Well here I am in week 7 of my Business 183 class. I am
still very much enjoying my class and enjoying the reading and learning I get
to do. This week we talked about the
seven habits from Stephen R. Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
. I would like to focus on one of
them, habit 4, think win/win.
Especially in today’s world, we tend to think if someone
wins, someone else must lose. We are
taught to think of ourselves, crush the competition, and disregard the other
side. Mr. Covey stresses that this doesn’t have to be the case. In business especially, we need to work on
this win/win principle. He stresses that
we must focus on results. An example of
a win/win situation is bringing a product to market.
In the process we
could look for losers if we wanted to.
Maybe we were try to undercut a supplier and squeeze them promising more
business later, maybe we make a cheap product and sell it high to hurt the consumer. Instead, if we think of the win/win
situation, we can work with our suppliers so we can get product at a good price
and they can have a good and lucrative deal with us. In turn, we make a good, quality product for
our consumer and price it fair where we make a good profit, but we add value to
our customers. I know this is a
simplistic view, but it shows how winning on all sides is better for everyone.
On another note, my waking up at 4:30am is still going
great. I’m eating well and able to focus
on the things I need to. I would
continue to challenge anyone reading this to try it out. Until next week.