Stephen R. Covey speaks to students

Award-winning author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen R. Covey spoke on campus last Tuesday as part of UVUSA’s symposium “A New U.”

Covey explained to the student audience the world they will enter after college and how to land any job.

In entering the world after college, Covey said, students need to be ready for a different set of expectations in the workforce because the paradigm is shifting from an industrial age to a knowledge-worker age.

The differences between the two ages are that the industrial age is based on control, position leadership, boss-centered. People are viewed as expenses, and the boss owns responsibility for the result whereas, the knowledge worker age unleashes talent, choice leadership, complementary team culture, and the culture owns responsibility for results and self-manages.

Covey spoke on culture and how it can overlay a person’s natural, true potential because it forces them to base their self-worth on what others think of them.

“People grow up with comparison-based identities, meaning their sense of worth doesn’t come from within, it comes from people’s opinions of them and how they stack up,” Covey said. “When man found the mirror, he began to lose his soul. The point is, he became more concerned with his image than with himself.”

He said that a person must have a value system to keep their true potential. In a visual presentation, he compared a compass to a person with a principle based value system. A magnet was then placed by it and the direction arrow went in several directions, illustrating a person who has no moral system.

When speaking on how to get a job, Covey recommended identifying a problem in the organization and then present yourself as the solution to it. It takes more time and research, but he guaranteed it would land a person a job.

“If you take the traditional approach, it’s a toss up,” Covey said.

Covey also spoke of the new UVU president, Matthew Holland, saying he had talked him into applying for the position.

“[Holland] is a very visionary, competent and caring person,” Covey said.

Other speakers in the two-day symposium included Jeanette Hales Beckham, chair of UVU Board of Trustees, Carole Haney of Utah Community Credit Union and Nora Denzel of Intuit.