How to Win Friends and Influence People (26 page)

PRINCIPLE 8

Use encouragement. Make the fault seem

easy to correct.

MAKING PEOPLE GLAD TO DO

WHAT YOU WANT

Back in 1915, America was aghast. For more than a year,

the nations of Europe had been slaughtering
one
another

on a scale never before dreamed of in all the

bloody annals of mankind. Could peace be brought

about? No one knew. But Woodrow Wilson was determined

to try. He would send a personal representative,

a peace emissary, to counsel with the warlords of Europe.

William Jennings Bryan, secretary of state, Bryan, the

peace advocate, longed to go. He saw a chance to perform

a great service and make his name immortal. But

Wilson appointed another man, his intimate friend and

advisor Colonel Edward M. House; and it was House’s

thorny task to break the unwelcome news to Bryan without

giving him offense.

“Bryan was distinctly disappointed when he heard I

was to go to Europe as the peace emissary,” Colonel

House records in his diary. “He said he had planned to

do this himself . . .

"I replied that the President thought it would be unwise

for anyone to do this officially, and
that his going

would attract a great deal of attention
and people

would wonder why he was there. . . ."

You see the intimation? House practically told Bryan

that he was
too important
for the job - and Bryan was

satisfied.

Colonel House, adroit, experienced in the ways of the

world, was following one of the important rules of

human relations: Always
make the other person happy

about doing the thing you suggest.

Woodrow Wilson followed that policy even when inviting

William Gibbs McAdoo to become a member of

his cabinet. That was the highest honor he could confer

upon anyone, and yet Wilson extended the invitation in

such a way as to make McAdoo feel doubly important.

Here is the story in McAdoo's own words: “He [Wilson]

said that he was making up his cabinet and that he would

be very glad if I would accept a place in it as Secretary

of the Treasury. He had a delightful way of putting

things; he created the impression that by accepting this

great honor I would be doing him a favor.”

Unfortunately, Wilson didn’t always employ such taut.

If he had, history might have been different. For example,

Wilson didn’t make the Senate and the Republican

Party happy by entering the United States in the League

of Nations. Wilson refused to take such prominent Republican

leaders as Elihu Root or Charles Evans Hughes

or Henry Cabot Lodge to the peace conference with

him. Instead, he took along unknown men from his own

party. He snubbed the Republicans, refused to let them

feel that the League was their idea as well as his, refused

to let them have a finger in the pie; and, as a result of

this crude handling of human relations, wrecked his own

career, ruined his health, shortened his life, caused

America to stay out of the League, and altered the history

of the world.

Statesmen and diplomats aren’t the only ones who use

this make-a-person-happy-yo-do-things-you-want-them-to-

do approach. Dale O. Ferrier of Fort Wayne, Indiana,

told how he encouraged one of his young children to

willingly do the chore he was assigned.

“One of Jeff’s chores was to pick up pears from under

the pear tree so the person who was mowing underneath

wouldn’t have to stop to pick them up. He didn’t like

this chore, and frequently it was either not done at all or

it was done so poorly that the mower had to stop and

pick up several pears that he had missed. Rather than

have an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation about it, one

day I said to him: ‘Jeff, I’ll make a deal with you. For

every bushel basket full of pears you pick up, I’ll pay

you one dollar. But after you are finished, for every pear

I find left in the yard, I’ll take away a dollar. How does

that sound?’ As you would expect, he not only picked up

all of the pears, but I had to keep an eye on him to see

that he didn’t pull a few off the trees to fill up some of

the baskets.”

I knew a man who had to refuse many invitations to

speak, invitations extended by friends, invitations coming

from people to whom he was obligated; and yet he

did it so adroitly that the other person was at least contented

with his refusal. How did he do it? Not by merely

talking about the fact that he was too busy and too-this

and too-that. No, after expressing his appreciation of the

invitation and regretting his inability to accept it, he suggested

a substitute speaker. In other words, he didn’t

give the other person any time to feel unhappy about the

refusal, He immediately changed the other person’s

thoughts to some other speaker who could accept the

invitation.

Gunter Schmidt, who took our course in West Germany,

told of an employee in the food store he managed

who was negligent about putting the proper price tags

on the shelves where the items were displayed. This

caused confusion and customer complaints. Reminders,

admonitions, confrontations, with her about this did not

do much good. Finally, Mr. Schmidt called her into his

office and told her he was appointing her Supervisor of

Price Tag Posting for the entire store and she would be

responsible for keeping all of the shelves properly

tagged. This new responsibility and title changed her

attitude completely, and she fulfiled her duties satisfactorily

from then on.

Childish? Perhaps. But that is what they said to Napoleon

when he created the Legion of Honor and distributed

15,000 crosses to his soldiers and made

eighteen of his generals “Marshals of France” and called

his troops the “Grand Army.” Napoleon was criticized

for giving “toys” to war-hardened veterans, and Napoleon

replied, “Men are ruled by toys.”

