If you are already familiar with the theory of TQM, this book is helpful for you to implement TQM in your company. The author presented his methodology Five-Phase Approach(TM) in detail, so that the in-house facilitators can incorporate this approach into their own implementation plan. For those companies want to save consultation fees, this book is a good saving.

If you are proficient in The Seven Habits and you have a management or leadership career, this book could be a valuable tool. I would recommend reading The 7 Habits first, as a sound foundation to help you understand this book. Families and especially individuals will find little to gain from this career-oriented book. It isn't as easy to apply, confirm, or understand as the 7 habits. It contains some fresh material but much of it is a repeat from the 7 Habits. Much of Principle-Centered is repetitive within itself. This book is very pale and disappointing in comparison with The Seven Habits. In it, Covey attempts to negate Freud's theories by saying they were developed his theories from the study of neurotic and psychotic people. I wonder if it would follow then that Covey's books would not help such people. This book is more sermon-like and preachy than his other books.

This book is written in a clear and down to earth style and has practical ideas and suggestions to make you more like that ideal leader you envision. Remember that leader in your mind you wish was encouraging you daily? Covey helps you to learn to be more like that person than you thought possible. The book promotes the idea that business and ethics are not mutually exclusive. Covey explains that the foundation of an organization must be built on individual trustworthiness, which in turn leads to trust, then to empowerment and finally alignment. He gives you a practical step-by-step process to practice and preach these principles to unleash the potential of organizations after they begin to be run by principle-centered leaders. He leads you down a long journey of hard work, commitment, and long-term perspective to end up realizing what success is all about. Some may feel that the book is effective for beginners rather than experienced managers, but I feel that anyone can take away ideas and reminders on how to become a better person and in turn a great leader. His explanations allow us to understand people and human nature, which in turn allows for better effective management of people.

Think about this idea.... In order to have trust, you need trustworthy people, in order to have empowerment you need to have trust, in order to have organizational alignment you need to have empowerment. What a concept !!! And yet so many of us try to create organizational strategies and ask people to align to them. If you want to take the truely effective route to getting your organiztion aligned to a strategy, read this book, better yet get the 6 set cassette tapes and listen to the over and over. You will soon begin to understand Covey's inside out approach and how it makes the world of difference in how you approach the problem of leadership in your organization. A must for anyone in a leadership position or wanting to influence someone in a leadership position.

This is clearly a secondary work. It is more in the nature of evidence that the principles taught in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People work.

Putting the Seven Habits to work requires commitment and patience. In my personal life, I have always had to work very hard to choose my response, instead of just snapping at the other person if they did not agree with me.

I find many of these stories interesting. However I also find that this book is not essential to following the Seven Habits. The best use of this book is if you are skeptical about the Seven Habits, then you can read it so that you get proof it works. Then you can go to the main book.

This said, I believe that Stephen Covey must get off the Seven Habits bandwagon. His first work was a masterpiece that I continue to read and re-read. Subsequent derivative works have not achieved the greatness of the first, and he is in real risk of diluting the Seven Habits franchise if he goes on and on. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a completed work. The brilliant thinking and concepts that produced it do not need a book every year to keep them going.

I also believe that the observance of the Seven Habits are a necessary condition for true success but not a sufficient condition. It would be enlightening to see Dr. Covey explore other essential areas of improvement in self, family and business without necessarily being locked in to the Seven Habits. I want to know if there are habits eight, nine and ten. I suspect there are, though I don't know what they are.

It's time for a paradigm shift, Dr. Covey.

I like this book. It is very inspiritional. It's sort of like Chicken Soup for the Soul or like an Millionaire Next Door for inspirition and attitude. It tells stories of people who have done it---used the 7 Habits and gotten incredible results.1 star reviewers don't like it because it takes all of the wind out of their claims against Covey and his philosophy.I particularly enjoyed the story on page 57, "I can choose my life." Very, very powerful.7 Habits should be your first book to read. You can then add this one either as a companion to while reading 7 Habits or after you get through the 7 Habits.I also recommend Principle Centered Leadership.

If "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is the theory, then this book is the application thereof. Covey sometimes feared that concrete examples might confuse readers about the habits, believing that a particular ACTION was confused for the PRINCIPLE or habit. I do not think that this is the case if a person reads the former book before tackling "The Courage to Change." The book illustrates the 7 habits in several different situations ranging from family to business and to social organizations. Some of the stories might bring readers to tears - some deal with deep tragedy. Others illustrate the courage to change long-held beliefs when reality said that those beliefs were no longer valid for the changing times and circumstances. Most of the stories are only a few pages long and can be read in one sitting. In some cases, several can be read in one sitting.

This is a must read for students of Covey.

Artwork is definitely for a couple with children. However, I intend to use the ideas within my "own paradigm," so to speak. I would use or adjust the wording, and, perhaps, decorate the sheets with my own inovations. After all, my husband, MY lipstick, with, of course, MY lips (for that one particular sheet). I hope this is okay with Mr. Covey, but, I have a sneaky suspicion that somehow this is just what he intended.

