7 Habits to Public Victory

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Ian Uy posted this in Personal on April 12th, 2009 |

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Have you ever attended one of those Transformational Learning programs? The ones that will make you reflect deep and hard about your life to the point that it will change how you see the world? I have.

After sending me to a comprehensive 3-day technical training for Windows Communication Framework, my company have decided to send me to a 3-day non-technical training called 7 Habits for Highly Effective People Signature Program at the Ateneo Professional Schools, Center for Leadership and Change in Makati.

At first, I thought that it will be a big waste of my and my company’s time if I attend this training during this hectic months. Habits? C’mon! I don’t need those to spew out quality codes! Besides, I already have habits even if they are not the best ones around. That’s what I thought and before I knew it…

I was in for the biggest shock of my life!

Day 1, and as usual, I was late. Not that late, but when I got to the conference/meeting room, most of the participants, including the facilitator, was already there. The setting is what you would expect in a very expensive (18-21K PHP) program: Brewed Coffee, Expensive Cookies, Cold Conference Room, Buffet Breakfast (Catered), People in Business Attire and their English Accent. The air was filled with high faluting business terms coming from the hot exchange of business talks from the business execs that joined the program. There were only 10 attendees: 4 Software Developers from our company and 6 H.R. Executives / Managers from Kraft, Aboitiz and Unilab. If you’re wondering what 4 lowly software developers are doing in this program, don’t bother to ask me – we are on the same boat.

During the start of the program, the facilitator asked each of the attendees on what they hope to get out of the 3-day program. The 6 H.R. People attended the program because they want to roll-out the same program in their own company. As for the rest of us, we gave our own expectation of the program. My demands were actually simple…

Work-Life Balance
Influence how our company produce software (Software done right)

My teammates have long insisted that I should try to have more fun with my life — the type of “fun” that does NOT involve computers, they say. I have long debated this with them and eventually I saw their point and was convinced to the point that I sorta want to experience the other side of life and see for myself what all the fuzz is about. On the other hand, At work, I would like to be able to “influence” how our company produce software. By that, I mean that I would like to have the ability to influence how our organization writes code. I would like to have the power to free all software developers who are suffering from bad software development practices. Haha.

From the moment I entered the conference room, I have the least intent to participate in the program. I really never believed that this kind of programs have the power to change your life or at the very least, influence your beliefs. My first thoughts when I heard of this program is that its like my GMRC (Good Manners and Right Conduct) class in Elementary, like my Values Education class in High School and its like my Social Studies class in College. In short, the very first thought that came to my mind is that the program will be BORING and I would just sleep through it. Together with my close-mindedness, this program will never stand a chance to even influence my weakest beliefs. That’s what I thought.

The program started in a form of a video with the author (Stephen Covey) explaining how the 7 Habits Program started. According to him, it all started when he studied different written literatures about success and successful people for his PH.D. thesis. The said literatures that he read spans 250 years and he was shocked by the result of his study – the shift from Personal Ethics to Character Ethics. It means that people’s understanding of success shifted from “personal, more fulfilling and real success” to “public (our character), less fulfilling and perceived success”. In less jargonic talk, this means that we measure success by the “perception of other people of how successful I am” and not by “how successful I feel”.

The result of this is that our generation does things that will make us successful in the eye of other people as opposed to doing things that will make us truly happy.

From that point on, I was turned into a believer. I can totally relate to what this guy was saying. For the longest time, I believe that success is defined by how people measure you, not by how you measure yourself. Some people may say that I am very successful because I graduated Cum Laude in a prestigious college and is now working on a Global 500 company. But do I feel this success? Frankly, not that much. My own definition of success is measured by “the number of people I influenced thru my work (programs)”… to change the world. I could have done this by joining major open source development groups but that would interfere with my studies and eventually my “public success”. I remember a coffee table conversation with my teammates wherein they said that I am a “people pleaser” and they were right, I love meeting and exceeding expectations and I hate disappointing people. Maybe this is part of my “Character Ethics”.

After the introduction, the maturity continuum was introduced to us. It illustrates the 7 habits and its effects and after that, each of the habits were discussed.

Habit 1 is all about being Proactive. Its the foundation of the 7 Habits. You can never be independent without being dependent, and you can never be interdependent without being independent. While discussing Habit 1, I had some realization on why I suddenly hate deadlines now while I used to love it back in college. I hate it because I used to be very independent back then and now I’m back to being dependent. I have already achieved the 2nd level of Maturity (Independence) but now, I’m back to being hand-fed (dependence). Good news is, the Maturity Continuum is multi-dimensional. This means that for every new role you undertake, your maturity level will be back to 0.
Another important thing that I learned in Habit 1 is the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. Habit 1 taught me on how I can influence how our company produce software (My 2nd Expectation). In one of my projects, I was asked to design a new Licensing feature for our product using a pre-existing library. While studying this library, I happened to point-out that we are doing some unsafe practices that can eventually lead to a licensing breach. By pointing that out, I was partly able to influence the project lead to create a new and safer library. And little by little, I was able to expand my Circle of Influence and somehow shrink my Circle of Concern.

