain largely ineffective anyway, even after spending a couple of hundred dollars on books, planners and audio tapes. Lame. Futile.
Here are our Seven Habits of Highly Defective people (reinterpreted for Machiavellians):
Habit 1: Be Proactive, take what you want when you want it and do not tolerate any delays in gratifying yourself.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, know what you want and mow down any opposition mercilessly on you way to accomplishing your goals.
Habit 3: Put First Things First, you are number one and you should always put yourself first!
Habit 4: Think Win-Win, no matter what happens you have to figure out how to exploit the situation so you win, even if you lose, you have to figure out how you can personally benefit from the situation.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand and Then to be Understood, nothing facilitates manipulating hapless fools like determining what their petty desires are and then using them to accomplish your larger goals.
Habit 6: Synergize, use other people to accomplish your goals, why get your hands dirty when others are willing to dirty themselves for you?
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw, invest in your own skills at manipulating others and determining long-range goals, so you can do it more efficiently.
And, never forget, use the Commitment Pattern in all aspects of your life to get what you want.
10 comments
This reminds me of Dilbert's book, Seven Habits of Highly Defective People.
Habit 1 is why Covey remains a GA wannabe. The LDS tradition is reactive crisis management.
To be fair to the church, George Will nailed it with his comment years ago about Covey having a knack for obscuring the obvious.
Huh, not that much of a Dilbert fan. Apparently he had one comic strip that lampooned the "Seven Habits of Highly Defective People" and then an anthology entitled "Seven Years of Highly Defective People". Was plagiarising and didn't even know it.
yes, well, that's pretty much me in a nutshell.
Steve em, are you Steve Evans? I have to take issue on that.
Covey and oh, that Franklin Planner guy. They bother me. They could be creating whole new generations of neurotic mormon women.
Here's one to ponder--
How many permutations of the same book can Covey publish and still make a profit on them?
AnneGB, Steve Evans and Steve EM are two entirely different people.
Thanks Snarkey. I’m not even a shyster, nor a shyster wannabe, although I work with a lot of them. And I’m a native New Yorker transplanted to the warm sunny South. Oh, and I’m tall and have five (some would say six) kids.
I dunno Steve EM, I think a lot of people would consider you a genuine sheist.
Snark, your number 6 could read:
(Annegb, Steve Evans and Steve EM) are two entirely different people.
Which makes you wonder which of the two are actually one. Probably Steve Evans and Annegb, what with him having experience impersonating women on the 'nacle. But Annegb comes across as so real...unlike most of the 'naclites, who are so prototypical that they border on caricature. That means the two that are actually one would have to be Steve E and Steve EM, which is also just not right and sort of frightening.
So it's a good thing you didn't use parentheses.
Ok, for the record, I may use a Nacle handle so as to keep temple privileges (and membership if a certain false prophet ever caught up with me), but I can assure everyone I’m not shyster Steve, nor am I into nacle cross dressing. And, while born in Brooklyn, I haven’t worked in the Northeast for a number of years. Lastly, if the teach of Nibley, they are not of me.
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