Rating: 
Summary: Simple, Deep and Great
Review: If your not one of the "Rah-Rah" put-on-a-happy-face-and-everything-will-be-alright types, and you'de like to really deeply improve, then this book might be right for you. I might put the seven habits in a slightly diferent order, but by paying heed to Covey's habits, you'll improve!
Rating: 
Summary: Sound principles, practical advice, but somwhat long-winded
Review: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People might be described best by the subtitle that does not appear on the cover: "restoring the character ethic." It is this principle that defines all of the habits, the idea that in order to achieve the goals of each of the habits, one must begin, in Covey's words, from the "inside out," and develop character traits before any real personal growth can occur.The 7 habits, as they appear in the book, are 1. Be Proactive, 2. Begin with the End in Mind, 3. Put First Things First, 4. Think Win-Win, 5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood, 6. Synergize, 7. Sharpen the Saw. The first three habits he calls private victories, and the second three are public victories. Habit 7 is the renewal process that encompasses all of the other habits. The first 5 habits are mostly self-explanatory from the titles, but the last two merit some additional clarification. Synergy, as defined by Covey, is basically the dynamic of situations that result when the physical strength, mental capacity, or other such abilities of multiple participants are joined together so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As Covey is fond of phrasing it, one plus one equals three or more. Sharpening the Saw is the act of refreshing or renewing oneself so as not to become bored or burned out. It involves taking time for reflection, spirituality, or investing in "quadrant 2-important, but not urgent" activities such as reading, learning a new proficiency, or spending time with family or friends. Covey's style is somewhat didactic, especially to explain or justify the psychological basis for the habits (usually by explaining "paradigms"), and he does belabor the points somewhat at times, but once I came to expect these qualities in each chapter, I was able to look past them and absorb what really is a good book. Each habit is very practical, and Covey's anecdotes are often entertaining while instructive. Overall, it is easy to recommend this book, as it does provide an excellent basis for personal growth that is both realistic and attainable.
Rating: 
Summary: Barf!
Review: This book was highly recommended to me by a man I later broke up with which should have been a clue right there. I couldn't make it through the first chapter of this book without getting a headache largely due to Mr. Covey's unbearable mangling of the English language. Covey should have first taken a course in the "Seven Habits of Highly Effective WRITING" before crafting this tedious read. My suggestion? Don't waste your money. Read the classics read, the writings of Marcus Aurelius, read ANYTHING, but this.
Rating:
Summary: Not all or nothing
Review: I will not try to be as long-winded or eloquent as some of the other reviewers. I found this to be an excellent book. It can be repetitive, but Mr. Covey is trying to "drive" home many points. One of his many points is that current leadership and personal empowerment has drifted away from the likes of Nietzsche and Mills to a "Dress for Success" concept. In my studies, I have read some Nietzsche and Lincoln too, but not all of my colleagues would understand the language. Of those that would, few would want to read it. This is a good book written in leman's language. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't wish to poor over a library of classical works: even to those who do. I cannot site this, but I heard this book was based off of a thesis paper written by Mr. Covey comparing the leadership teachings from over 150 years ago to "current" ones. Do not be mistaken though; this is a book about self-leadership, not just leading others. My one criticism is that everything is trademarked. It does emphasize the money-making aspect of the book. Of course, that is only important to those of us who try to continue to teach what we found in this work.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Effective, but also Learn from "Management by Vice"!
Review: I read this book after getting a copy from our VP/CEO. The positive approaches described are a start, though most of us still have to struggle with negative work attitudes and relations. I learned a lot by reading this book, but also found it worthwhile to read the truly hilarious episodes in the book,"Management by Vice", since it very frankly shows what life can be like in a high-tech company where Covey's highly effective "7 Habits" have not been promoted by management! It can't harm managers or their staff to read and think about both positive and negative habits/attitudes to get a real insight into the workplace!
Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING JOB!
Review: You cannot live an effective life without using the principles in this book. I have been using these principle for 10 years and they have help me start a business, write books, and attain a high level of joy. Congradulations Stephen Covey for being the first to solve some of life's puzzles.
Rating:
Summary: The trouble with self help book and this one.
