As well as outlining the importance of "the self" as being the creator of many of our own personal and business problems the book espouses the same self as a powerful catalyst for bringing cataclysmic and lasting change. Please don't be put off, its not all airy-fairy claptrap - that's just me waffling.
The thing that struck me most was the concept of 'Organisational Alignment' in Covey's book. This is when everyone in an organisation is 'pointing north'. Everyone has aligned vision, values and goals.
Just to point out the aligned mission is only 1/4 of the pie and this must be pastried to the other equally important elements of trustworthyness, trust and empowerment.
Organisational Alignment is one part of what Covey calls 'the paradigm' or map. He says if your map is wrong or incomplete then no matter how many initiatives are tried, how hard you work, how efficient and effective you become it will not matter because the underlying map is wrong - your going the wrong way.
Transcript from the tape:
Covey: 'what do you think would happen if I landed in Belfast hired a car and was given a map of Manchester and I had to find this hall'
Audience: 'you'd get lost'
Covey: 'what if I tried harder and worked more efficiently and effectively'
Audience: 'you'd get lost twice as fast'
Covey: 'what if I practised positive thinking'
Audience: 'you'd be lost but would be happy'
Another example is bleeding, which was once 'a paradigm' for healing. At the time when bleeding was widely used the surgeons did not know they were working to an erroneous paradigm, so to try and make the process more effective they probably tried to become more efficient at bleeding by:
- Bleeding more
- Bleeding faster
- Bleeding from different areas
- Team Bleeding
- TQM for bleeding etc, etc.
Obviously all of these efforts were unsuccessful.
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Of course it's all waffle unless you implement it and this got me thinking.
Yes, we have to look at ourselves first to make the change and I'm happy to help develop my departments and my own mission and measure and be measured continually against these. But firstly I need to know what the organisations mission, vision and values are. That's where most organisations are poor they don't have a mission, vision and values that are thoroughly deployed and widely believed in and lived out, every day and by everyone.
Covey suggests that every level, every department, every function, every job and every person should have an aligned mission statement, thus creating the all-facing north paradigm.
Not easy so here's my simple 5 step plan: 
1. Directors draft separately their own idea of the organisations mission, vision and values - it would be very interesting to see the level of alignment.
2. Compare notes and develop the mission
3. Each department/ process owner would then develop their own 'aligned' mission with their team
4. Individuals develop their own personal mission statements (groups?)
5. Measure, review, evaluate and improve at all levels - continually PDSA!
Wouldn't it be fantastic if you could ask anybody within your organisation what their mission was and they could tell you.
I would be interested in your feedback please tell me is this good or BS?
Simon