Habit 2 preaches to always “begin with the end in mind”. In Habit 2, we were asked to write a personal mission statement. Funny thing about this exercise is that we were also asked to write a personal mission statement back in High School. Almost 10 years ago and I can still clearly remember my personal mission in life… CHANGE THE WORLD. And it still is (Yes, I know its not SMART). While writing my personal mission statement, it made me think and reflect… Have I always kept the end in my mind? In school? At work? And it made me remember my very first “usable” project in College called MAD-Files (Massive Distributor of Files).
MAD-Files was designed to aid Mapua Professors who are teaching laboratory (computer lab) subjects to distribute digital course materials to the students workstations. Before MAD-Files, the professors have to manually copy-paste each course materials to each and every “network” drive of the students. This will usually take about 30 minutes (not to mention that this process is erroneous and stressful).

It begs the question, by making this application, was I able to change the world? If you ask Sergey or Linus, maybe not. But in my own little way, I may have changed the world. How? Just think of it this way, by automating the way professors do this task, they managed to cut the wasted time from 30 minutes to about 30 seconds. And in a program where you will only meet once a week for 4.5 hours and 10 times for the entire program, 30 minutes is a big deal (It’s 11.11% of the total course time). And by saving that 30 minutes, the professors were able to teach additional skills to the students… Skills that will help them outside college. Skills that will help them influence other people. And in that way, I was able to change the world. All of my projects are built on this premise… Tools to help people do their job easier and faster.

Habit 3 is all about “Putting First Things First”. It’s all about putting important things first. In Habit 2, we were asked about our personal mission and goals in life. Habit 3 teaches you to act on the important things in your life so you can attain your personal goals. Right now, my only role is being a “Software Developer” in my company. How does coming to work everyday make me achieve my personal mission which is to change the world? Simple. As I previously mentioned, I work in a global 500 company that does Process Automation. A simple explanation of what our product does is given by our Director and it goes something like this:

“Imagine Shell’s oil processing plant in the middle of the ocean somewhere. This plant harvests raw fossil fuel from the ground to deliver million of barrels of oil everyday. Now, between the raw fossil fuel (raw product) and the barrel of oils sold in the market (end product) is a set of processes. This processes is controlled by software and that software is what we create here.”

By creating high-quality software, I will be able to help our clients to deliver products faster, easier and safer. The result of this is cheaper products of higher quality to the consumers. In essence, our products indirectly influences the quality of life of the people around the world. Our Pride of Workmanship is…

“Creating Softwares that Powers the World”

Another thing that Habit 3 taught me is that if I really want to attain Work-Life Balance, I need to get a new role. As of now, my only role is a Software Developer (that’s the Work part). To get the Life part, maybe I need to get a girlfriend, perhaps? Hanging question, thanks for reading. Hahahaha!

Habit 4, Think Win-Win, is the most striking habit for me. For the longest time, I have never believed in a Win-Win scenario. It’s always Win-Loose for me. If you Win, I’ll loose so I must always Win and I don’t care if you loose. (They call this Scarcity Mentality).

I’ve been brought-up to be very competitive. I can still remember back in my Elementary days, when I will tell my mom that I got a high score on a certain subject, she would always reply “How did

Person A did?”. She would always compare me to other people who always did well in class. And through the years, it shaped me to be very competitive. It gave me the mentality that I should always come up on top when being compared to others. Win-Win is never a scenario for me.

Habit 4 made me reflect deep and hard about how I treat people back in College. If you observe the Maturity Continuum above, Habit 4 is the foundational habit to achieve Public Victory… the type of victory leaders want to attain. In college, I have already achieved my own Private Victory… I am so independent that I don’t need anyone to accomplish anything. And I’ve always wondered why I suck at being a leader and now I know… It’s because I am not capable of thinking Win-Win! It’s all about me, winning. It’s my OWN victory. And I apologize for not being able to trust people other than myself.

Habit 4 is the foundational habit for being INTERdependent. Being independent and at the same time being dependent to each other. By conquering Habit 4, people will be able to synergize to produce the best possible result (The whole is greater that the sum of its parts). I suck at being a leader because I cannot trust other people to do their job and that’s why I can’t delegate. Being interdependent is a relationship built on trust and without that, Public Victory can never be achieved.

I was not able to fully grasps Habits 5, 6 and 7 because I’m currently stuck at Habit 4. At the moment, I am trying to apply Habit 4 in my everyday life. Hopefully, I will get pass this habit and attain public victory.

The 7 Habits signature program will not make me a saint. It is not a quick-fix program that will instantly make me an effective person, more so an effective leader. However…

… the program made me reflect about my core beliefs and made me realize that some of them is destructive to my growth and to the people around me. And by giving me that in-your-face realization, It will hopefully help me to trust other people and eventually lead me to the path of Public Victory!