How to Win Friends and Influence People (14 page)

they are not going to get it.”

“If you don’t want to give it to them, you can very

easily sell it to a secondhand dealer,” he told her.

“Sell it!” she cried. “Do you think I would sell this

car? Do you think I could stand to see strangers riding

up and down the street in that car - that car that my

husband bought for me? I wouldn’t dream of selling it.

I’m going to give it to you. You appreciate beautiful

things."

He tried to get out of accepting the car, but he couldn’t

without hurting her feelings.

This lady, left all alone in a big house with her paisley

shawls, her French antiques, and her memories, was

starving for a little recognition, She had once been

young and beautiful and sought after She had once built

a house warm with love and had collected things from

all over Europe to make it beautiful. Now, in the isolated

loneliness of old age, she craved a little human warmth,

a little genuine appreciation - and no one gave it to her.

And when she found it, like a spring in the desert, her

gratitude couldn’t adequately express itself with anything

less than the gift of her cherished Packard.

Let’s take another case: Donald M. McMahon, who

was superintendent of Lewis and Valentine, nurserymen

and landscape architects in Rye, New York, related

this incident:

“Shortly after I attended the talk on ‘How to Win

Friends and Influence People,’ I was landscaping the

estate of a famous attorney. The owner came out to give

me a few instructions about where he wished to plant a

mass of rhododendrons and azaleas.

“I said, ‘Judge, you have a lovely hobby. I've been

admiring your beautiful dogs. I understand you win a lot

of blue ribbons every year at the show in Madison

Square Garden.’

“The effect of this little expression of appreciation was

striking.

" ‘Yes,’ the judge replied, ‘I do have a lot of fun with

my dogs. Would you like to see my kennel?’

“He spent almost an hour showing me his dogs and

the prizes they had won. He even brought out their

pedigrees and explained about the bloodlines responsible

for such beauty and intelligence.

“Finally, turning to me, he asked: ‘Do you have any

small children?’

" ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied, ‘I have a son.’

" ‘Well, wouldn’t he like a puppy?’ the judge inquired.

" ‘Oh, yes, he’d be tickled pink.’

" ‘All right, I’m going to give him one,' the . judge announced.

He started to tell me how to feed the puppy. Then he

paused. ‘You’ll forget it if I tell you. I’ll write it out.’ So

the judge went in the house, typed out the pedigree and

feeding instructions, and gave me a puppy worth several

hundred dollars and one hour and fifteen minutes of his

valuable time largely because I had expressed my honest

admiration for his hobby and achievements.”

George Eastman, of Kodak fame, invented the transparent

film that made motion pictures possible, amassed

a fortune of a hundred million dollars, and made himself

one of the most famous businessmen on earth. Yet in

spite of all these tremendous accomplishments, he

craved little recognitions even as you and I.

To illustrate: When Eastman was building the Eastman

School of Music and also Kilbourn Hall in Rochester,

James Adamson, then president of the Superior

Seating Company of New York, wanted to get the order

to supply the theater chairs for these buildings. Phoning

the architect, Mr. Adamson made an appointment to see

Mr. Eastman in Rochester.

When Adamson arrived, the architect said: "I know

you want to get this order, but I can tell you right now

that you won’t stand a ghost of a show if you take more

than five minutes of George Eastman’s time. He is a

strict disciplinarian. He is very busy. So tell your story

quickly and get out.”

Adamson was prepared to do just that.

When he was ushered into the room he saw Mr. Eastman

bending over a pile of papers at his desk. Presently,

Mr. Eastman looked up, removed his glasses, and

walked toward the architect and Mr. Adamson, saying:

“Good morning, gentlemen, what can I do for you?”

The architect introduced them, and then Mr. Adamson

said: “While we’ve been waiting for you, Mr. Eastman,

I’ve been admiring your office. I wouldn’t mind working

in a room like this myself. I’m in the interior-woodworking

business, and I never saw a more beautiful office in

all my life.”

George Eastman replied: “You remind me of something

I had almost forgotten. It is beautiful, isn’t it? I

enjoyed it a great deal when it was first built. But I come

down here now with a lot of other things on my mind

and sometimes don’t even see the room for weeks at a

time ."

Adamson walked over and rubbed his hand across a

panel. “This is English oak, isn’t it? A little different

texture from Italian oak.”

“Yes,” Eastman replied. “Imported English oak. It

was selected for me by a friend who specializes in fine

woods ."

Then Eastman showed him about the room, commenting

on the proportions, the coloring, the hand carving

and other effects he had helped to plan and execute.

While drifting about the room, admiring the wood-work,

they paused before a window, and George Eastman,

in his modest, soft-spoken way, pointed out some

of the institutions through which he was trying to help

humanity: the University of Rochester, the General Hospital,

the Homeopathic Hospital, the Friendly Home,

the Children’s Hospital. Mr. Adamson congratulated

him warmly on the idealistic way he was using his

wealth to alleviate the sufferings of humanity. Presently,

George Eastman unlocked a glass case and pulled out

the first camera he had ever owned - an invention he

had bought from an Englishman.

Adamson questioned him at length about his early

struggles to get started in business, and Mr. Eastman

spoke with real feeling about the poverty of his childhood,

telling how his widowed mother had kept a boardinghouse

while he clerked in an insurance office. The

terror of poverty haunted him day and night, and he

resolved to make enough money so that his mother

wouldn’t have to work, Mr. Adamson drew him out with

further questions and listened, absorbed, while he related

the story of his experiments with dry photographic

plates. He told how he had worked in an office all day,

and sometimes experimented all night, taking only brief

naps while the chemicals were working, sometimes

working and sleeping in his clothes for seventy-two

hours at a stretch.

James Adamson had been ushered into Eastman’s office

at ten-fifteen and had been warned that he must not

take more than five minutes; but an hour had passed,

then two hours passed. And they were still talking.

Finally, George Eastman turned to Adamson and said,

“The last time I was in Japan I bought some chairs,

brought them home, and put them in my sun porch. But

the sun peeled the paint, so I went downtown the other

day and bought some paint and painted the chairs myself.

Would you like to see what sort of a job I can do

painting chairs? All right. Come up to my home and have

lunch with me and I’ll show you.”

After lunch, Mr. Eastman showed Adamson the chairs

he had brought from Japan. They weren’t worth more

than a few dollars, but George Eastman, now a multimillionaire,

was proud of them because he himself had

painted them.

The order for the seats amounted to $90,000. Who do

you suppose got the order - James Adamson or one of

his competitors?

From the time of this story until Mr. Eastman’s death,

he and James Adamson were close friends.

Claude Marais, a restaurant owner in Rouen, France,

used this principle and saved his restaurant the loss of a

key employee. This woman had been in his employ for

five years and was a vital link between M. Marais and

his staff of twenty-one people. He was shocked to receive

a registered letter from her advising him of her

resignation.

M. Marais reported: "I was very surprised and, even

more, disappointed, because I was under the impression

that I had been fair to her and receptive to her needs.

Inasmuch as she was a friend as well as an employee, I

probably had taken her too much for granted and maybe

was even more demanding of her than of other employees.

"I could not, of course, accept this resignation without

some explanation. I took her aside and said, ‘Paulette,

you must understand that I cannot accept your resignation

You mean a great deal to me and to this company,

and you are as important to the success of this restaurant

as I am.’ I repeated this in front of the entire staff, and I

invited her to my home and reiterated my confidence in

her with my family present.

“Paulette withdrew her resignation, and today I can

rely on her as never before. I frequently reinforce this

by expressing my appreciation for what she does and

showing her how important she is to me and to the restaurant.”

“Talk to people about themselves,” said Disraeli, one

of the shrewdest men who ever ruled the British Empire.

“Talk to people about themselves and they will

listen for hours ."

PRINCIPLE 6

Make the other person feel important-and

do it sincerely.

In a Nutshell    

SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU

PRINCIPLE 1

Become genuinely interested in other people.

PRINCIPLE 2

Smile.

PRINCIPLE 3

Remember that a person’s name is to that person the

sweetest and most important sound in any language.

PRINCIPLE
4

Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about

themselves.

