Canter Bridge

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Stephen Covey’s organizational juggernaut wants to align me with the way things are in the world so that I’ll cooperate rather than contradict the `principles’ that govern it. Ever since I bought the audio and print versions of this best-selling life management book and took a colleague’s recommendation to purchase his Outlook add-in program, my inbox is full of eager invitations to attend Franklin Covey seminars.

The numbers tell us that Covey is scratching where many of us itch. He has primed an organization not to let opportunity pass. He must have read his own books.

Since countless reviewers have surveyed Covey’s method, let me take a look at his fundamental assumptions.

First, Covey wants to help his reader to shape his character in the hope that both better personality and real-world achievement will follow. He stands firmly in the line of the Greek teachers of virtue like Aristotle, though Covey himself is more inclined to cite the Judeo-Christian tradition. As Covey himself stresses in 7 Habits, this approach runs counter to the grain of personality-based self help.

Second, Covey is a theist. He believes there is a God and that he made the world in a way that reveals to the discerning observer patterns that he or she does well to follow towards success. His Mormon faith stands behind this, though he claims with an ecumenical flourish that is either generous or naive that these principles are embraced by all major religions.

Third, Covey affirms the power of a good pair of bootstraps. He trusts that a persistent application of the human will is sufficient to achieve the internal and external victories that are the objectives of his now famous habits.

In the light of this substructure, those readers who find Covey most helpful are likely to be individuals without the kinds of character issues that paralyze or relentlessly derail. It is not a book for the down and out unless such a reader has a spiritual and social support structure that will facilitate the more radical grace of personal conversion and so place Covey’s habits in the context of a deeply transformational process.

Full disclosure: this reviewer is a Christian reader who has found Covey’s book helpful particularly for its skill at moving me towards a `second quadrant’ work- and life-style (if you don’t know what the quadrants are, you’ll need to read the book!). As such, I find his view of human beings Pelagian, which is not a point of view that Christian theology has applauded.

However, I still use and recommend Covey for its method, since I look to the man for counsel of particular life disciplines rather than for theological instruction. His theistic viewpoint is more amenable to a Christian view of humanity and its stewardship of this world than much literature of the genre, so I do not hesitate to affirm and learn from what I can in this worthwhile and-let me say it once more-generous book.