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Effective Intending is proactive
Intending interprets the world in terms of opportunities to act rather than as limitations on action. It involves awareness, sensitivity, choice, initiative, responsibility and commitment. Needs and interests are addressed rather than merely acknowledged. Intending initiates thought to influence, interpret or improve a situation rather than only to passively experience it. Intending is empowered by emotion, shaped by attention, and guided by conscience as it functions to manage efforts to achieve worthwhile objectives. Intending is concerned with needing, not having, the future with respect to the present, and what can be, more than what is. Intentions are shaped by emotions, circumstances, and prior experience to constitute the motivations, purposes, and preferences that initiate and guide experience. |
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Effective Defining has the end in mind
Defining addresses the world in order to apprehend it for some purpose - "to lay hold of it with understanding". To be effective, defining must recognize the relevance and potential utility of information to the fulfilment of an intention regarding a particular situation. Although defining is guided by intention it is limited by what exists, is declared or is known. The features and attributes of things are recognized through perception but specified and made useful through language to identify, describe, and provide relevant and useful information in forms appropriate to the circumstances. Definitions are discrete entities (items, elements or components) that have an identity, substance and meanings that can be explored, organized and analysed. Defining remains open to new information and interpretation. |
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Effective Exploring is value based
Explorations into the possible relationships between things should be guided by appropriateness to intention, goodness of fit, power and simplicity. To effectively explore a situation curiosity, imagination, intuition and reason are used to organize and analyse its defining elements (or their features) in relation to issues and ideas of interest. The objective of exploring is to make certain that the relationships in a concept, map or model fit the territory they refer to or represent. |
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Effective Suggesting is win-win
All roles and goals are resolved with some context of interaction and communication in mind. To be effective one must approach suggestion as a transaction that everyone affected can fully understand. This requires the ability to communicate with empathy, to listen carefully and to express things in ways that are meaningful and of interest to those concerned. Suggestion should always propose and interpret change and solicit response before initiating action. |
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Effective Innovating puts first things first
An innovater does what is called for to accomplish what is intended in a time ordered way. Whoever undertakes the process of innovation assumes responsibility for the quality of the outcome. Delegation of this responsibility to others should focus on results and supportive assistance rather than on how the results are achieved by the one taking responsibility. To be an effective innovater it is necessary to place will and discipline in the service of what is most important, not merely what is urgent and to the capacity for production as well as to its product. The management of innovation and the use of resources must be timely, skillful, and efficient while being flexible and responsive when something unanticipated occurs. |
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Effective Goalgetting involves synergizing
The satisfaction of an intention is a function of expectation as well as the outcome of a process. Relating performance to intention during an experience is necessary for evaluating and regulating the process by which goals are reached. To be effective at reaching goals it is also necessary to be objective in interpreting events, learning to see causes as well as consequences, and to recognize outcomes and patterns that are stable as well as dynamic. Different points of view and different standards of performance must be reconciled to make an experience understandable as well as satisfying. |
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Effective Knowing requires self-renewal
Conscience and the enduring values on which it depends are derived from collective experience. To be effective at knowing one must reflect on this experience, and the individual contributions within it, to develop an autonomous moral and ethical perspective that can guide action, one that can absorb knowledge and the wisdom and balance needed to improve the quality of life. Knowing is concerned with the continuing validation, renewal and extension of personal effectiveness. |
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1. Stephen R.Covey, (1989) The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon and Schuster, NY