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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Stephen R. Covey:
The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
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- an excerpt from Mr. Covey's book
When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion -- that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet -- therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul's code...
I find that vision comes as people sense human need and respond to their conscience in trying to meet that need...
The great historian Arnold Toynbee said that you could pretty well summarize the history of society and the institutions in it in four words: Nothing fails like success. In other words, when you have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that's called success. But once you have a new challenge, the old, once-successful response no longer works. that why it's called failure.
We live in a Knowledge Worker Age but operate our organizations in a controlling Industrial Age model that absolutely suppresses the release of human potential... When all you want is a person's body and you don't really want their mind, heart or spirit ... you have reduced a person to a thing [ie something to be managed, part of the Industrial mind-set]. So many of our modern management practices come from the Industrial Age... It gave us our view of accounting, which make people an expense and machines assets... Because many in positions of authority do not see the true worth and potential of their people ... they manage people as they do things...
... the four basic needs and motivations of all people... to live (survival), to love (relationships), to learn (growth and development) and to leave a legacy (meaning and contribution)...
[these correspond to body, heart, mind, spirit]
- Consciously or subconsciously, people decide how much of themselves they will give to their work depending on how they are treated and on their opportunities to use all four parts of their nature...
It will be those organizations that reach a critical mass of people and teams expressing their full voice that will achieve next-level breakthrough in productivity, innovation and leadership in the marketplace and society...
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