Time management may be important to large corporations, butjust imagine how efficient you'd have to be to mark all thebirthdays, football games, recitals and graduation ceremonies ofnine children and 27 grandchildren. Especially if you were abest-selling author and leadership consultant who travelscontinually.
That's why Stephen R. Covey, author of "The 7 Habits of HighlyEffective People" and sometime adviser to President Clinton, plansyears in advance for when he needs to be where for each member ofhis large and expanding family.
"I organize two years away all the family events before I doanything else . . . and then I organize other stuff around that,"said Covey over a lunch of risotto at the Tivoli Restaurant inArlington recently. "I'm pressing the school constantly" to provideschedules of scholastic and sports events, he adds. "My planning ismuch farther ahead than their planning."Covey has made his reputation as an author and consultant oneffective management for businesses. He has advised and conductedseminars for hundreds of corporate giants such as AT&T, Coca-Colaand General Motors. Now he is focusing his attention on an even moreestablished, some would say troubled, institution: the family.The result is "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families."The "habits" themselves are the same as those in Covey's 1989best-seller: Be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put firstthings first; think win/win; seek first to understand, then to beunderstood; synergize; sharpen the saw (refresh yourself physicallyand mentally).While the earlier book contained plenty of references topersonal as well as professional goals, Covey's new book takes amore proselytizing tone about family. The first focused on beingeffective in all different arenas of life and on deciding what ismost important to you, but this time Covey tells you what's mostimportant to you. In essence he's saying, "It's your family,Stupid."Take the chapter on Habit 3, "Put First Things First." In thefirst "Habits" book, he exhorts executives to spend less time on the"urgent but unimportant" and instead set aside time to work onlong-range goals. The appendix includes a case study of planning aworkday around the truly important.In "Effective Families," Habit 3's subtitle is "Making Familya Priority in a Turbulent World.""Most people feel that family is a top priority," Coveywrites. "They would put family ahead of their own life. . . . Butwhen you ask them to really look at their lifestyle and where theygive their time and their primary attention and focus, you almostalways find that family gets subordinated to other values -- work,friends, private hobbies."The key is to rank family first. "The place to start is notwith the assumption that work is nonnegotiable; It's with theassumption that family is nonnegotiable."Covey heads into sensitive territory when he discussesparents, work and the inevitable issue of day care."When we choose to put a child in day care, for example, wewant to believe it's good, and so we do," he writes. "The reality isthat most day care is inadequate. . . . Even excellent child carecan never do what a good parent can do."He points to dire consequences for kids turned over tomediocre care givers. "These kids are going to suffer," he says."The parents will eventually realize that, and it usually won'thappen until they're teenagers and they join another family calledthe gang."He also says parents often lie to themselves about why theywork as they do, claiming they need the money that comes from dualearners when they don't, or blaming inflexible company policies fornot cutting back when they don't really want to be home more."It's easy to get addicted to the stimulation of the workenvironment and a certain standard of living, and to make all otherlifestyle decisions based on the assumption that both parents haveto work full-time. As a result, parents are held hostage to theselies, violating their conscience but feeling that they really haveno choice."Covey, whose wife, Sandra, quit her outside job when theystarted their family, says he is not condemning all two-careercouples or telling them one must stop working to stay home with thekids. "I'm not saying they should necessarily quit. They may say,`One of us needs more flexibility.' "Families can no longer rely on society as an ally in helpingthem raise their children, he adds. Neighborhoods are no longercohesive, and the effects of television and the Internet can bedestructive, he says.So what are the answers? Covey recommends that each familystart by developing a mission statement based on personalprinciples, a device that serves as the family's compass. Thisshould not be rushed, he says, and parents should involve thechildren rather than simply announcing a mission statement.Nearly 20 years ago, Covey and his family took eight monthsto create their statement, and it hangs on their family room wall.Theirs reads: "The mission of our family is to create a nurturingplace of faith, order, truth, love, happiness, and relaxation, andto provide opportunity for each individual to become responsiblyindependent, and effectively interdependent, in order to serveworthy purposes in society."Much of what Covey espouses involves time. One-on-one timewith a spouse, individual time with each child and family time. It'slike "quality time," but it ends up being quantities of time aswell. People who say they don't have enough time for this areprobably spending it on the wrong things, he adds."I'm convinced the big issue is not time, it's commitment," hesays. "You sacrifice something good for something better."With all the commitments in his life, Covey has cut out mostsocializing. "I don't do things with friends like I used to, becausemy children are my friends. I don't have any hobbies besides myfamily."Covey tells couples the best thing they can do for their childrenis to strengthen their own relationship. That is where thechildren's sense of security comes from, he says. He touts "love" asan active verb rather than a feeling.Single parents, he says, need to cultivate relationshipsbetween their children and other adults -- aunts, uncles, friends --who can influence them when they are not ready to be influenced bytheir parent.The time spent with each child is an example of what Coveycalls Emotional Bank Account deposits. They enable a parent to bemore effective in teaching and disciplining, which require emotionalbank account withdrawals, he says. While most parents would feelthat most of their lives are spent making "deposits" into theirchildren's emotional bank accounts, Covey says the child may not seeit this way. Parents need to understand what is important to thechild. "About four-fifths of the interactions should be positive,then {the children} can handle the other one-fifth," he says.The book contains anecdotes about many mistakes he made as aparent, including losing his temper. This fits in with one of thebook's main goals, he says, which is to give people "a feeling ofhope": Even if parents have been off-track, they can do something tofix it.
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