PRINCIPLE 5

Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

PRINCIPLE 6

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

Part THREE

How to Win People to Your

Way of Thinking

YOU CAN’T WIN AN ARGUMENT

Shortly after the close of World War I, I learned an invaluable

lesson one night in London. I was manager at

the time for Sir Ross Smith. During the war, Sir Ross had

been the Australian ace out in Palestine; and shortly

after peace was declared, he astonished the world by

flying halfway around it in thirty days. No such feat had

ever been attempted before. It created a tremendous

sensation. The Australian government awarded him fifty

thousand dollars; the King of England knighted him;

and, for a while, he was the most talked-about man

under the Union Jack. I was attending a banquet one

night given in Sir Ross’s honor; and during the dinner,

the man sitting next to me told a humorous story which

hinged on the quotation “There’s a divinity that shapes

our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”

The raconteur mentioned that the quotation was from

the Bible. He was wrong. I knew that, I knew it positively.

There couldn’t be the slightest doubt about it.

And so, to get a feeling of importance and display my

superiority, I appointed myself as an unsolicited and unwelcome

committee of one to correct him. He stuck to

his guns. What? From Shakespeare? Impossible! Absurd! That quotation was from the Bible. And he knew it.

The storyteller was sitting on my right; and Frank

Gammond, an old friend of mine, was seated at my left.

Mr. Gammond had devoted years to the study of Shakespeare,

So the storyteller and I agreed to submit the

question to Mr. Gammond. Mr. Gammond listened,

kicked me under the table, and then said: “Dale, you are

wrong. The gentleman is right. It is from the Bible.”

On our way home that night, I said to Mr. Gammond:

“Frank, you knew that quotation was from Shakespeare,”

“Yes, of course,” he replied,
"Hamlet,
Act Five, Scene

Two. But we were guests at a festive occasion, my dear

Dale. Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to

make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He

didn’t ask for your opinion. He didn’t want it. Why argue

with him? Always avoid the acute angle.” The man who

said that taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. I not

only had made the storyteller uncomfortable, but had

put my friend in an embarrassing situation. How much

better it would have been had I not become argumentative.

It was a sorely needed lesson because I had been an

inveterate arguer. During my youth, I had argued with

my brother about everything under the Milky Way.

When I went to college, I studied logic and argumentation

and went in for debating contests. Talk about being

from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown.

Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New

York; and once, I am ashamed to admit, I planned to

write a book on the subject. Since then, I have listened

to, engaged in, and watched the effect of thousands of

arguments. As a result of all this, I have come to the

conclusion that 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 avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of

the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he

is absolutely right.

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.
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.

Years ago Patrick J. O’Haire joined one of my classes.

He had had little education, and how he loved a scrap!

He had once been a chauffeur, and he came to me because

he had been trying, without much success, to sell

trucks. A little questioning brought out the fact that he

was continually scrapping with and antagonizing the

very people he was trying to do business with, If a prospect

said anything derogatory about the trucks he was

selling, Pat saw red and was right at the customer’s

throat. Pat won a lot of arguments in those days. As he

said to me afterward, "I often walked out of an office

saving: ‘I told that bird something.’ Sure I had told him

something, but I hadn’t sold him anything.”

Mv first problem was not to teach Patrick J. O’Haire to

talk. My immediate task was to train him to refrain from

talking and to avoid verbal fights.

Mr. O’Haire became one of the star salesmen for the

White Motor Company in New York. How did he do it?

Here is his story in his own words: “If I walk into a

buyer’s office now and he says: ‘What? A White truck?

They’re no good! I wouldn’t take one if you gave it to

me. I’m going to buy the Whose-It truck,’ I say, ‘The

Whose-It is a good truck. If you buy the Whose-It, you’ll

never make a mistake. The Whose-Its are made by a fine

company and sold by good people.’

“He is speechless then. There is no room for an argument.

If he says the Whose-It is best and I say sure it is,

he has to stop. He can’t keep on all afternoon saying,

‘It’s the best’ when I’m agreeing with him. We then get

off the subject of Whose-It and I begin to talk about the

good points of the White truck.

“There was a time when a remark like his first one

would have made me see scarlet and red and orange. I

would start arguing against the Whose-It; and the more

I argued against it, the more my prospect argued in favor

of it; and the more he argued, the more he sold himself

on my competitor’s product.

“As I look back now I wonder how I was ever able to

sell anything. I lost years of my life in scrapping and

arguing. I keep my mouth shut now. It pays.”

As wise old Ben Franklin used to say:

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.

So figure it out for yourself. Which would you rather

have, an academic, theatrical victory or a person’s good

will? You can seldom have both.

The Boston Transcript once printed this bit of significant

doggerel:

Here lies the body of William Jay, .

