Win/Win Managers
The win/win paradigm is a management style that seeks to bring the greatest benefit to all concerned, standing in diametrical position to the win at all cost take no prisoners approach. The author suggests that when this paradigm is running smoothly:
“The manager can then serve like a pace car in a race.”
Emotional Bank Account
The author is a big fan of the metaphor. This literary device is sprinkled liberally throughout the text. On some occasions, even brings attention to the fact. This, of course, does nothing to lessen the fact of it being a metaphor. One of the foundational metaphors to illustrate big points is the concept of making deposits in Emotional Bank Accounts. And what is that, exactly? Well:
“An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that's been built up in a relationship.”
Maturity
Ever wonder what the maturity is? According to the author, it is a metaphor and a necessary component of one’s character if one hopes to become an effective manager:
“Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration.”
What is Synergy?
Good question. This has long been one of the most popular buzzwords in the field of management, but does anybody really know what it means? Those who have Covey’s book do because he distills the vague and ambiguous into a very concrete metaphor that makes synergy much clearer than many long-winded academic definitions:
“If you put two pieces of wood together they will hold much more than the total of the weight held by each separately.”
If any questions still remain, he immediately smooths out the imagery by placing the idea of synergy into mathematical context: Synergy is when “one plus one equals three or more.”
The Most Effective Metaphor in the Book
One of the most…effective…metaphors the author uses is a story about coming upon a man clearly working way too hard at sawing down a tree to be considered effective. When the person stumbles upon the woodcutter and notices the exhaustive effort he is putting into the job, he suggests that perhaps he would be more efficient if he sharpened the blade of his saw. To which the woodcutter replies that he doesn’t have time to sharpen the blade because he’s too working too hard sawing with it. What makes this the book’s best use of metaphor is that it gets the point of Habit 7 across—ironically—more effectively than the sixteen pages worth explication which follows.
