How to Win Friends and Influence People: Part 4- Be A Leader

This last segment in Dale Carnegie's literary masterpiece comprises ideas and conclusions to act upon regarding how to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment. I must admit, my personal copy of this work is becoming quite distressed... as sign that the book is being carried, read, and treasured. It's a pity more books aren't receiving this rare form of attention and admiration. Think of all the unloved books stacking up on shelves and in corners of bookstores/libraries! What is this world coming to? Since I began this project I can't even begin to tell you how many incompetent fools have no idea who Dale Carnegie was nor about this book that sold over 15 million copies while in its readership prime!

I'll jump down from my soap box for a minute, but rest assured... this conversation is bound to be addressed again in the near future!

Mr. Carnegie begins his final exploration to excellence and influence by addressing how, if we must find fault, this is the way to begin:

It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points.

Beginning with praise is like the dentist who begins his work with Novocain. The patient still gets a drilling, but the Novocain is pain-killing. 

Principle 1: Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

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Calling attention to one's mistakes indirectly works wonders with sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism.

Principle 2: Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.

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If a few sentences humbling oneself and praising the other party can turn a haughty, insulted individual into a staunch friend, imagine what humility and praise can do for you and me in our daily contacts. Rightfully used, they will work veritable miracles in human relations. 

Principle 3: Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

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Principle 4: Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

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Letting one save face! How important, how vitally important that is! And how few of us ever stop to think of it! We roughshod over the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing threats, criticizing a child or an employee in front of others, without even considering the hurt to the other person's pride. Whereas a few minutes' thought, a considerate word or two, a genuine understanding of the other person's attitude, would go so far toward alleviating the sting!

Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. 

"I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Principle 5: Let the other person save face.

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"Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we cannot flower a grow without it. And yet, while most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellow the warm sunshine of praise." -Jess Lair, I Ain't Much, Baby--But I'm All I Got

Dale Carnegie retold this story of how praise changed someone's entire future...

In the early nineteenth century, a young man in London aspired to be a writer. But everything seemed to be against him. He had never been able to attend school more than four years. His father had been flung in jail because he couldn't pay his debts, and this young man often knew the pangs of hunger. Finally, he got a job pasting labels on bottles of blacking in a rat-infested warehouse, and he slept at night in a dismal attic room with two other boys--guttersnipes from the slums of London. He had so little confidence in his ability to write that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the dead of night so nobody would laugh at him. Story after story was refused. Finally the great day came when one was accepted. True, he wasn't paid a shilling for it, but one editor had praised him. One editor had given him recognition. He was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly  around the streets with tears rolling down his cheeks.

The praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one story in print, changed his whole life, for if it hadn't been for that encouragement, he might have spent his entire life working in rat-infested factories. You may have heard of that boy. His name was Charles Dickens.

Similar stories are told of great history influences, leaders, and business people like Enrico Caruso and H.G. Wells.

I particularly enjoyed the report of a Mr. John Ringelspaugh in communicating with his children. I figure that if a form of such communication would be acted upon an utilized on a regular basis there would be guaranteed less frustrated parents and fewer insubordinate youth.

"We decided to try praise instead of harping on their faults. It wasn't easy when all we could see were the negative things they were doing; it was really tough to find things to praise. Wee managed to find something, and within the first day or two some of the really upsetting things they were doing quit happening. Then some of their other faults began to disappear. They began capitalizing on the praise we were giving to them. They even began going out of their way to do things right. Neither of us could believe it. Of course, it didn't last forever, but the norm reached after things leveled off was so much better. It was no longer necessary to react the way we used to. The children were doing far more right things than wrong ones."

Everybody likes to be praise, but when praise is specific, it comes across as sincere--not something the other person may be saying just to make one feel good.

Talk about changing people. If you and I will inspire the people with whom we come in contact to a realization of the hidden treasures they possess, we can do far more than change people. We can literally transform them.

"Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the things broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use."
-William James

Principle 6: Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."

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Principle 7: Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

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Principle 8: Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

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Always make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

The effective leader should keep the following guidelines in mind when it is necessary to change attitudes or behavior:

1. Be sincere. Do not promise anything that you cannot deliver. Forget about the benefits to yourself and concentrate on the benefits to the other person.
2. Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do.
3. Be empathetic. Ask yourself what it is the other person really wants.
4. Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest.
5. Match those benefits to the other person's wants.
6. When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that he personally will benefit. Instead of giving a curt order, we could express the same idea by showing the benefits they will get from doing the task.

Principle 9: Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

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In A Nutshell... How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment:

Be a Leader

A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to peoples mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

How to Win Friends and Influence People: Part 3- How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

I didn't particularly like how I broke up the last segment of my reading. I think it got a little monotonous and boring. So my new approach is going to be me compiling an overview of this entire segment, even though there are 12 principles associated with Part 3 of this well written piece of literature.

So, we start this snooze of a review by discussing why its important to remember, we can't win an argument... not if we want to win people over to our way of thinking and ultimately gain friendship and influence! A foreign concept to those who might argue at the professional level as lawyers and public defenders.

Dale Carnegie writes of a resolute conclusion about how there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument--and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

"If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent's good will." -Benjamin Franklin


"Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love." -Buddha

"No man who is resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take the consequences, including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you show no more than equal rights; and yield lesser ones though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite." -Abraham Lincoln

Some suggestions on how to keep a disagreement from becoming an argument:

• Welcome the disagreement.
• Distrust your first instinctive impression.
• Control your temper.
• Listen first.
• Look for areas of agreement.
• Be honest.
• Promise to think over your opponents' ideas and study them carefully.
• Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest.
• Postpone action to tie both sides time to think through the problem.

