Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is not a book of tips. It is an argument about character. Covey’s claim is that effectiveness is built from the inside out, and that the tactics people bolt on — the time-management tricks, the communication techniques — fail if the person underneath has not changed. Private victory before public victory. You cannot skip the order.

The book sits on a distinction he spends the opening making. The personality ethic, which he says has dominated the advice of the last century, treats success as image, technique and quick fixes. The character ethic treats it as integrity, courage, patience and the golden rule. Covey is writing to restore the second. The habits are the method.

There are seven, in a sequence. The first three are private victory: be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first. They take you from dependence to independence. The next three are public victory: think win/win, seek first to understand, synergize. They take you from independence to interdependence. The seventh, sharpen the saw, renews the other six. What follows walks them in that order.