Goncharenko centre 2025-8-17: Covey's "7 habits of highly effective people" and sundry topics

Post event notes: See farther down on this page.

Translation: auto translation of this page into Ukrainian

Covey's "7 habits of highly effective people" and sundry topics

Note that sentences in blue are post meeting additions as additional information, examples, or clarification.

We discussed this book a while ago in not too much detail, now I a bit more using

This will be mostly post-meeting notes. I will add my analysis about the book later, which I typed in from the scans of my notes that I wrote down on first reading the book (in 2016, I read half the book and wrote down my comments of that half in the waiting hall of the train station in Lviv, while waiting for a train for 4 hours; The rest I read/commented on later, more spread out over time. For this meeting I started adding more context to those notes I made then and added things that popped up later, such as about Frankl's book "Man's search for meaning" which Covey mentioned and which, after finally having read that book, I can comment about in a different manner, namely that Covey's statement about Frankl's freedom being more than that of the guards is nonsense which Frankl doesn't claim at all, and even disregarding that his view on freedom is nonsensical as I wrote down in my initial review.

There are a lot of problems in Covey's book, and the main one is that his methods don't work in general. I mentioned this in a previous meeting already (meeting of 2025-7-20: Books: "Flowers for Algernon" & "7 habits of highly effective people", but I went over a few issues in more detail this meeting. He describes exceptions as "This is how it works". He does not give examples of when his methods don't work, which there should be, because I put such methods into practice before I ever heard of his book and the methods in Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people", which in reality is very similar (even though Covey criticises earlier manipulative books on business practices, and I am sure Carnegie's book is the main one or one of the main ones he had in mind) but these methods do not work if you are dealing with anti-social people or with people who purely deal with rules, such as banks. I realised from my experiences: "He! I did that, and not because of trying to manipulate someone to get what I want, but because of being interested in other people's views, ideas etc., and it doesn't work!".

A lot of what he states is wrong, and the main problem is that he does not deal with businesses and people who act just 'rule based', as I mentioned, which is especially an issue with banks and with any dealing with psychopaths (who are rule abusers) and autists (who are rule followers0, and in general his methods won't work with anti-social people. This is true in business but also in any area that is not about business.

In one section he mentions examples of people applying his methods and having success, and another person not wanting to compromise his integrity and not changing his way to deal with the situation, and not getting what he wanted. Note that:
1. Your own integrity and morals are important for yourself, if you feel you don't want to go along with nonsense, that is your right, your choice. Maybe this guy could have got what he wanted in money, but then he would not have had it in the way that he felt was just.
2. Covey does not give examples of people who followed his methods but where it did not work. There have to be such examples! My own experiences show that what he suggests generally does not work. Why does he not give such counter examples? I posited in the meeting that one of the reasons is that people like to get confirmation of what they believe is right (correct/true statements), and of what they believe is the best way to act. But as I mentioned: It is not confirmation, but things that don't fit in that are useful, they improve your understanding. He could have mentioned examples of when it doesn't work, and from my own experiences, and from simply reasoning from principles, his methods have a very limited ability to work, so there should be such examples... He could have then improved his methods by making them applicable to different situations, different mindsets in companies, different types of people.

This is important in life: Things can be equivalent, but not the same in another sense. I will jump here forward to something that one of the attendees asked; Was getting a degree in physics useful in life: Yes, in everything I did: in programming, in understanding life. But not just physics was useful, all experiences in my life were useful in some way. My time spent on programming was useful in understanding people and psychology. I will deal with why this is so and precisely what it made clear in understanding people at a later date in my 'project to understand everything' (= understanding life, people, and thus psychology). My discussions about life with many people in Ukraine, and with some Jehova's witnesses in the Netherlands, were also useful for my 'project to understand everything'. My business experiences were useful to understand behaviour of people but especially to have examples of behaviour of people. This is one the things missing so often in self help books [ e.g. by Eckhart Tolle, Berthold Gunster ], but also people teaching meditation, they don't properly understand the essence, don't give examples to make it clear, and these are essentials. You can find examples everywhere in life but having experienced a lot of things helps in showing why things work and why in other cases they do not work, and from that I know (without needing to deduce anything from principles, which is the other way to show it) that a lot of what Covey writes does not work!

