Primary Greatness - Stephen R.Covey

In this Posthumous work, Covey lays out the 12 leavers of success; the intrinsic rewards of primary greatness far outweigh the superficial rewards of secondry greatness – money, popularity and the self-absorbed, pleasure-ridden life that some people consider success.

How to achieve primary greatness:

The secret life is where your heart is, where your real motives are – the ultimate desires of your life. Untill you choose your own motives you really can’t choose to live your own life. Everything flows out of motives and motivation – they are the root of our deepest desires. A key to having a healthy secret life is self-affirmation; the following three practice are very helpful in the process of self-affirmation:

Use relaxation techniques to plant affirmations
Use repetition to ensure success
Use imagination and visualization to see the change.
We live too much out of our memories, too little out of our imagination – too much on what is or has been not enough on what can be. That’s like trying to drive forward by looking in the rearview mirror.

Character, what you are, is ultimately more important than competence, what you can do. Humility is the mother of all virtues. The humble progress because they willingly submit to and try to live in harmony with natural laws and universal principles. Courage is the father of all virtues. We need great courage to lead our lives by correct principles and to have integrity in the moment of choice.

Principles and natural laws are absolute, inarguable and always relevant. True North is a symbol for bedrock principles that don’t change overtime. The Three word test of truth suggest there is a true north, when it is all relative, viz:

Universal – eg. Professed mission and shared values of gang members who pillage and plunder might sound very much like many corporate mission statements, the problem is that their value system is not based on the natural laws of honesty and respect for others.
Timeless – Distortion can totally throw off your sense of direction and your moral bearings. And when that happens, you are uprooted. You become a double-minded person, unstable in all your ways, and your experience a deep inner sense of loss. Conscience is the repository of timeless truths and principles, the internal monitor of natural law.
Self-evident – You can’t argue against them. Eg. There is no trust without trustworthiness.
As human beings, we have four unique endowments which we need to nurture – self-awareness by keeping a personal journal, conscience by learning, listening and responding, independent will by making and keeping promises, and creative imagination through visualization – that not only separate us from the animal world, but also help us to distinguish between reality and illusion, to transform the clock into a compass and to align our lives with the extrinsic realities that govern quality life.

Roots yield fruits. Only by centering on timeless principles, and then living by them, can we enjoy sustained moral, physical, social and financial wellness.

Three causes of distortion that shifts you from the right direction are:

Building (Culture) – Due to magnetic pull, both physical and our behavior go off course
Projector (Subculture) – Any powerful or persuasive subgroup can create its own slanted definition of due north.
Magnet (Powerful emotions, strong personality or compelling philosophy) – Extremely powerful personality with strong ego.
Many crashes, both personal and organizational are caused by such ethical vertigo.

Without alignment behind the same vision, and without being tied into the same value system based on principles, everything else gets messed up. If you show respect for each other and seek synergy, you will work through those differences, and begin to regard them as strengths.

Some people see mud, and others star from behind a bar because of:

Emotional Imprisonment - Acknowledge own failings and seek forgiveness.
The sickness of finding fault – Take responsibility and get out of the victim mentality. Work on personal faults.
Scarcity Scripting – Have Abundance Mentality.
Role Imbalance – Involve, share vision, develop complementary team, preserve time, make what is important to other person as important to you, as the other person is to you.
12 levers of success – Highest – Leverage principles successful people live by:

Primary greatness is the natural consequence of pushing on these leavers.