Principle 1: The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

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According to Mr. Carnegie, there is a sure way of making enemies and he knows how you can avoid it.

You can tell people they are wrong by a look o an intonation or a gesture just as eloquently as you can in words--and if you tell them they are wrong, do you make them want to agree with you? Never! For you have struck a direct blow at their intelligence, judgement, pride and self-respect.

If you are going to prove anything, don't let anybody know about it. Do it so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel that you are doing it. 

"Men must be taught as if you taught them not And things unknown proposed as things forgot."

-Alexander Pope

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself." -Galileo

"Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so." -Lord Chesterfield

"One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing." -Socrates

Showing respect for all and treating them diplomatically and courteously.

"I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand the other person. The way in which I have worded this statement may seem strange to you. Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think it is. Our first reaction to most of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an evaluation or judgement, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is to almost immediately feel 'that's right,' or 'that's stupid,' 'that's abnormal,' 'that's unreasonable,' 'that's incorrect,' 'that's not nice.' Very rarely do we permit ourselves to UNDERSTAND precisely what the meaning of the statement is to the other person." 

-Carl Rodgers

"Be diplomatic. It will help you gain your point." -King Akhitoi, Egypt

Principle 2: Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."

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Another captivating idea occurs in the words of Mr. Carnegie, when he simply states, "If you're wrong, admit it."

When we are right, let's try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking, and when we are wrong--and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves--let's admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm. 

"By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected." -Old Proverb

Principle 3: If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

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"If you come at me with your fists doubled, I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, 'Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from each other, understand why it is that we differ, just what the points at issue are,' we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together." -Woodrow Wilson

"If a man's heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can't win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want to change their minds. They can't be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly." -Abraham Lincoln

"It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart; which, say what you will, is the great high road to his reason." -Abraham Lincoln

That second notion from President Lincoln is an intriguing one. I think it applies to so many basic aspects of relationships. Even those looking for the romantic side of lasting love and marriage. Say your cause is a happy and lasting marriage with someone.... you must first convince your spouse that you are their sincerest and dearest friend. The question is then posed: what defines friendship? How would/does one express that side of love to another?

There have to be practically a million or so quotes and ideas on the very subject of friendship and even love. We should each be striving to be what these words express:

"A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities." -William Arthur Ward

"When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate, and do it." -Edward W. Howe

Principle 4: Begin in a friendly way.

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Dale Carnegie's advise on winning people over to your way of thinking is indeed genuine and a successful tactic to consider and implement...
In talking with people, don't begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing--and keep on emphasizing--the things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you are both striving for the same end and your only difference is one of method and not of purpose. 

*Get the Person to say Yes X 2.

Here is a brief history lesson on the value of Socrates to the world at large:

Socrates, "the gadfly of Athens," was one of the greatest philosophers the world has ever known. He did something that only a handful of men in all history have been able to do: he sharply changed the whole course of human thought; and now, twenty-four centuries after his death, he is honored as one of the wisest persuaders who ever influenced this wrangling world.

His method? Did he tell people they were wrong? Oh, no, not Socrates. He is far too adroit for that. His whole technique, now called the "Socratic Method", was based upon getting a "yes, yes" response. He asked questions with which his opponent would have to agree. He kept on winning one admission after another until he had an armful of yeses. He kept on asking questions until finally, almost without realizing it, his opponents found themselves embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly denied a few minutes previously. 

Principle 5: Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.

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Most people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too much talking themselves. Let the other people talk themselves out. They know more about their business and problems than you do. So ask them questions. Let them tell you a few things.

If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But don't. It is dangerous. They won't pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage them to express their ideas fully.

Principle 6: Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

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In order to gain cooperation, it could prove to be a wise investment to pose suggestions and then let the other person think out the conclusion.

A lot of successful businesses are now utilizing the tactic of asking colleagues and subordinates exactly what they expect of their leaders and peers. It wouldn't seem too far fetched to handle romantic relationships in the same way. I can only imagine how much stronger marriage relations would be if both partners took the time to discuss what the other spouse's expectations for them and also what the other can expect to produce; write them down and apply them daily.

No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something or told to do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, our thoughts.

*Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury." -Lao-tse

Principle 7: Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

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Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don't think so. Don't condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to do that.

There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does. Ferret out that reason--and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality.

By becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.

"Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person's ideas and feelings as important as your own. Starting your conversation by giving the other person the purpose or direction of your conversation, governing what you say by what you would want to hear if you were the listener, and accepting his or her viewpoint will encourage the listener to have an open mind to your ideas." -Dr. Gerald S. Nirenberg, Getting Through to People

If, as a result of reading this book, you get only one thing--an increased tendency to think always in terms of the other person's point of view, and see things from that person's angle as well as your own--if you get only that one thing from this book, it may easily prove to be one of the stepping stones of your career. 

Principle 8: Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.

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Three fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.

"Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults... show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical operations. 'Self-pity' for misfortunes real or imaginary is, in some measure, practically a universal practice." -Dr. Arthur I. Gates, Educational Psychology

Principle 9: Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.

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Principle 10: Appeal to the nobler motives.

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Merely stating a truth isn't enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic.

Principle 11: Dramatize your ideas.

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"The way to get things done, is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel." -Charles Schwab

"All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory." -Ancient Grecian Motto

"I have never found that pay and pay alone would either bring together or hold good people. I think it was the game itself" -Harvey S. Firestone

Every successful person loves the game. It tends to be a chance for self-expression and to prove their worth. They aim to win and to excel. It is a desire for a feeling of importance.

Principle 12: Throw down a challenge.

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In a Nutshell... To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking:

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're Wrong."
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Appeal to the nobler motives.
Dramatize your ideas.
Throw down a challenge.