Surviving in turbulent times with Dr. Stephen R. Covey

Anuradha Kodagoda

"In Franklin Covey's Organization we have more than 5,000 facilitators across the world at different levels.

In South Asia we have about twenty-five facilitators with three to five senior trainers.

Our main inspiration is Dr. Stephen R. Covey, the Vice Chairman of the organization," said the CEO of the Franklin Covey organization, CEO Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh Ameen Ahamed.

"He has received many awards including the Fatherhood Award during the last couple of years and is one of the main leadership Gurus in the world. We are lucky to have him again in Sri Lanka for a leadership workshop for the third consecutive year," he said.

Q. What is the main purpose and objectives of the workshop?

A. Franklin Covey is a global organization, spread in 148 countries. So what we do globally is not only conducting training programs but we also help people to develop and hone their skills. Our mission is very simple, it enables people and organizations to achieve greatness.

To make this a reality, the Franklin Covey organisation works through processes and does research, in such a way that we really enable individuals and organizations to achieve greatness. Our inspiration as an organization is our Core-Chairman and the Core-Founder, Dr. Stephen R. Covey.

He is the best known personality in the world as an author of the book '7 Habits of highly effective People' and many other books.

Two months ago he launched a book 'A Leader in Me' to reveal to the world how school principles and academic staff have used the 7 Habits principals and curricula to develop school children's skills and abilities to achieve greatness.

Many organizations have already used 7 habits principles and curricula. We hope this would be a great opportunity for them to discuss their experiences with Dr. Stephen Covey, the changes they have made in their lives, in the organization and the employees of the organization by reviewing these concepts.

These are the main specific reasons for Stephen Covey's visit to Sri Lanka to talk about how we could survive in these turbulent times. However, we are lucky to get him down to Sri Lanka for the third consecutive time.

Q. Why do you think the leadership programs and positive thinking concepts are essential for the corporate sector as well as people in general?

A. The concept of positive thinking is probably more skills related. What actually we talk about is how we could internationalize the development of individuals.

We are talking about Agole principles and concepts that are unique for everyone.

It's a process of working in a proactive mindset rather than a reactive mindset. To be a highly effective individual you need to be highly proactive throughout, rather than being only reactive in the situation. In our positive thinking workshops we encourage people to think positively always, even in highly turbulent situations, because if you don't think positively and if you don't act positively that will have a negative result on your organization as well as on the world.

The classic example is the current economic crisis in the world; if we are proactive as individuals or organizations we still can survive in the situation.

There are many organizations in the world which are ready to face any difficult situations positively because they have been proactive from the very beginning. We believe that's where leadership matters.

Our main target here is to build strong leadership teams in organizations, and for that we need to help individuals.

Unless we build strong leadership individuals, we cannot build strong leadership teams, and finally the entire organization fails. That's why it is very important to work effectively rather than efficiently.

Being effective means, what an organization receives today that they should receive every day. We hope to provide knowledge for the participants of this workshop on how to work and how to get the maximum out of the employees by being effective rather than being efficient.

Q. In what areas do you think this workshop would influence people to develop their corporate career as well as their personal lives?

A. Specifically this workshop is designed to present it to the leadership at every level.

That's why we call this leadership program "How to really overcome challenges in turbulent times?" To overcome the turbulent times if you are a CEO or a head of a department of an organization you should think differently and act in the right way by using the correct concepts.

It doesn't matter how the outside situation badly affects your organization as long as you are strong and smart enough, where you can think of the execution strategies of the organization.

The Franklin Covey organisation is spending a huge amount of money on Research and Development to find out and develop the best concepts for our clients which the other consulting institutes have not even given thought.

Coming out with a brilliant strategy is not a difficult task.

But what differentiates a great organization from an average organization is the execution of the strategy. Franklin Covey has mastered that and come out with brilliant execution processes based on the principles that Stephen R. Covey has been talking about for years.

Hence all leadership personalities should attend this program and listen to Stephen Covey on what indicators to follow during these times of turbulence of an organization.

Q. What is the advertising media you use in your organization?

A. The Franklin Covey organization has been executing its services in Sri Lanka for the past five and a half years, and we have been working with many large organizations as well as the government sector.

For example, one of our main clients is People's Bank where we conduct many leadership and 7 habits concepts training programs.

We work closely with the corporate sector and provide our services to Brandix, MAS Holdings, Unilever, Orient Lanka and many other organizations. We don't do much publicity on the mass media for our organization but we always try to develop and maintain a very close relationship with our clients.

But of course we do public presentations on newspaper advertisements.

Q. Who is the audience for this workshop?

A. The workshop is targeted at people who work directly towards senior management. Therefore, they can be CEOs, Heads of Departments, middle management and senior management, who make use of these concepts and strategies to come up with better achievements.

There are also some individuals who attend this workshop who read the books of Stephen R. Covey and inspired their lives.

We are focusing on providing solutions rather than one or two days training programs. As an organization we highly believe that people need a real change.

Otherwise an organization might not invest their hard earned money on training and development if they cannot get what they expect in return. It's not expenditure but a return on investment. What we actually do is to support these clients to get the best return of the organization as well as the individuals.

We have not closed the registration process yet since we have another few days for the workshop and we are still getting applications. We might close registrations this Friday. This time we are limiting the participants to a maximum of 250.

The workshop will be held on January 31 and anyone who seeks information should not hesitate to log in to our website for further details.