[ In mathematics and mathematical physics I took for example classes on Lie groups and Lie algebras and representations: This shows something that is useful from physics/mathematics in every day life, namely a representation being sort of an example, but not the essence. It was not needed to have attended such classes, but they are a shortcut to understanding, it takes a bit less time to see essential things when you have such knowledge. You can also look at equivalence classes and representative elements in such a way: The representatives can be different but in equivalence they are the same. Example: classes of the remainder of whole numbers, modulo say, 7. This means, you have 0,1,2,3,4,5,6, then 7 = 0 because the remainder of 7 when dividing by 7 is 0. This means for each class you have multiple (infinite in fact) representatives. 0 eq = 7 eq = 14 eq etc., 1 eq = 8 eq = 15 eq etc. So in the equivalence class, the representatives 0,7,14 etc. are all the same but the representatives are not the same. ]

One of the attendees didn't like the topic of business etc. I can understand that, but the precise topic doesn't matter! These methods, if they work, are generally usable.

[ The examples in Covey's book are about business, but really they are about dealing with people, methods that you use in life. ]

[ A lot of things in life can be understood by laying connections. Realising what connections there are is the essence of intelligence, and the knowing/seeing of connections (and from that, what the result would be to change something in the system) is the essence of understanding! ]

So, connections: If you think about it, this 'non-violent communication', or empathy based communication, is really the same as what Covey preaches in how to deal with people/companies... Let them tell you what they want to make them see you care about their position and their needs, then respond to that with your suggestion for work/a contract. This does not work with anti-social people/companies nor with businesses where rules determine everything such as in banks. I dealt with banks in many situations, and I found these people to be morons who only care about rules. A friend of mine said after my criticism of Covey's book that his methods do not work: "That criticism is not valid, the book is old" (and thus the examples are old). I said: "That does not matter. These methods didn't work in the time of Carnegie, they didn't work in the time that Covey wrote the book, they don't work now. They never worked. What Covey describes are exceptions, not the rules."

I mentioned that in his criticism of older books on business self-help, he says that many are manipulative and I am sure he meant in particular Dale Carnegie's book "How to win friends and influence people" but in fact the essence of what Carnegie wrote is the same as what Covey wrote...

A few points already from my notes on Covey's book, that I used in the meeting

Note that I used one version of the book, page numbers can vary per edition, so I am working on adding quotes + context information + the chapters/sections to my complete analysis, here I added them already:

Answer: A few people thought Not true, and it is of course not true. See psychopaths at the top of companies, and how they never seem to have to pay the price for lying, manipulating and being incompetent. They stay in well paying positions because of the effect of group help: "Birds of a feather flock together": Others in positions of power: Helping each other. Getting well paying positions at boards of companies, etc. In a way this is about favours but not direct, just implicit knowing that you will get help from these others who have the same mindset.

What Covey says about cramming in school and a farm not being good or not working, is also nonsense. These do work, but it is better to not hurry/cram.

I asked, are all people created equal? The answer is of course: No! Some people are smarter than others, some are taller than others, some have various abilities that others don't have, etc. [ Quoting this 'equality' nonsense from the declaration of independence from the USA, does NOT help the writer to give the impression to readers that he is in any way scientific. Rather it shows that the author does NOT analyse and check everything that he thinks and writes about. ]

Questions/comments from attendees about this

One attendee mentioned that the methods need not always work and still be valid in the sense of working most of the cases, but I stated that the problem with what Covey wrote is not just NOT stating when and why his methods don't work, but that what he states generally doesn't work in business (especially when dealing with a certain type of people, and a certain type of business, i.e. people who care about rules and money and not about morals). That he gives an example of a company dealing with a bank is just ludicrous. Banks are the prime example of rule followers!

And as to why Covey didn't write about cases in which his methods don't work: Probably to not show weakness in his methods, instead of using these examples to create better methods. Also, most people prefer praise rather than criticism, and that goes for themselves too. So they protect themselves from the possibility of criticism (even from themselves!).

Question by one of the attendees about my criticism: Is it a different point of view? No, it is reality. What Covey describes does not generally work. I take interpretation issues into account in everything...

Another question was: What I do about disagreeing with people I know: do I state this to them? Yes, I do. I am then a bit careful but I will state for example that I want to know more, I want to be able to draw my own conclusion. Even with my sister whom I trust, I do not simply accept what she thinks as being correct or true unless from her own experience and even then I think about interpretation issues. [ And I tell her about possible differences in interpretation, that could give a different view, as applied to the specific situation about which she told me her views. ]

Connection to game theory

A lot in life can be described by game theory. [ Something interesting that I realised: I apply tit-for-tat in my life. I suppose it is built-in, based on the personality of course. Untrusting people will choose, or rather use, another strategy... ]

You can analyse what Covey writes about but also Rosenberg's 'non-violent communication', in terms of game theory...

