The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (2)

[MMK]

The Seven Habits--An Overview

Production and Production Capability

The Tale of the Golden Goose: There was once a farmer who bought a golden goose. A week later the golden goose laid a golden egg! The farmer was ecstatic! He cashed the golden egg and had a wild time. The following week he finds that the golden goose laid another golden egg! Again he cashes it in and spends the money. This happens week after week until one week the farmer just can't wait till the end of the week to get the golden egg so he kills his golden goose and takes the golden egg out of it. He has another wild time with the money. But the next week he realizes that there is no golden egg, for he has killed his golden goose. The moral of the story is to never kill your golden goose.

Production is taking the golden egg every week. Production Capability is taking care of your golden goose. Covey suggests that we should strike a balance between production and production capability. Just like the farmer, someone who smokes and drinks constantly without exercising is getting too much production out of his body without storing any production capability. Yet someone who jogs 5 hours a day is not producing enough and is storing too much production capability (how long does he want to live anyway?).

Production is getting something to work now (demanding that your son clean his room). Production Capability is making sure something will work in the future (building up an adult-adult relationship with your son so that he is the kind of person who wants to keep his room clean). We should keep these in balance.


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