7 Habits of Highly Ineffective or Incompetent People

I love reading books mostly fiction, but my boss gifted me 7 Habits of Effective People - written by Stephen Covey on my birthday. I was happy to receive this book as gift but it was full of Gyaan ! It stayed untouched for sometime in one of the corners of my book shelf. Last Sunday I was busy rearranging my book shelf to make it a bit more organized and bumped into this book. I didn’t have anything on cards as wifey was out with her friends. I thought of daring to read this book. After reading it I felt, if I would have read this book earlier maybe I would have been a better person, but as they say “Better Late, Than Never”

The problem with me after reading these life changing books full of gyaan is that I start thinking what if these books were full of fun and wit, how would the writer have had written it ? This thought triggered series of thoughts, out of which one of them was quiet interesting, The book talked about seven habits of highly effective people, I wondered ‘What if someone thinks about writing 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective/Incompetent People ?’

Habit 1:  Never Be Proactive

Number of Initiatives Initiated by ineffective individuals in any organization is never greater than zero. If by mistake they take some initiatives then they are of no value add to the organization, eg: “how about installing some gaming consoles in the cafeteria for employee benefit”. These kinda people are never proactive, whenever asked in a meeting or offered any responsibilities up for grabs these individuals would be the first ones to look sideways.

Habit 2:  Begin with Partying at Project End in Mind

They will always be part of planning activities but not the ones that are related to work. They would be busy planning what they would do after they reach home from work or how would they like to spend their weekends. They are the first ones who would suggest to plan for an overnight trip or party at the end of a project but would never ever like to participate in any work related activities.

Habit 3:  Put First Things Last

These people are expert at prioritizing last things first. They can never judge which are the tasks to be completed on top priority and which tasks could be kept on backburner, which would in turn result into projects getting delayed to the point of no completion!

Habit 4:  Think Lost/Lose

They don’t have their brain in the right place but their ego is definitely at the right place. They believe in the mantra “If I can’t win the race I would not let other’s win either”.   

Habit 5:  Seek First to Be Understood, Then to Understand

These individuals seek first to be understood, and only then try to understand the other person. These people believe that Speaking one’s dumbest mind out is more important than listening to someone’s valuable suggestions or inputs.

Habit 6:  Never Synergize

These people either have high superiority complex or suffer from inferiority complex. They can neither perform as part of the team nor can deliver anything all alone. This habit of theirs doesn’t allow them to seek a solution from someone who can actually help them out of the situation for their own good.

Habit 7:  Make the Saw Blunt

A person grows in life as an individual or as a team member only if he is constantly seeking for challenges or aspires to learn something new every now and then. However, ineffective individuals are happy in their own make believe world (also known as comfort zone) and never believe in learning new things, sharpening skills, being better individual or ever thinking about facing new challenges by exploring new arenas.