How to Win Friends and Influence People (23 page)

PRINCIPLE 1

Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

HOW TO CRITICIZE-AND NOT BE

HATED FOR IT

Charles Schwab was passing through one of his steel

mills one day at noon when he came across some of his

employees smoking. Immediately above their heads was

a sign that said “No Smoking.” Did Schwab point to the

sign and say, “Can’t you read.? Oh, no not Schwab. He

walked over to the men, handed each one a cigar, and

said, “I’ll appreciate it, boys, if you will smoke these on

the outside.” They knew that he knew that they had

broken a rule - and they admired him because he said

nothing about it and gave them a little present and made

them feel important. Couldn’t keep from loving a man

like that, could you?

John Wanamaker used the same technique. Wanamaker

used to make a tour of his great store in Philadelphia

every day. Once he saw a customer waiting at a

counter. No one was paying the slightest attention to

her. The salespeople? Oh, they were in a huddle at the

far end of the counter laughing and talking among themselves.

Wanamaker didn’t say a word. Quietly slipping

behind the counter, he waited on the woman himself

and then handed the purchase to the salespeople to be

wrapped as he went on his way.

Public officials are often criticized for not being accessible

to their constituents. They are busy people, and

the fault sometimes lies in overprotective assistants who

don’t want to overburden their bosses with too many

visitors. Carl Langford, who has been mayor of Orlando,

Florida, the home of Disney World, for many years, frequently

admonished his staff to allow people to see him.

clamed he had an “open-door” policy; yet the citizens

of his community were blocked by secretaries and

administrators when they called.

Finally the mayor found the solution. He removed the

door from his office! His aides got the message, and the

mayor has had a truly open administration since the day

his door was symbolically thrown away.

Simply changing one three-letter word can often spell

the difference between failure and success in changing

people without giving offense or arousing resentment.

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

raiseing 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.

Calling attention to one’s mistakes indirectly works

wonders with sensitive people who may resent bitterly

any direct criticism. Marge Jacob of Woonsocket, Rhode

Island, told one of our classes how she convinced some

sloppy construction workers to clean up after themselves

when they were building additions to her house.

For the first few days of the work, when Mrs. Jacob

returned from her job, she noticed that the yard was

strewn with the cut ends of lumber. She didn’t want to

antagonize the builders, because they did excellent

work. So after the workers had gone home, she and her

children picked up and neatly piled all the lumber debris

in a corner. The following morning she called the

foreman to one side and said, “I’m really pleased with

the way the front lawn was left last night; it is nice and

clean and does not offend the neighbors.” From that day

forward the workers picked up and piled the debris to

one side, and the foreman came in each day seeking

approval of the condition the lawn was left in after a

day’s work.

One of the major areas of controversy between members

of the army reserves and their regular army trainers

is haircuts. The reservists consider themselves civilians

(which they are most of the time) and resent having to

cut their hair short.

Master Sergeant Harley Kaiser of the 542nd USAR

School addressed himself to this problem when he was

working with a group of reserve noncommissioned officers.

As an old-time regular-army master sergeant, he

might have been expected to yell at his troops and

threaten them. Instead he chose to make his point indirectly.

“Gentlemen,” he started, “you are leaders. You will

be most effective when you lead by example. You must

be the example for your men to follow. You know what

the army regulations say about haircuts. I am going to

get my hair cut today, although it is still much shorter

than some of yours. You look at yourself in the mirror,

and if you feel you need a haircut to be a good example,

we'll arrange time for you to visit the post barbership.”

The result was predictable. Several of the candidates

did look in the mirror and went to the barbershop that

afternoon and received “regulation” haircuts. Sergeant

Kaiser commented the next morning that he already

could see the development of leadership qualities in

some of the members of the squad.

On March 8, 1887, the eloquent Henry Ward Beecher

died. The following Sunday, Lyman Abbott was invited

to speak in the pulpit left silent by Beecher’s passing.