Review: I would like to say a few things about this book and the "genre", the category it fits in, the self help books in general, mainly because each text is a product of its format and its style greatly influences its content. As with many, if not all, so called self help books this book is marred the following key problems or flaws: 1. It states and then repeats over and over again, overemphasizing to the point of tedium, the obvious and the common sense wisdom, failing to capture the finer details of the proposed subject and thus missing out on all the important variations of life. In this way it midguides the reader, forcing them to believe that the theory is the life they live in and that the map is indeed the territory. 2. It uses in mostly anecdotal (i.e. incidental) evidence and no scientific, philosophical, literary or other basis as a foundation and is thus very unreliable in the information it provides and can only justify its title (i.e. that it is actually helpful for oneself) if the reader accepts the whole system of thought and frame of mind of the author, his beliefs and values, his or her personal history and assigned meaning in life etc, otherwise it is useless. Missing out on the finer details as i mentioned in the first point i made, these book actually demand that the person replicates his or her self as an offshoot of the writer, allowing for little variety and imagination, and creative spirit, in life. The "wisdom" one can possess after reading such books can be found elsewhere in a more scientific and sinsere manner. Which brings me on to my next point. 3. These types of books are full of misconceptions and oversimplifications of psychological, philosophical, religious and otherwise spiritual works. They gratuitously ransack the good library books from their knowledge and wisdom and, with no references, they go about incorporating these elements to their own writing with different name tags or slightly modified content. Hence, the skill to read and understand any form of printed material, ranging from literature to poetry and from philosophy to science, and being able to adjust these skills to the text one is reading, becomes renamed as speed reading and most recently mutates to kevin treudau's ( i don't know if i 've spelt the name correctly) photoreading. Hypnosis skills get a yuppie make-over and turn into nlp, or some new age crap. 4. Most of them attempt to change the readers mind frame with positive hypnosis and affirmations and do not provide a long lasting effect so to speak, so it is not the info they provide that causes any effect one might have but the influence it exerts on the reader 5. Lastly, and this is a key point I am trying to make here, they are nothing but huge public relations enterprises, as other reviewers have mentioned before me, with the sole purpose of making the author rich and famous and his or her books best-sellers. There are plenty other flaws one can point out but I 'll stay with these due to the lack of time and space. About this book in particular. It is priviled enough to have each and every one of the above errors and a few unique ones. First of all, the author is in many cases patronising and bosses the reader around into believing his claims. I wonder is such a relationship or reader and auhor, one of command and subordination an "empowering" one to use one of the most loved terms of Covey. When I first read it in my public library I was astounded at how much of this book reads as gospel, a sacred definitive text on the human condition. With not a hint of distrust towards the validity of its claims or its0 historicity (i.e. it being just a product of a certain time and place, a society and a culture, an individual and hir or her souroundings.) For god's sake, even the number seven has mythical connotations as it is a "magic" symbolic number one finds in various cultures around the world. The main ideas of the book, the responsibility of the individual - a main existential idea of choice and commitment one can fully understand, grasp and practise in the works of sartre, neitsche, heidegger, ortega y gasset et al in philosophy and frankl, binswater, rollo may et al. (in fact Covey name drops some of this existential thinkers in but in a fragmeted, quotes out of context fashion) in existential psycotherapy, the second habit the one of "begining with the end in mind" and commiting themselves and "personal meaning" is again an existential offshoot and over-simplification of the human task to enhance the self, act rather than be acted upon, and assigning meaning to ones life, the third one "first things first" i.e. applying some sort of perspective in ones life and prioritizing is just plain common sense and i will not go in it, the next one to think win win, to care for your relationships with other people is straight forward moralism with no substance if applied the way he understands it and to care for the others as a means of achieving your goal of success is just too opportunistic and deceitful for my tastes, next listen empathically - well, well that's an original thought bravo mr. covey now how long did it take you to come to this conclusion, well, not enough space left due to the 1000 word limit, anyway you can imagine the rest... This book as any other this talentless hack has written is an insult to the human mind and complexity, it chews and digests a wealth of knowledge, our human testament, and spits out an incoherent blather to the reader. Please, if you are not the narrow-minded yuppie sell-out success and control freak, but a wel meaning human being in every sense do not read this, or skim through it at the library at least. Try literature, or theatre or a good therapist or a good friend, or buy a book on existential psychology. Thanks a lot to amazon for the space and to you for your time and effort, hope this review has something to say
Rating:
Summary: Millions in sales - but how many readers?
Review: A sad mixture of ong-winded, turgid prose, bad psychology and poor research. Yet it has sold by the million. I'd love to know how many people read it all the way through, though? At a guess, not many. A triumph of marketing over common sense this is the ultimate "quick fix" business book. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If the book has sold millions, and it's really so full of great ideas, why isn't the world of business being revolutionised - for the better - even as we speak?
Why isn't the world in general being revolutionised - for the better - even as you read these words? Because the Emperor ain't got no clothes, that's why!
Rating:
Summary: An invaluable book
Review: My life was changed by this book. I find Covey succesfully integrates a bleeding obvious paradigm into a work orientated lifestyle scenario schedule overview bla bla bla. Amusing diagrams of circles around other circles with arrows pointing in. Then the same ones with different colours or the arrow reversed just in case you didnt understand the obvious points. If you like this book buy "Should I drink poison or not", "Is Godzilla real", "How to make commone sense sound like a deep philosophy by using the word paradigm" etc.
Rating:
Summary: The G I F T
Review: I was really excited to read this book. Thanks to my brother in-law who introduced me to it. The most USEFUL advantage of this book, is that you get to UNDERSTAND. Many times in life we fail to know the answer for the most common questions "WHY/WHAT/HOW?". This book helps you find the answer. For example: "Why did this happen to me? Or why did I/he react this way? Or Why do I feel this way?". "What can I do?". And "How can I solve this?". To those who want to understand, to those who want to change, to those who want to make a DIFFERENCE, and to all my friends to whom I'm buying this book as a G I F T... this is a GREAT BOOK!
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