Book Review: The 8th Habit by Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey stands as one of the industry leaders in personal and professional development training. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was published in 1990 and has since sold more than 10 million copies. The 8th Habit (From Effectiveness to Greatness) is the follow up, published in 2006, meant to acknowledge and explore how the 7 Habits have been affected by the advent of the Internet.

The 8th Habit is "find your voice and inspire others to find theirs", a mantra repeated in many current business books (Marcus Buckingham's Now Discover Your Strengths and Tim Sanders' Love is the Killer App). Covey believes management is still operating under old Industrial Age thinking instead of moving into the Knowledge age. Employees are treated more as objects than people and for organizations to excel, they have to move towards seeing their employees holistically.

Covey believes that most extraordinarily accomplished people have four traits: vision, discipline, passion and moral conscience and that the best way to find your own "voice" is to help someone else find theirs. Most of the book is spent in discussing how you can help others find their own voices and how you can keep people engaged at work.

Amazon readers give the book 3.5 stars out of 5 with most negative reviews pointing towards the writing and not the message. The book can be a bit "business-y", loaded with jargon and at times hard to understand. However, the message is still relevant.

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