Habits
How is the foundation?
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change was first published in 1990.  I first read it around 1991 and recently reread it as part of a series of corporate training sessions I'm currently enrolled in.  I had some pretty strong impressions about the book when I first read it and this recent reread gave me the opportunity to refresh my mind as to the books specifics (I remember the main points in general), look at the work with a few years more experience and maturity behind me, thus providing me an opportunity to rethink my impressions and opinions.On the whole, my assessment of the book hasn't changed much.  I was disappointed with the book back then and remain so today.This disappointment has little to do with the validity of the premise of the book or the relevance of the "7 Habits" it outlines.  Covey has some good points to make and the book has some useful insights into what one could reasonably call a "balanced life".My problem is that all too often-well, really, almost continually-the book imposes major impediments to getting at, fully understanding and implementing its major premises.The problems include (1) unbelievable verbosity (Covey seems to think there's no reason to use one word when 7 will do), (2) linguistic pomposity (purportedly this is a book for "your family and business lives" but I ask you, how often do terms like paradigm,  intra-this or intra-that, globally, leveraged, matrix and so on, and on, and on get used in your family?), (3) excessive jargonistic gymnastics (see {2} previously) and (4) the hard sell for Covey Enterprise accouterments (order our "helpful" calendar, notebook, pamphlets, and so on, and so on and so on....).In the end, all of the major points could have been made much more clearly and concisely in half the space with much better overall understanding and usability than is available here.The bottom line is this is a book written to be used as a "warm and fuzzy" business-training tool.  There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's aimed at the right audience.  Unfortunately this is a book aimed at-and written for-executives and all too often imposed on the rank and file. In the end, I doubt either group ever gets what is should out of the excellent ideas and premises that underline the whole effort.In the final analysis, both ten years ago and just recently, I couldn't help but wonder if the book really was written so much as to help the reader or simply a clever device to enrich the author.  I'd like to think it's not the latter-there's too much substance here and, in an obscure way, Covey comes across as a good sort-but the simple fact you think about those sort of things virtually automatically renders the book a failure of a sort, which is as sad as it is unfortunate. 