Page 26 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart

If you adopt a pattern of life that focuses on golden eggs and neglects the goose, you will soon be
without the asset that produces golden eggs. On the other hand, if you only take care of the goose
with no aim toward the golden eggs, you soon won't have the wherewithal to feed yourself or the
goose.
Effectiveness lies in the balance -- what I call the P/PC Balance TM. P stands for production of
desired results, the golden eggs. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces
the golden eggs.

Three Kinds of Assets

Basically, there are three kinds of assets: physical, financial, and human. Let's look at each one in
turn.
A few years ago, I purchased a physical asset -- a power lawn mower. I used it over and over again
without doing anything to maintain it. The mower worked well for two seasons, but then it began to
break down. When I tried to revive it with service and sharpening, I discovered the engine had lost
over half its original power capacity. It was essentially worthless.
Had I invested in PC -- in preserving and maintaining the asset -- I would still be enjoying its P -- the
mowed lawn. As it was, I had to spend far more time and money replacing the mower than I ever
would have spent, had I maintained it. It simply wasn't effective.
In our quest for short-term returns, or results, we often ruin a prized physical asset -- a car, a
computer, a washer or dryer, even our body or our environment. Keeping P and PC in balance makes
a tremendous difference in the effective use of physical assets.
It also powerfully impacts the effective use of financial assets. How often do people confuse
principal with interest? Have you ever invaded principal to increase your standard of living, to get
more golden eggs? The decreasing principal has decreasing power to produce interest or income. And
the dwindling capital becomes smaller and smaller until it no longer supplies even our basic needs.
Our most important financial asset is our own capacity to earn. If we don't continually invest in
improving our own PC, we severely limit our options. We're locked into our present situation,
running scared of our corporation or our boss's opinion of us, economically dependent and defensive.
Again, it simply isn't effective.
In the human area, the P/PC Balance is equally fundamental, but even more important, because
people control physical and financial assets.
When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden eggs, the benefits, than
they are in preserving the relationship that makes them possible, they often become insensitive and
inconsiderate, neglecting the little kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They
begin to use control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify their own
position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other person. The love, the richness, the
softness, and spontaneity begin to deteriorate. The goose gets sicker day by day.
And what about a parent's relationship with a child? When children are little, they are very
dependent, very vulnerable. It becomes so easy to neglect the PC work -- the training, the
communicating, the relating, the listening. It's easy to take advantage, to manipulate, to get what you
want the way you want it -- right now! You're bigger, you're smarter, and you're right! So why not just
tell them what to do? If necessary, yell at them, intimidate them, insist on your way.
Or you can indulge them. You can go for the golden egg of popularity, of pleasing them, giving
them their way all the time. Then they grow up without a personal commitment to being disciplined
or responsible.