Two Efficiency Gurus Who Failed Their Own Course

In the past decade, Stephen R. Covey has become a cult hero to those looking for ways to make their lives and businesses more effective. His best-selling manifesto, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has sold nearly 13 million copies since it was first published in 1989. By the mid-1990s, Covey had turned such commonsense bromides as "putting first things first" into nearly a $100 million-a-year empire of books, tapes, and seminars, and was counseling 82 of the 100 largest U.S. companies.

Covey had bigger ambitions, however, and in 1997, he combined forces with time-management guru Hyrum W. Smith, father of the Franklin Day Planner and author of his own best-selling efficiency tome The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management. The two men set out to create a juggernaut of efficiency training. "We intend to apply our expertise to our own merger," said Covey, 66, when the deal closed, "thereby creating a model merger for corporate industry."