~by Haley Lynn Gray~
One of my favourite books is Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I keep going back to it, because the habits work as well in a business as they do in a life — and running a small business means those two things are rarely separate anyway.
Here’s what each one actually means when you’re the owner.
1. Be proactive
Act rather than react. Decide what happens next instead of responding to whatever arrives.
In practice this is the difference between an owner who sets the week and one whose week is set by whoever emails first. Almost nothing in a small business will organise itself in your favour if you wait.
2. Begin with the end in mind
This is the one I’ve fallen foul of most.
I spent too much of my life wandering, hoping something would find me, rather than deciding on a course and working towards it. The hard-won lesson: you can change course once you’ve begun, but wandering aimlessly hoping the destination reveals itself is simply a waste of time.
You can have several ends. Rank them, pursue one, and go after the next when you get there. A business without a stated destination drifts — and drifting looks a lot like being busy.
3. Put first things first
To me this means family, health and the things you believe in come first. Without those, there isn’t anything else.
You cannot lead well with your own house in disorder. It isn’t possible to focus properly on work while your health, your family or your sleep are quietly falling apart.
Which in practice means scheduling them — exercise, sleep, meals, time with the people you love — rather than hoping they fit around everything else. That’s exactly how I run my own calendar, and it’s the single habit that’s changed most for me.
4. Think win-win
The first three habits look inward. From here they turn outward, and they’re considerably harder, because other people are involved.
Win-win means looking for an outcome where both sides come out ahead. That takes a genuine shift: your winning does not require the other person to lose.
Most negotiations have far more room in them than people assume — terms, timing, scope, trades. Once you stop treating price as the only variable, arrangements appear that leave everyone better off.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Listen before you make your case. Not listening while preparing your rebuttal — actually understanding what the other person needs.
In business this is most of what good selling is, and most of what good management is. Asking rather than assuming solves problems that no amount of explaining ever will.
6. Synergise
Work with people in a way that produces something none of you would have produced alone.
It’s the habit that sounds most like a buzzword and is most obvious in practice: the right two people in a room reach a better answer than either brings in. That’s the entire argument for talking things through with other owners rather than solving everything by yourself.
7. Sharpen the saw
Rest, recharge and maintain yourself, so you can perform at all.
I find this the hardest of the lot. With four demanding children, a husband who’d like some attention, a father who didn’t understand why I couldn’t just drop in, and a business, the time to take care of myself is the time that vanishes first.
But it isn’t optional. Your judgement is the product, and a blunt saw cuts badly no matter how hard you push it.
Why they hold up
The habits have lasted because they’re sequenced. The first three make you dependable on your own terms. The next three make you effective with other people. The last one keeps the first six possible.
Skip the last and the rest quietly stop working, which is the trap most business owners fall into — proactive, purposeful, prioritised, collaborative, and completely exhausted.
If you get the chance to take a 7 Habits course, I’d recommend it. The book alone is a good start.
