I never understood the dislike, as well as the mockery, of Covey by TBM's either. It may have been the certainty he exuded. After all, some TBM's mocked McConkie as well, back in the day.
My own theory is that people resented him trying to explain things that were closely related to "The Gospel." They preferred to leave many topics as mysteries so they wouldn't have to think too much.
I think you are onto something. As long as people don't have to think about things too hard, they don't have to question them. This is the path of least resistance, and it is probably the preferred method that the faithful use, in order to cruise through life on spiritual autopilot. Thinking about stuff, even from an apologist perspective raises questions, and questions pull on the loose strings of the tapestry of lies built up around the church.
I was a student at YBU 25 years ago. I cleaned the church building he attended. After an extravagant ward christmas party, seeing that I was the lone student to clean the place - he offered to help me. No one else did. His daughter was also very charming. He was very down to earth and a nice gentlemen.
I think TBMs responded to him negatively because he made them feel even more guilty with his "Seven Habits You Don't Have" and "How to Take the Monkey Off Your Back."
I know I personally went into the red giving seminars for LDS women to encourage and help them and I had some haters too. The same message that inspires and helps one person demoralizes and angers another.
Our responses come from what's inside us, not necessarily the message.
We see the differences here on RfM. A poster shares something which was positive to them and are surprised and even offended that others have a negative reaction.
It is only in the imaginary Mormon homogenous world of illusory sameness that we all dress the same, look the same, think the same. The real world is much more interesting.
Anagrammy
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2014 10:53AM by anagrammy.
Stephen Covey was a cult of personality. A pop-psychologist selling half-science self-help fluff to those beholden to a corporate king. Corporations love him because he helps fundamentally unhappy worker bees be even more worried about their job, success, and climbing the corporate latter.
In my personal experience, it's my super religious co-workers, not just Mormons, that feed off his writings. They respond well to being told they aren't good enough and they enjoy workshops and team building exercises that involve nonsensical discussions.
Steven Covey's books, much like anything written by a GA or even non-Mormon self-help gurus, belong in the trash can.
Being an owner of a home above the Provo MTC he was active in fighting the church from building the MTC TOWER blocking his precious view of Utah Lake (nice from a very great distance), his untimely death pretty much ended the legal conflict.
I went to HS with his daughter Jenny. She was really confident, in a good way, not hung up on anything, just did as she wanted. My coach (soccer) asked me to coach the girls for one of their games. She came just in time and she changed in my van, in front of me. I was very impressed...with her confidence. I barely knew her at the time. She was a decent player, but her display of confidence won her a lot of extra playing time that day.
On the day of our yearbook signing (party?) he came, set up a table and was giving away free, authographed "7 Habits" books. Not one single kid went over and got one, he brought BOXES of them.He seemed liek a confident, maybe overly confident guy, but a nice guy (this is on the the glory days of the franklin-covey paperl planners).
I always thought maybe two of the habits were not timing and knowing your audience...
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2014 02:10PM by erictheex.
There are lots of these business consultant types selling feel good gobbledygook advice for gobs of money. Some folks at the BYU business school were a little annoyed with Covey.
That said, the Coveys are generally very nice, humble people as long as they don't let that football playin' go to their heads.
I went to one of his seminars a number of years ago. He was on a roll with his 7 habits books. There were a number of non Mormon guys from companies from all over the country being sent there to learn some new "paradigms." They seemed bored. I of course being a TBM was stoked to see the king of motivational speakers at the time. Now I look back and see it as just some corporate fad.
Covey spoke at byu while I was there. I was excited to hear him speak, but ended up being very disappointed. His whole talk focused on why wealthy people are so wonderful, and that poor people shouldn't judge the wealthy and that wealth was a blessing. You would have thought he was talking to a group of calvinists instead of Mormons, although in many ways there are a lot of similarities between the two groups.
My baby brother dated his daughter. Meh. Didn't hear anything other than how amazing his ski chalet was. (My baby brother was/is all about the Benjamin's)
I tried to read 7 habits. I quickly recognized it as all the workbooks we had to do in young miss and Mia. Goal setting and bullshit.
Huge turn off. I **hate** covey products and stores (are any of those left?!) to this day!!!
My mother grew up in the same neighborhood so she knew him as a kid. She generally liked him and his family except she remembers him as a hair puller. I think he later dated one of her sisters. Mom pointed him out in some of the pictures my grandfather took of the kids playing outside and at neighborhood parties.
I met him once in a social setting and he seemed like a good guy. His son was an ass every time I met him though.
At a place where I worked one of the TBM workers had a Covey quote taped to the outside of his cubicle. At the bottom it said it was from "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People."
One of my coworkers, A NOM gradually working toward becoming exmo, found it annoying. He took it down one day, brought it back to his cubicle and, with a sharpie, proofread it. Tightened up the syntax and eliminated the redundancy etc. He then crossed out "successful" from the attribution and changed it to "Seven Habits of Highly Verbose People."
I never could understand the hoopla about the man. I read his 7 Habits book and was NOT impressed. My friends seemed to worship the man (which only nauseated me more.) I thought I was the only one who found his writtings presumptous and arrogant. Glad to know now that I wasn't the only one.
I know, I know...., Lot's of people seemed to get lots out of being one of his 'followers' (fans) but I simply didn't have a connection with him or his teachings but accept that many did/do. Hooray for them and hooray for me too.