Talk:The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People/Archives/2015

Article title

The official title of this book is "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Why is the article name "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"? Hypercorrection by an overzealous editor? Clayhalliwell (talk) 20:51, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Proactive

I had thought that Covey's definition of "proactive" was the ability to choose your reaction to any situation or thought, as opposed to just reacting to it? I don't recall Covey ever saying that proactive means, specifically, to take responsibility for your own actions, in those very words. Not that it wouldn't mean that, anyway, but it just sort of comes off as, forgive me, right wing rhetoric while Covey has always been careful about keeping his religion and politics away from his self help career. Pro active essentially means to choose your reaction, that's all. It doesn't necessarily mean to take responsibility for your own action. After all, it's already bad enough that corporations have hijacked the word to make it mean "aggressive" and/or "productive", which the word does NOT mean.

From p.71 of the 2004 U.S. edition: "[Proactivity] means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen. Look at the word responsibility - "response-ability" - the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling."--208.120.164.97 (talk) 16:12, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a criticism section in this article. I was just wondering what has been the effect of a person who has written a book on "highly effective people." Does writing a book that sells millions of copies justifies the adjective "highly effective"? There are literally thousands of book titles which are sold in million copies and I don't believe their authors have achieved anything worthwhile, let alone effective.

I added some additional information regarding the corporate following of this book. I am personally reading it as a requirement for a job interview, and posting is for a class assignment.4/19/15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Llevins (talk • contribs) 19:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)