Eager to do his best, he wrote, rewrote and polished his

sermon with the meticulous care of a Flaubert. Then he

read it to his wife. It was poor - as most written speeches

are. She might have said, if she had had less judgment,

“Lyman, that is terrible. That’ll never do. You’ll put people

to sleep. It reads like an encyclopedia. You ought to

know better than that after all the years you have been

preaching. For heaven’s sake, why don’t you talk like a

human being? Why don’t you act natural? You’ll disgrace

yourself if you ever read that stuff.”

That’s what she
might
have said. And, if she had, you

know what would have happened. And she knew too.

So, she merely remarked that it would make an excellent

article for the
North American Review.
In other words,

she praised it and at the same time subtly suggested that

it wouldn’t do as a speech. Lyman Abbott saw the point,

tore up his carefully prepared manuscript and preached

without even using notes.

An effective way to correct others’ mistakes is . . .

PRINCIPLE 2

Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

TALK ABOUT YOUR OWN

MISTAKES FIRST

My niece, Josephine Carnegie, had come to New York

to be my secretary. She was nineteen, had graduated

from high school three years previously, and her business

experience was a trifle more than zero. She became

one of the most proficient secretaries west of Suez, but

in the beginning, she was - well, susceptible to improvement.

One day when I started to criticize her, I

said to myself: “Just a minute, Dale Carnegie; just a

minute. You are twice as old as Josephine. You have had

ten thousand times as much business experience. How

can you possibly expect her to have your viewpoint, your

judgment, your initiative - mediocre though they may

be? And just a minute, Dale, what were you doing at

nineteen? Remember the asinine mistakes and blunders

you made? Remember the time you did this . . . and

that . . . ?"

After thinking the matter over, honestly and impartially,

I concluded that Josephine’s batting average at

nineteen was better than mine had been - and that, I’m

sorry to confess, isn’t paying Josephine much of a compliment.

So after that, when I wanted to call Josephine’s attention

to a mistake, I used to begin by saying, “You have

made a mistake, Josephine, but the Lord knows, it’s no

worse than many I have made. You were not born with

judgment. That comes only with experience, and you are

better than I was at your age. I have been guilty of so

many stupid, silly things myself, I have very little incliion

to criticize you or anyone. But don’t you think it

would have been wiser if you had done so and so?"

It isn’t nearly so difficult to listen to a recital of your

faults if the person criticizing begins by humbly admitting

that he, too, is far from impeccable.

E. G. Dillistone, an engineer in Brandon, Manitoba,

Canada, was having problems with his new secretary.

Letters he dictated were coming to his desk for signature

with two or three spelling mistakes per page. Mr. Dillistone

reported how he handled this:

“Like many engineers, I have not been noted for my

excellent English or spelling. For years I have kept a

little black thumb - index book for words I had trouble

spelling. When it became apparent that merely pointing

out the errors was not going to cause my secretary to do

more proofreading and dictionary work, I resolved to

take another approach. When the next letter came to my

attention that had errors in it, I sat down with the typist

and said:

" ‘Somehow this word doesn’t look right. It’s one of

the words I always have had trouble with. That’s the reason

I started this spelling book of mine. [I opened

the book to the appropriate page.] Yes, here it is. I’m

very conscious of my spelling now because people do

judge us by our letters and misspellings make us look

less professional.

"I don't know whether she copied my system or not,

but since that conversation, her frequency of spelling

errors has been significantly reduced.”

The polished Prince Bernhard von Bülow learned the

sharp necessity of doing this back in 1909. Von Bülow

was then the Imperial Chancellor of Germany, and on

the throne sat  Wilhelm II-Wilhelm, the haughty; Wilhelm

the arrogant; Wilhelm, the last of the German Kaisers,

building an army and navy that he boasted could

whip their weight in wildcats

Then an astonishing thing happened. The Kaiser said

things, incredible things, things that rocked the continent

and started a series of explosions heard around the

world. To make matters infinitely worse, the Kaiser

made silly, egotistical, absurd announcements in public,

he made them while he was a guest in England, and he

gave his royal permission to have them printed in the

Daily Telegraph.
For example, he declared that he was

the only German who felt friendly toward the English;

that he was constructing a navy against the menace of

Japan; that he, and he alone, had saved England from

being humbled in the dust by Russia and France; that it

had been
his
campaign plan that enabled England’s

Lord Roberts to defeat the Boers in South Africa; and so

on and on.

