As the Post War generation poured out of the First Crucible of adolescence and into the embrace of the Square’s reasonable, responsible, productive adulthood, a new generation of management gurus and efficiency experts were waiting for them.
Business books exploded in popularity in large part because the epicenter of American culture was moving directly toward them. Arthur P. Sloan might have sold millions of cars but his book, published in 1963 and fetchingly titled, “My Years with General Motors” missed the tide and sold much more modestly. Authors like Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard, Peter Senge and Jim Collins sold millions of books not because they were necessarily more insightful than Arthur Sloan but, rather, because the Post War generation had embraced “success” with both hands and it wanted all the help it could find.
One of the least prolific but most successful of this generation of experts was Stephen Covey. The biography of Stephen Covey posted on his publisher’s website practically glitters onscreen.
Recognized as one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential Americans, Stephen R. Covey has dedicated his life to demonstrating how every person can truly control their destiny with profound, yet straightforward guidance. As an internationally respected leadership authority, family expert, teacher, organizational consultant, and author, his advice has given insight to millions. He has sold over 20 million books sold (in 38 languages), and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was named the #1 Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century. His most recent major book, The 8th Habit , has sold nearly 400,000 copies. He holds an MBA from Harvard, and doctorate degree from Brigham Young University. He is the co-founder and vice chairman of FranklinCovey, the leading global professional services firm with offices in 123 countries. He lives with his wife and family in Utah.
Covey is also the most dangerous, deceitful and authoritarian of the crop of business experts that flourished in the 1980’s and and 1990’s. A quick review of the biographies of him that are posted on-line reveal a numbing litany of achievement, success and influence. Far more than Fredrick Taylor or even the Gilbreth’s, Covey succeeded in defining himself and his work exclusively on his own terms. Although the public relations generated by his own business empire exude light and warmth, there is a shadow side to Covey’s career and the ideas he has so relentlessly espoused. His carefully crafted a mantra, “Be proactive. Begin with an end in mind. Put first things first. Think win/win. Seek first to understand. Synergize. Renewal” radically re-defined the pursuit of success as exclusively individual struggle. By cloaking this effort with a patina of moralism, Covey ensures that his mantra can not fail, it can only be failed. Covey did what Taylor never dared even propose. In a cultish fashion he remade his followers into agents of “enforced cooperation.” In Covey’s world, “the man with the stopwatch”– was you.
