What the 7 Habits Can Teach us About Inclusion

In high school, my Dad gave me a copy of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens,” penned by Sean R. Covey. Little did he know I would find my place in corporate America among FranklinCovey’s ranks, the company founded by the author of the original 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey. 

FranklinCovey has operations across more than 150 countries, a US-based sales and delivery force that is growing in diversity on a daily basis thanks to a concerted effort by executives at the firm, and a weekly thought leadership podcast that features a diverse array of guests in profile and expertise. 

This part of our brand is changing, evolving as we delve into inclusion more deeply and with a unique and authentic perspective. As a woman of color, I can honestly say I have been empowered to thrive and contribute at FranklinCovey in a way I had not experienced before, in a way that has transformed not only my career, but also my life. I want to be clear and honest, my six years at FranklinCovey has not been without challenge. The acute awareness around my identity as the only woman of color on my team and in many a meeting. The sometimes well-intended comments from colleagues and clients that left me perplexed as to what the commentator thought of me. The reality that I consistently surprised my colleagues with expertise and success that they perhaps, did not see coming in my particular package – be it my age, background, straightforwardness, gender, parental status, race, ethnicity or any number of other things about me that might leave an impression. 

And yet, as I look back over my time at FranklinCovey, the reality that has stood out is how valued and respected I have felt. In the D&I world, you will often hear the analogy – diversity is having a seat at the table (it is about representation), inclusion is about having a voice at the table and engagement is about being drawn in to the conversation, not just heard but also requested. I have felt truly engaged in my time at FranklinCovey and I think that is due to our foundation, our core of principle-centered leadership grounded in the 7 Habits.

For those of you unfamiliar with the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, they are a framework for individual effectiveness and leadership – the most read and most highly translated business book of the past three decades. They are also, through the lens of inclusion, a framework for inclusive leadership because effective leadership is inclusive leadership. Each of the mindsets of the 7 Habits can teach us quite a bit about inclusive leadership.

• Habit 1: Be Proactive

A core model of this Habit is pausing between stimulus and response. Bias is a natural part of the human condition and impacts our behavior. Building self-awareness and introspection so that you can find the space between what you feel about a person or circumstance and how you respond to it is critical to inclusive leadership. It allows us to think critically as we make decisions versus just reacting. 

Another model in this habit is the circle of influence and circle of concern. Effective leaders focus and act on what they can control and influence, instead of what they cannot. Inclusive leaders do the same; they find opportunities to bring people into dialogue. They step in as mentors, coaches and sponsors and proactively build initiatives that create the space for inclusion and engagement.

• Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

To Begin With the End in Mind means to start every endeavor with clearly defined outcomes. It also means to determine our own life’s purpose. It ensures that as we are climbing the ladder of success, it is leaning against the right wall. Inclusive leaders embrace inclusion as an important part of their own life’s purpose. They consider being an inclusive leader a critical piece of their contribution and make key decisions based on the outcome of being an inclusive leader.

• Habit 3: Put First Things First

This habit is at the heart of self-management. It is the ability to prioritize and achieve your most important goals, instead of constantly reacting to urgencies. When we do not prioritize inclusion, we end up reacting to the urgencies – negative incidents, colleagues and stakeholders who feel unheard, unseen and ultimately, diminished performance.

• Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Win-Win is a frame of mind and heart that seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. It encourages us to have an abundance mentality, balance courage and consideration and consider other people’s wins as well as your own. Our primitive brain is focused on survival and our most primal need is the need to belong, to be part of a tribe. As a result, it is constantly sorting, putting people in categories – yes/no, good/bad, of my tribe/of another tribe. If we can hijack the sort, we can open ourselves up to the possibilities of mutual benefit through a balance of empathy and courage. If we can broaden our definition of similarity through empathy and seek out connection points that are less than obvious, we functionally add more people to our tribe. Our tribe becomes more complex and nuanced. This takes courage; it is counter-instinctual to broaden the tribe, to be open to the unknown or that which does not immediately trigger likeness.  

• Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to Be Understood

Habit 5 teaches us to Influence others by developing a deep understanding of their needs and perspectives. This is really about the skill of listening empathically instead of listening to respond. Because our experiences shape our lens of the world, we often engage with others through our own lens. They share their experience and our brain works to make it our own experience. This becomes counterproductive, an exercise in pushing our own experience on someone else and the other person retreating further and further from the conversation because they feel unheard, unseen. Inclusive leaders take the time to cultivate meaningful connection with those they engage with – up, down and across the organization. They put their own story aside and work hard to understand the story of others in order to make progress and increase performance.

• Habit 6: Synergize

Synergy is the ability to develop innovative solutions that leverage diversity and satisfy all key stakeholders. Strong leaders often direct their teams how to solve problems. When people ask, why are we doing it this way, they are told, because we have always done it this way or because my experience has taught me this is the best way. While those approaches might be well intended, they do not support innovation and they certainly do not engage teams and pull in their perspectives. Inclusive leaders surround themselves with perspectives other than their own. Instead of teams built in their likeness, inclusive leaders build teams that complement their strengths and weaknesses and then truly engage these teams in decision-making, problem solving and strategy. When this is done, the possibilities of performance are limitless.

• Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

In FranklinCovey’s newest offering, Unconscious Bias: Understanding Bias to Unleash Potential, we talk about three bias traps. These are circumstance we find ourselves in that make us more susceptible to bias. They are information overload, feelings over facts and the need for speed. In any given moment, our brains are taking in 11 million bits of information and can only actively process 40 of them. This processing ability is further diminished if we are exhausted mentally, physically or emotional. Consistently sharpening the saw is a strategy for increase motivation, energy, and work/life balance by making time for renewing activities. Our brains are our biggest asset and the thing that many of us do not nourish continually. Inclusive leaders understand the reality that we are all whole people engaging with other whole people. They take time for themselves to learn, rest and optimize and give their teams that same time and opportunity to ensure that they can all make sound decisions and engage meaningfully with each other.

There is nothing more fundamental to performance than how we see and treat each other as human beings. The 7 Habits is a model for how we can build our own leadership maturity to be inclusive and engage with others as inclusive leaders. 

I invite you to consider how you might apply these principles for inclusive leadership in your daily work and life.

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I am a Global Client Partner at FranklinCovey where I help clients customize and implement learning and organizational development solutions to meet their strategic objectives. I am also FranklinCovey’s Chief Thought Leader on inclusion and bias. Throughout my career, my work has been tied to issues of diversity and inclusion, with an emphasis on exploring the impact of bias. A strong commitment to the empowerment of historically marginalized groups of people has always been a factor in her professional and personal endeavors. 

Learn more about my perspective in this

• Faces of FranklinCovey feature: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-year-faces-rylee-o-dowd/ or,
• by reading my white paper, 5 Big Ideas on Diversity and Inclusion, linked in my profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-fuller-mba-08ab379/

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I also served as an architect of FranklinCovey’s new Unconscious Bias solution. You can learn more about that here: https://resources.franklincovey.com/unconscious-bias/unconsciousbiasoverview

FranklinCovey offers ongoing webcast overviews of all of our learning solutions. You can register for informational webinars here: https://www.franklincovey.com/Events/webcast-series.html