No other such amazing words had ever fallen from the

lips of a European king in peacetime within a hundred

years. The entire continent buzzed with the fury of a

hornet’s nest. England was incensed. German statesmen

were aghast. And in the midst of all this consternation,

the Kaiser became panicky and suggested to Prince von

Bülow, the Imperial Chancellor, that he take the blame.

Yes, he wanted von Bülow to announce that it was all

his responsibility, that he had advised his monarch to

say these incredible things.

“But Your Majesty,” von Bülow protested, “it seems

to me utterly impossible that anybody either in Germany

or England could suppose me capable of having advised

Your Majesty to say any such thing.”

The moment those words were out of von Bülow's

mouth, he realized he had made a grave mistake. The

Kaiser blew up.

“You consider me a donkey,” he shouted, “capable of

blunders you yourself could never have committed!”

Von Bülow's knew that he ought to have praised before

he condemned; but since that was too late, he did the

next best thing. He praised after he had criticized. And

it worked a miracle.

"I'm far from suggesting that,” he answered respectfully.

“Your Majesty surpasses me in manv respects; not

only of course, in naval and military knowledge but

above all, in natural science. I have often listened in

admiration when Your Majesty explained the barometer,

or wireless telegraphy, or the Roentgen rays. I am

shamefully ignorant of all branches of natural science,

have no notion of chemistry or physics, and am quite

incapable of explaining the simplest of natural phenomena.

But,” von Büllow continued, “in compensation, I

possess some historical knowledge and perhaps certain

qualities useful in politics, especially in diplomacy.”

The Kaiser beamed. Von Bulow had praised him. Von

Bülow had exalted him and humbled himself. The Kaiser

could forgive anything after that. “Haven’t I always

told you," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, “that we complete

one another famously? We should stick together,

and we will!"

He shook hands with von Bülow, not once, but several

times. And later in the day he waxed so enthusiastic that

he exclaimed with doubled fists, “If anyone says anything

to me against Prince von Bülow,
I
shall punch him

in the nose.”

Von Bülow saved himself in time - but, canny diplomat

that he was, he nevertheless had made one error: he

should have
begun
by talking about his own shortcomings

and Wilhelm’s superiority - not by intimating that

the Kaiser was
a half-wit in need of a guardian.

If a few sentences humbling oneself and praising the

other party can turn a haughty, insulted Kaiser 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.

Admitting one’s own mistakes - even when one hasn’t

corrected them - can help convince somebody to change

his behavior. This was illustrated more recently by Clarence

Zerhusen of Timonium, Maryland, when he discovered

his fifteen-year-old son was experimenting with

cigarettes.

“Naturally, I didn’t want David to smoke,” Mr. Zerhusen

told us, “but his mother and I smoked cigarettes;

we were giving him a bad example all the time. I explained

to Dave how I started smoking at about his age

and how the nicotine had gotten the best of me and now

it was nearly impossible for me to stop. I reminded him

how irritating my cough was and how he had been after

me to give up cigarettes not many years before.

"I didn’t exhort him to stop or make threats or warn

him about their dangers. All I did was point out how I

was hooked on cigarettes and what it had meant to me.

“He thought about it for a while and decided he

wouldn’t smoke until he had graduated from high

school. As the years went by David never did start smoking

and has no intention of ever doing so.

“As a result of that conversation I made the decision

to stop smoking cigarettes myself, and with the support

of my family, I have succeeded.”

A good leader follows this principle: