Yikes! I quoted Stephen R. Covey in a webinar recently on "Goal Alignment" and then I looked at my bulging bookshelves. Of more than 200 books I've reviewed so far in my eNews, Your Weekly Staff Meeting, this Covey Classic was missing. Almost unforgivable ... because this 15 million bestseller should be on everyone's Top-100 list.

So ... let me add some guilt to your life. POP QUIZ! Take out a blank piece of paper – and don't read beyond this paragraph. Now ... write down Covey's seven habits from his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.

Okay. How'd you do?

Here's a simple strategy for building board effectiveness: Give Covey's book to another board member and say, "Here! Read this book. Then let's have lunch and talk about it."

Even if you read it years ago, The 7 Habits should have a prominent location on your resource shelf – since it's likely that half your board team has never read this gem. Then, ensure that the seven habits have a prominent place in your organization's culture.

Sometimes the brilliance of a book – or a concept – begins with brilliant labeling. Covey's seven labels all start with a verb and succinctly describe the action step required. (No cutesy acronyms, no twenty dollar words, no trendy clichés.)

Here are the seven habits:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

On his website, Covey summarizes the seven habits. For Habit 6, he writes, "To put it simply, synergy means 'two heads are better than one.' Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn't just happen on its own. It's a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results than they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty – you name it.

"When [board members] begin to interact together genuinely, and they're open to each other's influence, they begin to gain new insight. The capability of inventing new approaches is increased exponentially because of differences.

"Valuing differences is what really drives synergy. Do you truly value the mental, emotional, and psychological differences among people? Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you so you could all get along? Many people mistake uniformity for unity; sameness for oneness. One word – boring! Differences should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses. They add zest to life."

Habit 6 sounds pretty biblical to me!

John Pearson is president of John Pearson Associates, Inc., a management consulting firm based in San Clemente, Calif., that helps nonprofit organizations in vision implementation with detailed execution. He is the author of the book, Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit. Email John Pearson Associates for more information on board consultations, retreats, resources and John Pearson's Nonprofit Board Governance and Management Buckets workshops or call 949-500-0334.