Disagreeing with Stephen Covey

[TZK]

Intro

 

Let me start by saying that I appreciate that someone is trying to bring character back from the days before people just read books on how to look like a great person, and I respect Stephen Covey. Covey encourages personal development and does so brilliantly. This thread is basically about 2 different work place environments and why I feel like some of Covey's teachings inadvertently supports the inferior one.

 

I have talked about the same kinds of issues using other terms and belief sets, but since Stephen Covey is a popular writer on the subject who contradicts what I believe I feel it would be best to prove some of my points using my opponent's own belief set.

 

I will start with a major issue with his writing that I believe is a symptom of that style of writing. Afterwards I will make an argument for minimalism, which would be a different kind of writing on this kind of subject.

 

Source

 

On page 19 of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", Covey describes the "power look" or "to intimidate their way through life" as "clearly manipulative, even deceptive", "parts of the personality approach". At no point could I find a discussion of conviction as a character ethic trait or legitimate causes of intimidation.

 

On page 218 of "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", he has a graph of courage versus consideration where he shows what he thinks of various approaches to interpersonal relationships. The graph indicates that a Win/Win approach to dealing with others takes the most amount of courage and consideration. He thinks a selfish alpha male style Win/Lose approach takes courage but lacks consideration, a Lose/Win approach takes consideration and lacks courage, and a Lose/Lose approach (analogous to war) lacks both. While he supports the position of all other outlooks on this graph, he fails to explain why Lose/Lose lacks courage. I think to myself of the ultimate contradiction of this - the terrorist. Though it may feel good and righteous to call them cowards, it is hard to ignore that these people are giving up their life to harm you for what they perceive as your poor behavior. Can this really be said to lack courage? Can any lose/lose outlook be said to lack courage when it entails giving of yourself to "teach someone else a lesson"? I say it does not.

 

He leaves off others including a Win/Win or no deal approach which indicates that if you cannot achieve a Win/Win with someone you should just not deal with them. This being his highest justified means of punishing someone for selfish behavior - just not giving them the benefit of your interaction.

 

Earlier on page 215, He speaks of the lack of viability of No deal in some relationships such as in family or in solidified business relationships. Here he says you must avoid this situation when possible by allowing outs, and if you are in it then you must resort to making compromises.

 

On page 222 he talks about how there are occasions when a person with a strong Win/Lose outlook may make it difficult to take the Win/Win approach. He speaks on genuinely convincing such people that you are interested in their well being as well as your own, while "You express yourself with greater courage" and "You go deeper withing yourself for the strength of character to be proactive". He says that hopefully this will transform the people around you.

 

"Win/Win or Lose/Lose"

 

I myself have succeeded in doing this in several personal relationships. But I feel there was an important element that Covey missed in his description of how to transform someone with your dedication to Win/Win. You have to carry a big stick. Stephen Covey always carries a big stick, because of who he is. Those of us who are not Stephen Covey have to teach others that we carry a big stick. To use similar language I would call this "Win/Win or Lose/Lose" In some cases "or No Deal" may suffice, but as he himself indicates sometimes it does not. And even when it does, I feel it is just a subset of "Win/Win or Lose/Lose". No deal means missed opportunity on both sides.

 

In general Covey uses a shotgun approach to avoid logical contradictions caused by the non minimalist writing style (which I will address at the end) he has chosen. By this I mean he voices any potential objections he can think of himself in hopes that no one will bother to voice them as logical contradictions with what he said earlier.

 

Overall however, Covey expresses a disregard for authoritative behavior justified or not, for the value of Lose/Lose as a dissuasive device, and the value of intimidation when it is a product of conviction against someone who is dishonest.

 

If everyone followed Covey's teachings there would be no problem. However this is not realistic. The question is how can you motivate people who do not have his level of understanding of the world to acquire it? It must be enforced. From an organizational standpoint, Covey's attitude would foster a Win/Win attitude in "upward dealings" with such minded supervisors who "carry a big stick", but not in dealing with subordinates. Thus this philosophy would not penetrate down from a level or two of senior management. I believe there needs to be a way to enforce it from both directions. For example , a true open door policy that is fully respected.

 

Conviction

 

He labels any kind of intimidation as a personality ethic trait, which means that he believes people do it to appear as though they are in charge rather than to accomplish some internal goal of self betterment or helping others. Thus he promotes environments of excessive humility where there is no recourse against those selfish and egotistical "Win/Lose" personalities.

 

But in reality sometimes people are intimidated by the conviction of others, which is a character ethic trait. There are other problems with blind conviction, but they are not of a "personality-ethic nature". Without respect for ideas a person has conviction for, it is possible for two people to have conviction regarding mutually exclusive beliefs and then threaten each other (perhaps kill each other if the concept of conviction is taken to the extreme).

 

Covey understands this, but perhaps fails to realize that there is a solution other than rejecting all conviction except in defense of other's conviction. A person needs to remain open to ideas that contradict his own, or else you could be wrong but not know it because you refuse to look to see if you are. Thus you should not have conviction against someone who simply disagrees with you.

 

Conviction for truth

 

However this same argument justifies sharing evidence and ideas that contradict other people's ideas even if it might bruise their ego. If the CEO of a company is wrong about something, and you are the janitor (this is a philosophy style thought experiment btw, where the extreme case is used) who sees that something is wrong with the CEO's reasoning, then the janitor should say something for the good of the company.

 

However this situation encourages dishonest behavior of many kinds on the behalf of the "CEO" (or any one in a lesser position being contradicted by someone in an even lesser position). And conviction against dishonest behavior is not ruled out by the idea that you should be open to your opponents thinking. In fact it is encouraged since you cannot consider opposing evidence or ideas if they are shrouded in confusion and obscurity. In other words, a universal moral wrong that one should always fight against is deceptive behavior.

