No, I fucking hate Stephen Covey. I'm in meetings all week and some of them are about jerking off Stephen Covey's pseudo spiritualism turned business bullshit.
I'm getting flashbacks to seminary.

I used to work with someone who LOVED the "7 Habits" book. I tried reading it two or three times, but could not get beyond the "tone" of the book.

If I remember correctly, one of his first chapters begins with a story about occurring to him to love his son, whether or not his son was good at sports. Well, duh.

I ended up just reading the table of contents, which does have some sensible points to remember.

I far prefer David Allen's classic "Getting Things Done". Straightforward, without the pious overlay.

It's the "well, duh!" shit that I hate the most. He and his followers always say those things like they are the most profound statements you'll ever hear. So they keep just saying shit any fuckwit would already know and then expect you to act like, "oh my fucking god! You just blew my mind!!! Again!!!"

I always hated Stephen Covey--even as a TBM. He represented everything I detested about mormonism, but obviously had buried.

+1 for me!

+1!

I hated that his business advice was frequently quoted in church during sacrament talks. But what I disliked the most was a passage in 7 Habits where he talks about "choosing how you feel." He spoke in such absolutes that any reasonable person would raise an eyebrow. Why is that bad, you may ask? Well, take an emotionally immature TBM and convince them that they should not feel anger or sadness or fear...you have just set them back EVEN FURTHER into immaturity.

Feeling sad, having fears, and even anger IS healthy and people need to know how to HAVE those feelings and how to APPROPRIATELY EXPRESS those feelings. If you suppress feelings and don't address them, you will eventually explode.

How many TBMs do we know personally, or even in the lime-light, who simply ignore what they are really feeling ala Covey's advice? I know far too many.

... one of my favorite moments in church history is when the Bros in Salt Lake decided they needed to take the wind out of Stephen's "Make Christ The Center of Your Life" sails -- that was just WAY TOO "christian" for those boys in Salt Lake, and took way too awfully much attention off "the Brethren" (the true source of guidance).

Yep, thx for bringing that choice moment in Mormon-dumb back to mind.

Tell, tell!

said she brightly, eyes glowing, laughing softly in the darkness, whispering,

"oh, yes!"

I always hated that multi-tasking parody about how you could fill your day with more and more tasks because your day was like a glass jar. You added your Big Rocks, then your Medium Rocks, then the Small Rocks, then the Tiny Rocks and then, you could always add rice.

So you could be doing at least two other things while you are on the phone with your mother.

Guilt. I'm only doing one thing when I could be doing, um, something else with that lazy other hand.

Anagrammy

Even those who have left the tscc often don't change or adjust their approaches to living and therefore stay attached to the attitudes that the brain washing effected while they were TBM's. It's like expecting children to be different than their parents/care givers. They can make the necessary adjustments but usually the older they get, the more the simularities between them and their parents become apparent (even with them trying to maintain a different path)

He was a missionary and later mission president in Ireland in the 1960s. I think he was 28 as mission president. I heard larger-than-life stories about his work ethic when I was a missionary there 25 years later that made me feel bad for his companions and missionaries. I haven't read the 7 Habits book, but I've heard there's a lot of kookiness and unreasonable expectations.

I'm a fan of public education and I hesitate to write what I'm going to but it is relevant.

The Supe relied heavily on Covey's model after his book came out. The speeches dripped with "Coveyisms". Every school had to emulate Covey's philosophy and construct a "Mission Statement" to be used in school correspondence, posted for meetings, in the school office, etc.

I was on one such committee to write the "Mission Statement". There were 4 of us which meant being out of the classroom for a whole day, subs to pay at $100+ a whack, to say nothing of the loss of productive class time. Multiplying that across all the schools in the district, it was a big waste of taxpayer money.

Thank you. I needed to hear that. I am so tired of hearing of Steven Covey as the end-all be-all of how to be successful.

RJ, I thought you were a fellow physicist/scientist. No?

Where I work, stevie covey is the annihilator particle.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2011 02:38PM by Jesus Smith.

Hey, RJ, where is your location again?

raptorjesus Wrote:
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> n/t
Another reasont to relocate!

Hey, I live in Mendocino County, RJ.

I'm in Alameda County.

Do either of you ever come to any of the exmo meetings in San Francisco? I'd love to meet you in person.


Anagrammy

This guy came and gave us all a talk at the stake center about 2 years ago. At the time I was excited because I heard how good his book was and he might teach me some things about being a more effective person. Anyways, he goes on for it least 2 hours about christ. I looked around the room and most people looked bored out of their minds and others were sleeping. What was surprising was to see some of my friends facebook status's after the meeting where they said "I think Stephen Covey just changed my life." The only thing I could think of was he wasted 2 hours of my life. Oh and he bragged about how he got to train Obama when he came into being a president.

... beat the s**t out of that someone.

Didn't know the guy was mormon (pre-RFM days) when the company I was working for opted to do the Seven Habits thang. I just told 'em if they wanted to get things done, do it NASA's way (set a goal, establish a firm deadline, surround yourself with good people).

I also reminded that such advice is already paid for.

Covey's s**t didn't last long, but that stupid phrase endured.

Timothy

Timothy Wrote:
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>
> Covey's s**t didn't last long, but that stupid
> phrase endured.

I think to get rid of that phrase, we're gonna need a paradigm shift, Timmy. hahahahah!

TO THE MOON, ALICE!

Ya kills me, man!

Timothy

Timothy Wrote:
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> TO THE MOON, ALICE!
>
> Ya kills me, man!
>
> Timothy

Again: Timothy: I think I'm in love!!!

Paradigm--Isn't that a drum stroke in which two alternating notes are followed by a diddle? Oh. Wait. That's a paradiddle. :p

Hey, Timothy, I'm NASA country, and we still don't use Covey--again, where is RJ from?

nwmcare, where are you? NASA country can mean several places. Space Coast, by chance?

Bay Area--League City

I don't even know who he is and I hate him.

You're right. I went to one of his seminars. I remember sitting there with some of the "suits". They were very bored and wanted to get the hell out of there. It was obvious that they were sent there by some exec to "return and report", but all they wanted to do was get to a bar or some gentleman's club. I was TBM then and thought he was great. In retrospect, he was just another business fad of the day.

He was on and on about creativity and allowing all workers input into the working rules and regulations. I was in the business of manufacturing pharmaceutical products, ya don't mess with the regs. So I asked him for ideas on creativity in such an environment.

All he could come up with was, "sometimes you just have to live by the rules."

Well duh - actually, the folks in the bunny suits keeping drugs clean could write a book on creativity and keeping sane in a clean room environment. They had no need of Covey to figure things out for themselves.

I actually went to Deseret book and bought a copy. I NEVER buy books, but I was just sure I would want to keep this one for reference. Well, I looked through it, and read the whole think in about an hour. It was NOTHING that any sensable person wouldn't normally do. It was such a sham and such a disappointment that I took it back to the bookstore the next day and got my money back.

change my life.

I thought I just hadn't worked hard enough at it.


Just like Mormonism. . . . a list of stuff to do that just wastes your time and energy and leaves you thinking you must have screwed up because it didn't work as promised.

Honestly, it must work for SOME people, or it would have gotten such notoriety.

But others (like ME) just don't live from a list that well.


And can I say that I ALWAYS HATED the friggin mission statement thing. What a consummate waste of time. The school board in the ALPINE school district (Utah Valley) wasted untold hours crafting a mission statement last year, and then spent untold hours defending it because some parent recognized a buzzword from some guy they figured was a socialist. I was thinking "quit wasting your time on mission statements and educate my KIDS!"