At least one Habit of Highly Effective People.

When I am too tired at night to work, and the kids are basically settled in, I usually read. When the first children were younger, I used to go to the book store and purchase second hand classics because I wanted to be familiar withthem for when the children got older. As they grew and I became more tired overall, I read lighter fare: Ann Tyler, forensic-based novels (like the Coroner series by Noguchi), things like that.

Lately I have been reading marketing books.  Gerry Bourgeois, our broker, has a nice extensive collection, and after having read several I started recently on “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey.

The subtitle is Powerful Lessons in Personal Change and I will admit that that probably prejudiced me to dislike the book. Who is someone else to tell me that I need to change? I have an exhusband for that, thank you very much.

But anyway. I was reading along, slowly getting into it. He speaks of being Proactive as opposed to Reactive – in other words, no one can help the external circumstances surrounding themselves, but we can all control our actions and reactions to these circumstances.  Most of what I have known as a child and adult about life has been taught to me by Reactors. the kind of people who wouldn’t decide their mindset until they read the newspaper or decided who they wanted to be angry with that day.  I have over the years tried to learn my way out of being a Reactor because it is so counterproductive – in business, in relationships, everywhere really. To paraphrase: Reactive people make everything a feeling. Proactive people make everything a verb. I plan on living by verbs.

But the main thing I have taken away so far is this:  the difference between Leadership and Management. Not knowing makes the difference between success and failure in business because you can be doing all the right things (and keeping busy all of the time) and still not accomplish your purpose.  From the book:  ”Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”

Or in other words:  ”Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual has phrased it,  ’like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.’” I love this, because it is so so true, yet so overlooked – especially in our industry, real estate.

I am recommitting to watching my business with “leadership eyes” – to observing trends, to staying ahead of the curve, to learning! Someone else can straighten deck chairs.

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