The initial problem with this book and perhaps the major problem with it begins in the very first chapter. Covey explains that science and scientists are truest to their profession when they recognize that science does not necessarily have 'the truth' but is trying to more closely approximate what it believes to be the truth. In other words there is no real absolute. He even talks about how people have different realities. But all of this discussion of science and its ideals is thrown away once he introduces the basic idea of the book, The Divine Center. The basic notion is that the only thing that is constant in people's lives is God and/or Christ. Because that is the only constant, people should set it up as the focus of their lives and live their lives in accordance with the teachings of Christ. Of course, there is a stipulation, you must do it according to the Mormon conception of God or Christ and if you don't and are not Mormon then you're going to hell.

So, if you are Mormon, you may appreciate this book because it lends toward Mormon exclusivity and a sense of superiority. But no one else would find this book at all beneficial.

But even for Mormons, there are a lot of problems in this book, which I hope to outline below. Most of them are contradictions or instructions by Covey on how to live your life that are not specified within Mormon dogma.

The initial and major contradiction begins on page 13, "But whenever a person has a new world view or a new paradigm, he feels both exhilarated and humbled by it. He feels that the former view was not so much wrong as partial, as if he had been observing with restricted vision. He is exhilarated because in making the shift he has gained not simply more knowledge but a whole new way of knowing. He is humbled because he knows that improvements in his world view still will and must take place." This idea of changing paradigms is then followed by Covey's absolutist view on the very same page, "As we will see throughout the rest of this book, believing is seeing, Believing in the Creator of the territory [God or Christ] as one who has complete integrity, power, and love opens up to us the most accurate map of the territory, enabling us to see and understand it better." He is referring here to the 'perfect' map or Mormonism.

Four pages later he condemns intellectuality, saying, "I am persuaded that intellectual pride is more basic and serious than either social or material pride." He then continues by saying that all of the great scientists of our time were wrong because they did not have 'the Lord's map'.

On page 32 he condemns TV watching, but this would obviously not apply to General Conference and Mormon broadcasts I'm sure. And one page later offers the key to making life a success - work.

A lot of the claims that Covey makes are also based strictly on anecdotal experiences rather than scientific analysis or data. (see p. 64 for example)

There is another great line that illustrates the perspective Covey is taking, "The world generally regards this [achieving perfection] as impossible, but the world is wrong." (p. 78) Throughout you get the impression that this is what Covey really does think, that the world is wrong, that science is wrong.

On p. 88 he teaches that unconditional love exists and that it is a necessary condition to a successful marriage; I don't agree with the idea of unconditional love.

Another major problem with the book is that he repeats himself over and over again. When he talks about all of the things people should not have as the center of their life he repeats it for a couple hundred pages with numerous charts and diagrams as well. Does he really think that people need to hear it that many times to understand it?

In a sense he turns this into the 'Mormon book of everything'. He talks about just about everything Mormons should be doing, could be doing and need to be doing to be healthy, happy, and good Mormons.

On page 162 he talks about how Mormon families should put on an image for everyone else that everything is good in their home, regardless of how bad things really are.

Page 164 he encourages people to live a deluded life, focusing on how they think God would want them to be rather than on hw they should live in a social world.

But perhaps the biggest problem I had with his ideas and teachings is that he actually condones the guilt that religion causes in people's lives. He considers it a positive thing because it encourages people to behave in accordance with church teachings. What he doesn't mention is that guilt is a form of social control and that religion teaches you what you should feel guilty about and then offers a cure for that guilt. It is a horrible system of self-perpetuation employed by religions. (p. 248)

In the end, his basic idea of having a secure center seems to be a good one, assuming that there is something in life that is secure. Ironically not even the doctrines of the Mormon church are secure, so relying upon that for a sense of security seems like a poor idea just as much as relying on any of the other things Covey claims are bad things to focus on (family, friends, leadership, etc.).

The book, as I said, may be a good idea for Mormons that enjoy feeling guilty and want to participate in that form of social control, but anyone else should avoid this book. It teaches a Mormoncentric view of the world and condemns everyone else. I would consider it psychologically unhealthy.

Covey's world-view tolerance and his open-mindedness that seems to be presant in "7 Habits" is NOT present in "Divine Center". Christianity is labeled as "sectarianism" with "false concepts" like "salvation by grace alone" and with "apostate doctrines and interpetations." He says that Christian misuse the "centrality of Christ" concept and are not "blessed with our (LDS) knowledge or our (LDS) gospel ordinances and covenants" (Divine Center, p.68) The Christian view of God, according to covey, is an "incorrect map" or paradigm that is a direct result of apostasy. He thinks that Christians plan to be God's "eternal robots, worshipping him in a saved condition throught eternity." His concern for us is that our view "drastically reduces man's ultimate potential' and that "potential" is that man can "become like the father, a god, capable of eternal increase, of spiritual procreation" (p.81(. The "correct map" according to Covey, is... "As man is, God once was; As God is, man may become" (p.81)

The divine Center is the Mormon doctrine in a generic package. As Covey states in the "Habits" book, we all have different "centers". It appears that Covey may have written this book from his "church" center, as he is a Mormon. If in the purest sense, and if one believes that the Bible is the inspiried "word" of God, then all other writings are "apostate", or part of "the great apostacy" that the apostle Paul speaks of. Though Covey's insight, wisdom & open mindedness is apparent in the "Seven Habits" book, it is not in this one. This writing is "in my opinion", equivalent to books written by the Watchtower Society, or any other religion (or one of it's members) i.e. selling a certain brand of "Christian doctrine" for what ails you. The Bible in and of it's self was good enough for 1st. century Christians, and therefore it should be ample today...