Who died maintaining his right of way-

He was right, dead right, as he sped along,

But he’s just as dead as if he were wrong.

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.

Frederick S. Parsons, an income tax consultant, had

been disputing and wrangling for an hour with a gover-ment

tax inspector. An item of nine thousand dollars was

at stake. Mr. Parsons claimed that this nine thousand

dollars was in reality a bad debt, that it would never be

collected, that it ought not to be taxed. “Bad debt, my

eye !" retorted the inspector. “It must be taxed.”

“This inspector was cold, arrogant and stubborn,” Mr.

Parsons said as he told the story to the class. “Reason

was wasted and so were facts. . . The longer we argued,

the more stubborn he became. So I decided to avoid

argument, change the subject, and give him appreciation.

"I said, ‘I suppose this is a very petty matter in comparison

with the really important and difficult decisions

you’re required to make. I’ve made a study of taxation

myself. But I’ve had to get my knowledge from books.

You are getting yours from the firing line of experience.

I sometime wish I had a job like yours. It would teach

me a lot.’ I meant every word I said.

“Well.” The inspector straightened up in his chair,

leaned back, and talked for a long time about his work,

telling me of the clever frauds he had uncovered. His

tone gradually became friendly, and presently he was

telling me about his children. As he left, he advised me

that he would consider my problem further and give me

his decision in a few days.

“He called at my office three days later and informed

me that he had decided to leave the tax return exactly as

it was filed.”

This tax inspector was demonstrating one of the most

common of human frailties. He wanted a feeling of importance; and as long as Mr. Parsons argued with him,

he got his feeling of importance by loudly asserting his

authority. But as soon as his importance was admitted

and the argument stopped and he was permitted to expand

his ego, he became a sympathetic and kindly

human being.

Buddha said: “Hatred is never ended by hatred but by

love," and a misunderstanding is never ended by an argument

but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation and a sympathetic

desire to see the other person’s viewpoint.

Lincoln once reprimanded a young army officer for

indulging in a violent controversy with an associate. “No

man who is resolved to make the most of himself,” said

Lincoln, "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.”

In an article in
Bits and Pieces,*
some suggestions are

made on how to keep a disagreement from becoming an

argument:

Welcome
the disagreement.
Remember the slogan, “When

two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary.” If

there is some point you haven’t thought about, be thankful

if it is brought to your attention. Perhaps this disagreement

is your opportunity to be corrected before you make a serious

mistake.

Distrust your first instinctive impression.
Our first natural

reaction in a disagreeable situation is to be defensive. Be

careful. Keep calm and watch out for your first reaction. It

may be you at your worst, not your best.

Control
your
temper.
Remember, you can measure the size

of a person by what makes him or her angry.

Listen first.
Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them

finish. Do not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers.

Try to build bridges of understanding. Don’t build

higher barriers of misunderstanding.

Look for areas of agreement.
When you have heard your

opponents out, dwell first on the points and areas on which

you agree.

Be honest,
Look for areas where you can admit error and

say so. Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your

opponents and reduce defensiveness.

Promise to think over your opponents’ ideas and study

them carefully.
And mean it. Your opponents may be right.

It is a lot easier at this stage to agree to think about their

points than to move rapidly ahead and find yourself in a

position where your opponents can say: “We tried to tell

you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest.
Anyone

who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the

same things you are. Think of them as people who really

want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into

friends.

Postpone
action
to give both sides
time to
think through

the
problem.
Suggest that a new meeting be held later that

day or the next day, when all the facts may be brought to bear. In preparation for this meeting, ask yourself some hard questions:

Could my opponents be right? Partly right? Is there truth

or merit in their position or argument? Is my reaction one

that will relieve the problem, or will it just relieve any frustration?

Will my reaction drive my opponents further away

or draw them closer to me? Will my reaction elevate the

estimation good people have of me? Will I win or lose?

What price will I have to pay if I win? If I am quiet about it,

will the disagreement blow over? Is this difficult situation

an opportunity for me?

* Bits and
Pieces,
published by The Economics Press, Fairfield, N.J.

Opera tenor Jan Peerce, after he was married nearly

fifty years, once said: "My wife and I made a pact a long

time ago, and we’ve kept it no matter how angry we’ve

grown with each other. When one yells, the other should

listen-because when two people yell, there is no communication,

just noise and bad vibrations.”