Stephen Covey, the Seven Habits, and Language

Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits has been somewhat pigeon-holed by the larger society as "gimmicky" and "cheesy." I would suggest that this is more because of the packaging and language of the books and not entirely because of the ideas that Stephen Covey presents in his Seven Habits.

Covey and the Seven Habits phenomenon is perceived by many as part of what is seen as the generally suspect genre of self-help, as well as that of "management guru literature." To some degree I imagine this is as much to do with the received wisdom coming out of the US publishing field, that such books must have certain formats and style. As a result, I think that probably a lot of people are turned off before they give a chance to Covey's project of an orientation to life based around Seven Habits.

"The Seven Habits" itself as a term comes off, I would say, as "self-help-ish" and this, I think, does a disservice to the ideas that Stephen Covey is promoting. Thus, I would recommend trying to swallow hard and ignore the "cheesiness" of some of the material in Stephen Covey's books, and try and approach the Seven Habits series with as objective and balanced a head as possible. Covey has definitely presented something worth thinking about, whether or not Covey's ideas should be formatted as "Seven Habits."

KEYWORDS: STEPHEN COVEY, SEVEN HABITS, Stephen Covey, Seven Habits