Education at university, is it useful if you don't really need it for what you want to do?

The most important thing to do in life is to pursue what you find interesting. In life you should be mostly self sufficient, and you can attain happiness without money, without education. But, generally in life with more money, and more education, it is easier to be happy, there are more opportunities to do what you find interesting, but also:
- A higher education will give more possibilities to understand things or get knowledge that you can apply everywhere in life.
- This knowledge and understanding can cause a change in what you want in life. It can cause a change in how you consider life, in what you see as important or interesting. This may be positive or negative, depending on the person and his wishes in life.

[ We talked in a previous meeting about intelligence and that with more intelligence you will not necessarily be more happy, but what is your goal in life? What are your interests? That should determine whether a study will be useful for you. ]

Choose that which fits with you. Someone who is very intelligent should study at university. Someone who is not so intelligent and just wants to live and have fun in the weekends is more suited to do simpler work. Really it should be obvious: You want something, then do it. Usually if you are intelligent you want to study more.

Teaching, people doing no effort

What I find very disappointing is how few people do effort. Even for themselves... Take as an example my list of life. People stated that not-worrying doesn't work. Yes it does work, you need to follow the steps that I listed then automatically you get to such a position (though it will take some time).

Few attendees do effort to read a book to be discussed too. Why? It is interesting to talk about deeper things and it helps you understand life. [ An example that I told in an earlier meeting: In a mathematics lecture in the 1st year, one lecturer said "I can't explain to you now why this is important, but it is important later". So the importance becomes clear later and when you get further in understanding mathematics you realise why it was useful/important to know it for that further understanding later... But here, discussing things in life, such as the list of life that I made tells you almost everything that is important in life, not just in a rules based way, a 'theoretical way', but with examples that should make it clear what the advantages are of having a certain mindset, such as not worrying, so it should be clear almost directly. And yet almost nobody does the effort... ]

I mentioned a problem in life in general is that you can't really help people. I deal with that in my list of life too: You can't help people unless they are ready to help themselves. This means they need to be willing to do effort to change themselves and get over problems by making changes in their lives...

I compared it to mathematics: If you want to teach people differential equations, first they must be ready for it, they must have the required knowledge first, otherwise they won't understand it. Then when they do have the required knowledge, they likely will have had something about differential equations anyway, so then an introductory topic on that matter is no longer of interest. This means there is just a very small number of people to whom you can talk about this topic: Those who are ready for it, and those who have not yet taken a class on it before...

Post meeting

I had a walk with one of the attendees to a church not far from the Goncharenko centre which has a rebuilt entrance, much newer than the older original building, and next to it and some buildings without amenities (water, gas), in the centre of the city. I suppose objects of interest in modern times :)

Then to the palats kultury near the ATB (near the bridge towards Kryukiv). I saw another palats kultury near the 'Energy park', before the access gate to the Petrochemical plant that was hit and that meant I had seen 3 (another is in the centre, Kredmarsh), and there is another one I was told near McDonalds. I will have a look... About the one near ATB: It was as this attendee said, built when he was little and it was as if from a fairy tale. Now it looks a lot less good (actually, the fountain is in not good condition but is being restored, the inside looks cool to me, the outside is nok but the tiles before the entrance should be fixed).

Post meeting addendum

Many people don't put in effort for the meetings, and it is not always needed, but I do put in effort: I read books, I analyse, I write down connections that I see to explain how topics are linked or similar, for myself partly, but also for others to be able to explain to them so they can understand why people behave in a certain way. If this effort is not appreciated then why continue?

For this reason I have been thinking about doing something else than these meetings at the Goncharenko centre, and try a different type of meetings elsewhere...

What I want to do is have a meeting about buildings with mosaics that I encountered on my trips, and about all the bus stops, in particular with mosaics, but there also many cool ones with paintings, some with an umbrella as a roof, a few that make me think of Hawaii or of a Japanese building, and so on. This will come after my trip (possibly around 25 August, perhaps a bit later) back to NL (for 1-2 weeks), After that I will decide what to do.