 

But this does not mean only outright lying. It also means purposely obfuscating an argument or using unconnected metaphors (if the glove don't fit you must acquit) to try and force people to accept your point of view. These are fairly common behaviors when there is nothing to keep it in check.

 

Stephen Covey does in fact promote self awareness and perhaps even self skepticism. However he does not promote an enviornment that encourages people to behave in this manner and enforces it.

 

The difference can be related to Maslow. A person who has satisfied all other needs might read Covey and consider for example "The way we look at the problem is the problem" - Stephen Covey and then challenge himself to be more open minded to other approaches. This is done to satisfy one of least important need for self actualization which is only addressed by very mature and well adjusted people that have everything else they want in life, and only to the degree that it does not interfere with their more important needs.

 

However the enviornment that Covey rejects is the only enviornment that causes people to be open minded as a means of survival of themselves and the company, to satisfy the second order need for security.

 

An enviornment of truth vs an enviornment of politeness

 

What may seem like a minor point results in a drastically different work environment. In Covey's environment it is considered deviant behavior to adamantly support an idea that contradicts those of your superiors or the majority of your coworkers. This is because you are trying to intimidate or force people into respecting what you believe is the truth, and all kinds of non defensive intimidation is poor behavior. Those who do not conform to the bandwagon effect (aka fallacy) are considered troublemakers.

 

In the other environment, respect for truth is the ultimate idea. Supervisors expect to be contradicted by their subordinates when they have made a mistake. Not only is it not demoralizing to occasionally be wrong, but the whole organization turns against someone who attempts to use the power of their position to hide when they are wrong about something or obfuscate an issue. If you believe there is something you know that others do not, you are obligated to bring it to others attention and see if it survives the gauntlet of your coworkers' scrutiny. The only constraint is that you act in a way that allows two people who disagree to come to an understanding. (Don't do things like yell over people who disagree with you).

 

"Success" of an enviornment

 

When looked at this way, I believe it is obvious why the latter environment is far superior. But then one might ask, why is the former so popular and wouldn't it result in less desirable performance?

 

I believe the answer is that the former environment is indeed inferior but that a well established and well funded corporation is not going to fail because of it. New companies need the superior attitude in order to survive and adapt to their new market, whereas older companies are not going to go belly up just because they approached a problem the wrong way to start with.

 

Rather they have so much capitol that if they were so inclined they could just not change anything until a startup company came up with a new idea that was more successful. Then they could just adopt the same idea afterwards and eventually use their greater weight to take back control over the market.

 

Consider Blockbuster and Netflix. Someone at blockbuster could have come up with the idea to create a program similar to what Netflix has prior to Netflix's existence. Suppose this person was adamant about the idea that such a change was necessary in today's internet based world, but was considered a troublemaker and perhaps even punished. Netflix's well being depended on this and other well reasoned ideas, but Blockbuster only stood to do even better financially than they were already doing. Blockbuster could get away with having the inferior environment and still surviving, whereas Netflix could not.

 

It is clear that the CEO or or supervisors of a startup company are only as valuable as the strength and effectiveness of their ideas. But once a company is established subsequent CEO's and supervisors may be more vulnerable towards being incorrect regarding what little impact they can have. Thus the inferior conformity enforcing environment results the more established a company becomes.

 

The fall of any organization

 

This general concept is talked about regarding entire civilizations by one historian named Arnold Toynbee who has recognized that civilizations fall as the influence of the creative minority wanes and the civilization eventually falls without that adaptive element. Sometimes it is even the same person who was once that creative minority that ends up repressing future creative minorities. Other times a civilization fails to adapt because future rulers reject the influence of the creative minority for various reasons, including to remain faithful to the original inventor's vision and/or just to maintain whatever behavior has worked so far.

 

But I believe the underlying cause is the inferior environment which promotes conformity and dissuades conviction for truth. When the organization is at the brink of destruction, conviction for truth is accepted as a lesser evil before the impending doom. But when there is no impending doom, conformity is encouraged in place of innovation and conviction for truth is rejected.

 

Minimalism

 

In any case, I believe that it is possible that there are many such problems with Stephen Covey's writing simply because he is not using a minimalist approach to knowledge. A minimalist, for example, defines honesty as simply the context in which it arises. A person is considered dishonest when he knowingly gives you information that later turns out to be false, or knowingly withholds information that later turns out to be important.

 

At the bottom of page 195 Covey defines honesty as "conforming our words to reality" (to be fair with the purpose of contrasting it with integrity). However this leaves out the possibility of someone neglecting to mention something that is important.

 

Minimalism is attempting to define words and ideas according only to the context they arise in, and using logic to determine exactly what that objectively is.

 

The danger of assigning a more complex meaning to honesty than this was demonstrated by one of the earliest known philosophers, Socrates. He approached well known figures including a general and asked them about their ideas regarding things like honesty integrity etc. After listening to their responses, he was able to identify logical contradictions. Socrates further pointed out that these contradictions arose from excessive faith in one's own interpretation of such concepts. In the defense of Covey and others, such faith can be hard to overcome when you are revered so.

 

If we prevent ourselves from attaching superfluous information to the definitions of ideas like honesty, we have ideas that are much easier to reason with. IMO the optimal work regarding personal betterment should consist of a model of the human mind reasoned directly from human behavior, and simple rational arguments related to why certain types of behavior contradict our general goal or will be stopped by other people. The goal here is to limit controversy, an important obstacle for the spreading of ideas.