In October, we completed a 13-day, 7-country speaking tour with Dr. Covey across Europe. Having just joined Stephen’s team as his program manager, I was amazed at his energy level and stamina for a demanding travel schedule. How does he do this? The answer is simple: his passion drives him. Even though I found myself at times running low on energy, trying to keep up with a hectic schedule, I felt inspired by Dr. Covey’s energy for meeting with people and organizations to present principles for effectiveness and success. I felt equally inspired by the many audiences and people we met, who were so teachable and thirsting for the principles Dr. Covey teaches.

Dr. Covey presented in the Czech Republic, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Denmark. Here are some snapshots of the trip:

Dr. Covey had the opportunity to have dinner with a business team from the Czech Republic. He felt so impressed with each team member and their enthusiasm to use principles and FranklinCovey solutions to strengthen individuals, organizations, and families. He was also impressed with their willingness to share their feelings about their own lives and the culture in Prague.

In Kazakhstan, Dr. Covey was intrigued by the questions posed by the audience and sensed their struggle with applying the principles into their businesses to move from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Worker Age. However, he was impressed with their desire to learn new paradigms of thinking and adopting new models of doing business, and, given time, he felt they would succeed. He also had the opportunity to present the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families and was very touched by their humility and eagerness to strengthen their families and relationships with each other.

He spoke to three different audiences in Latvia: university students, community, and business leaders. Each audience was extremely different, but all were like sponges soaking up the information. Many university students stood for over an hour while Dr. Covey presented. The questions asked by the business leaders intrigued and excited him. He could tell that many of them were already moving from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Worker Age.

In Denmark, we visited a school which was launching the 7 Habits in their curriculum. Dr. Covey was greeted enthusiastically by students, teachers and administrators who were filled with passion for the 7 Habits and for their plans to transform their school.

I’m very excited to have these experiences and see first-hand the power of principle-centered leadership—and how masterful Dr. Covey is in teaching universal principles. Our next international trip is to Brazil…I’ll report on that soon.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: Czech Republic, Denmark, Europe, Greece, industrial age, Kazakhstan, knowledge-worker age, Latvia, Portugal, principle-centered leadership, principles, Spain, Stephen R. Covey

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm and is filed under On The Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.