Integrity The state of being whole and undivided inside-out. For people who have lost integrity, seems is all they know. They live and work in a world of seeming to be something they are not. They worry more about how others see them than about who they are. They are actors who wear a false face to cover up covert operations or maintain an image. The fruits of integrity are wisdom, abundance mentality, synergy, relationships of trust with all stakeholders. When leaders justify the means by the ends, people pick up the signals. They note who is hired, promoted and rewarded – and why. They see who gets away with murder and who condones inappropriate behavior.
Contribution The principal of leaving a meaningful legacy, of making a positive difference. Rather than place blame, reconsider own purpose and redesign to accommodate new reality. Have sense of what true north is; be willing to bear risk, in the way one speaks, listen and act; Make and keep a commitment to lifelong learning. To achieve line of sight between what the world needs and what you offer, you need to answer three questions: What does the world need? What am I good at? How can I best do what I like to do and met real needs where I now work? If you’re ever going to hear your opus played, you’ll have to undergo personal reengineering and win both the private and public victories, ultimately gaining a shares sense of mission. Search your own heart.
Priority Enables us to make that contribution without losing our way in the thick of thin things. Key is to schedule our priorities. Our unique contribution is often never made because the important first things in our lives are choked out by other urgent things. So some important works are never started or finished. Safeguard your creative freedom, rather than spending time on problem solving. As you look back on your life, you may realize that the things that mattered most were at the mercy of things that mattered least, that the good was the enemy of the best, that you were terrorized by the tyranny of urgency and that you enjoyed very little creative freedom. And the net result, you frittered away much of your time, traded your life mission for minutiae, seldom exercised your unique talents and gifts, and finished precious little of the creative work you dreamed of doing. People both want and need to buy into transcendent purposes that give their lives and work more meaning.
Sacrifice is needed. We are better together, no one person can do it all, and for it to be successful, there should be no hidden agenda. We should be more open and honest in communication. Power must come from four character-based sources – the wise exercise of self-awareness, imagination, independent will and conscience; spending more time doing things that are important but not urgent; continuous learning, improving and progressing; having a network of win-win relationships and partnerships.
Service Get beyond the ego. The deepest hunger of the human soul is to be recognized, valued, appreciated and understood. The older I get, the more clearly, I see the connection between the way employees are treated and how they treat customers. It’s like a chain reaction. Learn not to be offended, to refuse to self-alienate. Cultivate security from within, based on integrity to fundamental principles, so that we can love when we’re not loved, be kind when people aren’t kind to us, and be patient when others are impatient.
Responsibility Be responsible even when things aren’t going well. People tend to become like you treat them or believe them to be. Get security from your integrity, that will help you be vulnerable. Don’t reject other people and new opportunities because you’ve been rejected. You will build a shell around yourself. Pay the uttermost farthing (tiny English coin equaling 1/4th of a penny), mean’s pay the price that’s required. It means a humble and complete acknowledgment of your responsibility for the problem, even though others might be partly responsible. Your behavior must then comport with that expression. It also means getting to know the other person better. Clear the legal hurdle. When applying this principle to any seriously broken or strained relationship, admit that we are at least partly to be blamed for the problem, don’t be or let people be deeply hurt or embarrassed as it draws back. Improving our behavior alone won’t release us from this prison, as they can’t afford to trust as again, we need to admit our mistake, apologies and ask forgiveness; not as a manipulative technique to bring others around, but with utter sincerity. Inspire, not force others to make some hard admissions and resolves.
Loyalty Natural consequence of serving others. Defend the integrity of a person who is absent or decline to participate. Provide constructive feedback. Involve people in the discussion about them. Anticipate discussion and get clearance. Call the person after the discussion and report what was said. Give people a chance to explain or defend their position, bring up the bring side, the positive side of the person.
Reciprocity What you give, comes back to you. Be honest with yourself, look to yourself, create intimacy, share knowledge and information, include all stakeholder relationships, care about those on the front lines, choose mercy over measure for measure. The law of reciprocity is just as constant as the law of gravity. Violation of moral principles or natural law will have consequences. There is no win in life, if other’s don’t win. WIFM (What’s in it for me?) is the motto of people who believe in secondary greatness.
Diversity If two people have the same opinion, one of them is unnecessary. Have people who will tell you what you need to know and not what you want to hear. Cloning gives leaders a false sense of security. When you have people thinking like you, doing like you, speaking like you, referring to you, quoting you, then you feel you’re being validated as a leader. You feel that you have value because another people value being like you, analyse is it what you need to know? Security breeds synergy. We need to base our identity, security and confidence on something other than our performance, position, or public opinion. If we share a common vision and mission, we can build our identity on the transcendent purpose that unites us, as well as on correct principles. From habits of doing things that failures don’t like to do.
Learning or you become stagnant and Irrelevant. Have daily study sessions and relevant on-the-job training. We all have a moral obligation to learn and progress. And lifelong learning is not so much about big campaigns, programs, academic degrees and credentials. Development options are research skills of analysis and synthesis, personal reading program, review of classic literature, personal universities like TED talks.
Renewal of self through rejuvenating practices. Irresponsible criticism and backbiting weaken character in the person and in the culture. Act on four assumptions which will help renew ourselves in all four dimensions on personal and professional level viz physical, mental, social and spiritual. Assumptions are : Imagine you already had one heart attack or one business failure; your knowledge and skills will be obsolete within three years; everything you say about other people will be heard by them, both at home and at work; you will soon have a 1-1 accounting with people you love and who love you and with your boss and team members. You will start putting first things first.
Teaching Become not just an exemplar, teach to learn – Primary greatness. Everyone has to be upgraded in knowledge and skills. We all have to go back to school. The new emphasis on training and education, on upgrading the mindset and skillset of everyone, comes in response to the demands of the global economy. Capture learning by taking notes under five heading – purpose, main points, validation, application and value. Teaching to learn unleashes new level of performance, the advantages are you simply learn better when you teach, you feel good about, you increase the likelihood of living by it, you promote bonding in the relationship, it lubricates the change and growth process for yourself.
These are fundamental, inescapable and there is something of a hierarchy about them.

Six causes in the distortion in judgment or lapses in wisdom and corrective measures are:

The pride of self-referencing. Correction: The humility of submitting to true-north principles.
The folly of relying only on information. Correction: Converting information to wisdeom and directed action.
The confusion caused by a renaissance of immorality. Correction: The clarity resulting from a renaissance of morality.
The discrepancy between the value people place on their performance and the value management places on it. Correction: The objectivity of market value.
The ignorance and apathy that comes as a consequence of closed systems. Correction: Make systems as open as possible within the limits of trust.
The myopia of using local criteria to assess quality and competitiveness. Correction: Use global competitive criteria.
Four tenets of wisdom worthy of consideration is wisdom, is knowing that sustained positive change begins on the inside. It requires both character and competence, it is manifest when character and competence overlap, it lies beyond knowledge and information.

The end of life filled with primary greatness is Wisdom. A perspective that embraces principles, continuous growth, and an integrated wholeness. It brings peace to the inner person and prosperity to the world. Brings security because the principles upon which we live our lives are solid, enduring and will never change.



Many of us are hurting. We have chronic problems, dissatisfactions, and disappointments. We feel overwhelmed by burdens we carry. The idea of living a “great life” can seem like a distant dream.

Stephen R. Covey—the late, legendary author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People—believed there were only two ways to experience life: primary greatness or secondary greatness. Through his books and speaking, he taught that the intrinsic rewards of primary greatness—integrity, responsibility, and contribution—far outweighed the extrinsic rewards of secondary greatness: money, popularity, and the self-absorbed, pleasure-ridden life that some people consider “success.”

These can be leveraged in daily life and will help to lead both professional success and personal happiness. Featuring his trademarked wisdom that has inspired countless readers and leaders, Primary Greatness once again delivers classic Covey advice in a concise and reader-friendly way. 7 Habits was not very easy to read and comprehend, but this isn