PsicoGDL

Anyone who thinks the audiocassette adaptation of Stephen Covey’s bestseller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is a shortcut to reading the book has another thing coming. As a preview, the cassette is worth every one of its 90 minutes; as a substitute for the original, it will only leave you wishing for the rest. There’s a reason 7 Habits has sold more than 5 million copies and been translated into 32 languages. Serious work has obviously gone into it, and serious change can likely come out of it–but only with constant discipline and steadfast commitment. As the densely packed tape makes immediately clear, this is no quick fix for what’s ailing us in our personal and professional lives.

The tape opens to the silky-smooth, overtrained voice of the female narrator, who’s responsible for tying together audio clips from actual Covey seminars. Leaving aside the occasional attempts at promoting Covey and his institute, her script does a first-rate job of making sense of Covey’s own intense, analogy-rich style of explaining his habits. There’s nothing simple about his approach to becoming an effective person. The first three habits alone–which have to do with personal responsibility, leadership, and self-management–could take years to master. Yet the last four are unattainable, the narrator insists, if you can’t acquire the personal security–the “inner core,” says Covey–that presumably comes from a mastery of the foundation.

Throughout our lessons, Covey’s presence is both learned and thoroughly appealing. He drops references to the likes of Socrates, T.S. Eliot, and Robert Frost with the aplomb of an English professor. And his knack for mixing everyday stories with abstract concepts manages to clarify difficult issues while respecting our intelligence. You could argue that the cassette is nothing more than a clever marketing tool for selling another few million copies of the book. But, even at that, it’s worth the investment in time and concentration: in the end, we’re moved to learn more about integrating all seven habits in our struggle to become better and, yes, more effective people. (Running time: 1.5 hours, one cassette) –Ann Senechal –This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

People disappoint. Daily. Hourly. Why not wise up and get ready for it? The sooner you learn to stop getting sucker-punched and letting yourself get pissed off, the sooner you can get back to doing your own thing, your own way. In our book, we’ve selected and analyzed the ten most troublesome types of people, then fired out techniques for going over, under or through them. In the meantime, featuring some of their common phrases, here’s a handy guide for spotting the Ten Least Wanted, appearing now in an office near you…

Playboy contributing editor Littman (coauthor of The Art of Innovation) and Hershon, comedian and branding expert, offer a guide for surviving corporate life, flush with clever nomenclature for specific types of exasperating co-workers, such as the Stop Sign, who always has a reason your idea won’t work, or the Bulldozer, who bullies his projects through the system. But rather than offering constructive ways of collaborating with problematic colleagues, Hershon and Littman spend most of the book suggesting ways to avoid them altogether by being a soloist, a corporate loner who taps into innovative reserves rather than bending to be a team player. The authors give examples of such successful soloists as Craig Newmark, corporate misfit and founder of Craig’s List. While amusing and filled with entertaining examples of antisocial geeks who made good, the aim and audience of the book is unclear. The reader is left wondering if it is better to opt out of corporate life altogether rather than have to confront co-workers who exhibit chronically unacceptable behavior. (June)
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