A tribute to Stephen Covey

As many of you know Stephen Covey died recently. I first discovered Stephen in 1990 when I bought his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This book has gone on to sell over 25m copies and at one time I made my own little contribution to that number by giving copies to friends.

In 1993, I attended one of his Principle Centered Leadership courses at the Covey Leadership Centre in Utah. Interestingly, a good friend of mine at the time managed to get us a free invite. We only had to pay for our airfares.

It's no exaggeration to say that the book, the leadership course and Stephen's work changed my life. It wasn't just what Stephen had to say but he introduced me to many other "mentors" such as Scott Peck, Henry David Thoreau and Viktor Frankl.

I use a number of quotations from Stephen in my presentations and workshops, My favourite of his seven habits and the one I most teach is Habit 5.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.

Credit: Stephen Covey

It was this habit and his concept of empathic listening that had a major influence on the development of my Knowledge Cafes and this article that I wrote back in 2002 on Learn to listen and to tell the truth.

Rest in peace Stephen - you have left one hell of a legacy.