Biography

Stephen COVEY

2003 ranking: 16

Stephen Covey is the benchmark for the modern-day guru. First he studied success literature, then he created his own success story. He markets commonsense as timeless wisdom. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was on the New York Times bestseller lists for 250 weeks.

Covey reached a huge global audience with the success of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) which has sold over six million copies. Along the way, the devout Mormon transformed himself into an end-of-the-century Dale Carnegie. ‘He has sold himself with a brashness that makes the over-excited Tom Peters look like a shrinking violet,’ noted The Economist. Another commentator observed that ‘Mr Covey has a knack of dressing up spiritual principles in pinstripes’. In fact, Covey’s ‘principles’ are a mixture of the commonsensical and the hackneyed – ‘be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win/win; seek first to understand then to be understood; synergize; sharpen the saw’. Yet, it is their very simplicity and accessibility which partly explains Covey’s astonishing success.

Success has created a corporation. Franklin Covey was created in 1997 by the merger of training company Franklin Quest and the Covey Leadership Center and now offers “a broad array of professional services and products that work together to help you get results”. These include publications, software programs and has 180 retail stores. The company has 4,500 “members” and boasts that its clients include 90 of the Fortune 100 and three-quarters of the Fortune 500. Covey’s empire is fast becoming a dynasty -- Covey’s son Sean is the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. The FranklinCovey Company now employs over 4300 people and has an annual turnover of $500 million.

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