How to Win Friends and Influence People

RATING: 7/10

An essential book in your library for everyday social interactions and basic social etiquette.

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Notes:

Dale Carnegie would tell you that he made a living all these years, not by teaching public speaking—that was incidental.  His main job was to help people conquer their fears and develop courage.

The survey revealed that the prime interest of adults is health.  It also revealed that their second interest is in developing skill in human relationships—they want to learn the technique of getting along with and influencing other people.  They don’t want to become public speakers, and they don’t want to listen to a lot of high-sounding talk about psychology; they want suggestions they can use immediately in business, in social contacts and in the home.

Skeptics might say this is alright for them, but not for me [paraphrasing pg 199]

You may be right.  Nothing will work in all cases—and nothing will work will all people.  If you are satisfied with the results, you are now getting, why change?  If you are not satisfied, why not experiment?

If you increase your successes by a mere 10 percent, you have become 10 percent more effective as a leader that you were before—and that is your benefit.

Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do almost anything to get it.  But nobody wants insincerity.  Nobody wants flattery.

Let me repeat: the principles taught in this book will work only when they come from the heart.  I am not advocating a bag of tricks.  I am talking about changing people.

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.

 

Contents:

Part One

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

Give honest and sincere appreciation.

Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Part Two

Six ways to make people like you

Become genuinely interested in other people.

Smile.

Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.

Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Part Three

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.

Part Four

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

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 people’s 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. 

 

Part I: The Fundamentals

PRINCIPLE 1: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. 

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them.  Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do.  That’s a lot more profitable than criticism; and it breeds sympathy tolerance and kindness.  “To know all is to forgive all.”

“Judge not, that ye be judged.”

“I will speak ill of no man, “… and speak all the good I know of everybody.” – Benjamin Franklin

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain—and most fools do.  But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

A Great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.

 

PRINCIPLE 2: Give Honest and Sincere Appreciation

The Deepest urge in human nature is the “desire to be important”

“I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.” – Charles Schwab

“There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors.  I never criticize anyone.  I believe in giving a person incentive to work.  So I am anxious to praise, but loath to find fault.  If I like anything, I am hearty in my appreciation and lavish in my praise.”

“Every man I meet is my superior in some way.  In that, I learn of him.” -Emerson

 

PRINCIPLE 3: Arouse in the other person an eager want

The only way to influence people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

“Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire…first, arouse in the other person an eager want.  He who can do this had the whole world with him.  He who cannot walks a lonely way.” —Harry A. Overstreet.

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” —Henry Ford

“People who can put themselves in the place of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for them.”  —Owen D. Young

Looking at the other person’s point of view and arousing in him an eager want for something is not to be constructed as manipulating that person so that he will do something that is only for your benefit and his detriment.  Each party should gain from the negotiation.

  

Part II: 6 Ways to Make People Like You

PRINCIPLE 1: Become genuinely interested in other people 

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

People are interested in themselves

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others.  It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.

Take interest in “below the line” people or everyone for that matter

If we want to make friends, let’s put ourselves out to do things for other people—things that require time, energy, unselfishness, and thoughtfulness.

A show of interest, as with every other principle of human relations, must be sincere.  It must pay off not only for the person showing the interest, but for the person receiving the attention.

PRINCIPLE 2: Smile

Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, “I like you.  You make me happy.  I am glad to see you.”

You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.  —William James

The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to set up cheerfully and act and speak if cheerfulness were already there…

Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it.  That is by controlling your thoughts.  Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions.  It depends on inner conditions.  It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.  It is what you think about.

Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual…Thought is supreme.  Preserve a right mental attitude—the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer.  To think rightly is to create.  All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered.  We become like that on which our hearts are fixed.  Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high.  We are gods in the chrysalis.

 

PRINCIPLE 3: Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language: REMEMBER PEOPLE’S NAME

The executive who tells me he can’t remember names is at the same time telling me he can’t remember a significant part of his business and is operating on quicksand.”  —Benton Love

Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that one of the simplest, most obvious and most important ways of gaining good will was be remembering names and making people feel important—yet how many of us do?

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.  —Emerson

 

PRINCIPLE 4: Be a Good Listener.  Encourage others to talk about themselves. 

Few human beings are proof against flattery of rapt attention.  —Jack Woodford

I really know I love me because whenever I want to talk to you about something, you stop whatever you are doing and listen to me.

Many people fail to make a favorable impression because they don’t listen attentively.  They have been so much concerned with what they are going to say next that they do not keep their ears open…Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any good trait.  —Isaac F. Marcosson

If you aspire to become a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener.  To be interesting, be interested.  Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering.  Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.

 

PRINCIPLE 5: Talk in Terms of the Other Person’s Interests 

Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat up late at night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested.  For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or he treasures most.

PRINCIPLE 6: Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely

If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return—if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so richly deserve.

Law: Always makes the other person feel important

The deepest urge in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

The unvarnished truth is almost all the people you meet feel themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their hearts is to let them realize in some subtle way that you recognize their importance, and recognize it sincerely.

Every man that I meet is my superior in some way.  In that, I learn of him. —Emerson

Talk to people about themselves, and they will listen for hours.

Part III: How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

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

You can’t win an argument.  You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.  Why?  Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos mentis (not of sound mind).  Then what?  You will feel fine.  But what about him?  You have made him feel inferior.  You have hurt his pride.  He will resent your triumph.  And—“A man convinced against his will, Is of the same opinion still.”

If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponents good will.  —Benjamin Franklin

You may be right, dead right, as you speed along in your argument; but as far as changing another’s mind is concerned, you will probably be just as futile as if you were wrong.

Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love.  —Buddha

PRINCIPLE 2: Show Respect for the other person’s opinions.  Never say, “You’re wrong.”

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 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

When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is almost immediately to 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 Rogers

Be diplomatic, it will help you gain your point.  —King Akhtoi

Agree with thin adversary quickly. —Jesus

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

Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say—and say them before that person has a chance to say them.  The chances are a hundred to one that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and your mistakes will be minimized.

Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes—and most fools do—but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes.

By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than expected.

PRINCIPLE 4: Begin in a Friendly Way

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.  Buy they may possibly be led to, if we are gently and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.

A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. —Abraham Lincoln

The sun can make you take off your coat more quickly than the wind; and kindliness, the friendly approach and appreciation can make people change their minds more readily than all the bluster and storming in the world.

PRINCIPLE 5: Get the other Person saying “yes” “yes” immediately

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 that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.

The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “Yes” responses.  This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the affirmative direction.  It is like the movement of a billiard ball.  Propel in one direction, and it takes some force to deflect it; far more force to send it back in the opposite direction.

Socratic Method: 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 6: Let the other person do a great deal of talking

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’s 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.

If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you. —La Rochefoucauld

Now, when he have time to chat, I ask them to share their joys with me, and I only mention my achievements when they ask.

 

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

Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter?  If so, isn’t it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people?  Isn’t it wiser to make suggestions—and let the other person think out the conclusion?

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 wishers, our wants, our thoughts.

He didn’t care about CREDIT, he wanted RESULTS.

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

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.

If you say to yourself, “How would I feel, how would I react if I were in his shoes?” you will save yourself time and irritation, for “by becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.”  And, in addition, you will sharply increase your skill in human relationships.

Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own.

Before asking anyone to put out a fire or buy your product or contribute to your favorite charity, why not pause and close your eyes and try to think the whole thing through from another person’s point of view?  Ask yourself: “why should he or she want to do this?

PRINCIPLE 9: Be Sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.   

You deserve very little credit for being what you are—and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.

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 10: Appeal to the nobler motives   

You deserve very little credit for being what you are—and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.

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.

PRINCIPLE 11: Dramatize Your Ideas   

Merely stating a TRUTH isn’t enough.  The TRUTH has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic.  You have to show showmanship.  The Movies do it.  Television does it.  And you will have to do it if you want attention.

AKA –don’t be boring

Dramatize—don’t hype, hype=dramatizing an idea that does not live up to it’s promise, thus would not be the truth.

PRINCIPLE 12: Throw Down a Challenge   

The way to get things done is to stimulate competition.  I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in a 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.

Frederic Herzberg, the great behavioral scientist, studied in depth the work attitudes of thousands of people ranging from factory workers to senior executives.  What do you think he found to be the most motivating factor—the one facet of the jobs that was most stimulating?  Money? Good working conditions? Fringe benefits? No—not any of these.  The one major factor that motivated people was the work itself.  If the work was exciting and interesting, the worker looked forward to doing it and was motivated to do a good job.

That is what every person loves: the game.  The chance for self-expression.  The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to win.  That is what makes footraces and hog-calling and pie-eating contests.  The desire to excel.  The desire for a feeling of importance.

Part IV: Be A Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Rousing Resentment

PRINCIPLE 1:  Begin with praise and honest appreciation (if you must find fault, this is the way to begin)

It is 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 2:  Call Attention to people’s mistakes indirectly (how to criticize—and not be hated for it)

Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word “but” and ending with a critical statement.  For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, “we’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term.  But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.”

In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word “but.”  He might then question the sincerity of the original praise.  To him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure.  Credibility would be strained, and we probably would not achieve our objectives of changing Johnnie’s attitude toward his studies.

This could be easily overcome by changing the word “but” to “and.”  “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.

Now Johnnie would accept the praise because there was no follow-up of an inference of failure.  We have called his attention to the behavior we wished to change indirectly, and the chances are he will try to live up to our expectations.

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

It isn’t nearly so difficult to a recital of your own faults if the person criticizing begins by humbly admitting that he, too, is far from impeccable.

PRINCIPLE 4:  Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.  

Owen D. Young never gave a direct order to anyone.  He always gave suggestions.  For example, he would say, “you might consider this,” or “do you think that would work?”   Frequently he would say, after he had dictated a letter, “what do you think of this?” In looking over a letter of one of his assistants, he would say, “maybe if we were to phrase it this way it would be better.”  He always gave people the opportunity to do things themselves; he never told his assistants to do things; he let them do them, let them learn from their mistakes.

PRINCIPLE 5:  Let the other person save face

Letting one save face!  How important, how vitally important that is!  And how few of us ever stop to think of it!  We ride 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!

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.

 

PRINCIPLE 6:  Praise the slightest movement and praise every improvement.  Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.” 

Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we cannot flower and grow without it.

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

Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do almost anything to get it.  But nobody wants insincerity.  Nobody wants flattery.

Let me repeat: the principles taught in this book will work only when they come from the heart.  I am not advocating a bag of tricks.  I am talking about changing people.

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.

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

The average person can be lead readily if you have his or her respect and if you show that you respect that person for some kind of ability.

If you want to improve a person in a certain respect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.” –Shakespeare

Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him.  But give him a good name—and see what happens!

PRINCIPLE 8:  Use encouragement.  Make the fault easy to correct.

Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid of dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve.  But use the opposite technique—Be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an undeveloped flair for it—and he will practice until the dawn comes in the window in order to excel.

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

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.

Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do.

Be empathetic.  Ask yourself what it is the other person really wants.

Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest.

Match those benefits to the other person’s want

If you increase your successes by a mere 10 percent, you have become 10 percent more effective as a leader that you were before—and that is your benefit.

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