This technique of giving titles and authority worked

for Napoleon and it will work for you. For example, a

friend of mine, Mrs. Ernest Gent of Scarsdale, New

York, was troubled by boys running across and destroying

her lawn. She tried criticism. She tried coaxing. Neither

worked. Then she tried giving the worst sinner in

the gang a title and a feeling of authority. She made him

her “detective” and put him in charge of keeping all

trespassers off her lawn. That solved her problem. Her

“detective” built a bonfire in the backyard, heated an

iron red hot, and threatened to brand any boy who

stepped on the lawn.

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 is it 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. We could give a curt order like

this: " John, we have customers coming in tomorrow

and I need the stockroom cleaned out. So sweep it out,

put the stock in neat piles on the shelves and polish

the counter.” Or we could express the same idea by

showing John the benefits he will get from doing the

task: “John, we have a job that should be completed

right away.
If it is done now, we won’t be faced with

it later.
I am bringing some customers in tomorrow to

show our facilities. I would like to show them the

stockroom, but it is in poor shape. If you could sweep

it out, put the stock in neat piles on the shelves, and

polish the counter, it would make us look efficient and

you will have done your part to provide a good company

image.”

Will John be happy about doing what you suggest?

Probably not very happy, but happier than if you had not

pointed out the benefits. Assuming you know that John

has pride in the way his stockroom looks and is interested

in contributing to the company image, he will be

more likely to be cooperative. It also will have been

pointed out to John that the job would have to be done

eventually and by doing it now, he won’t be faced with

it later.

It is naïve to believe you will always get a favorable

reaction from other persons when you use these approaches,

but the experience of most people shows that

you are more likely to change attitudes this way than by

not using these principles - and if you increase your successes

by even a mere 10 percent, you have become 10

percent more effective as a leader than you were before

- and that is your benefit.

People are more likely to do what you would like them

to do when you use . . .

PRINCIPLE 9

Make the other person happy about doing

the thing you suggest.

In a Nutshell    

BE A LEADER

A leader’s job often includes changing your people’s

attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish

this:

PRINCIPLE 1

Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

PRINCIPLE 2

Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.

PRINCIPLE 3

Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other

person.

PRINCIPLE 4

Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

PRINCIPLE 5

Let the other person save face.

PRINCIPLE 6

Praise the slightest improvement and praise every

improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in

your praise.”

PRINCIPLE 7

Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

PRINCIPLE 8

Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.

PRINCIPLE 9

Make the other person happy about doing the thing you

suggest.

A Shortcut to

Distinction

by Lowell Thomas

This biographical information about Dale Carnegie was

written as an introduction to the original edition of

How to Win Friends and Influence People.
It
is
reprinted

in this edition to give the readers additional

background on Dale Carnegie.

It was a cold January night in 1935, but the weather

couldn’t keep them away. Two thousand five hundred

men and women thronged into the grand ballroom of the

Hotel Pennsylvania in New York. Every available seat

was filled by half-past seven. At eight o’clock, the eager

crowd was still pouring in. The spacious balcony was

soon jammed. Presently even standing space was at a

premium, and hundreds of people, tired after navigating

a day in business, stood up for an hour and a half that

night to witness - what?

A fashion show?

A six-day bicycle race or a personal appearance by

Clark Gable?

No. These people had been lured there by a newspaper

ad. Two evenings previously, they had seen this

full-page announcement in the New York
Sun
staring

them in the face:

Learn to Speak Effectively

Prepare for Leadership

Old stuff? Yes, but believe it or not, in the most sophisticated

town on earth, during a depression with 20

percent of the population on relief, twenty-five hundred

people had left their homes and hustled to the hotel in

response to that ad.

The people who responded were of the upper economic

strata - executives, employers and professionals.

These men and women had come to hear the opening

gun of an ultramodern, ultrapractical course in “Effective

Speaking and Influencing Men in Business”- a

course given by the Dale Carnegie Institute of Effective

Speaking and Human Relations.

Why were they there, these twenty-five hundred business

men and women?

Because of a sudden hunger for more education because

of the depression?

Apparently not, for this same course had been playing

to packed houses in New York City every season for the

preceding twenty-four years. During that time, more

than fifteen thousand business and professional people

had been trained by Dale Carnegie. Even large, skeptical,

conservative organizations such as the Westinghouse

Electric Company, the McGraw-Hill Publishing

Company, the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, the

Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the American Institute

of Electrical Engineers and the New York Telephone

Company have had this training conducted in

their own offices for the benefit of their members and

executives.

The fact that these people, ten or twenty years after

leaving grade school, high school or college, come and

take this training is a glaring commentary on the shocking

deficiencies of our educational system.

What do adults really want to study?  That is an important

question; and in order to answer it, the University

of Chicago, the American Association for Adult Education,

and the United Y.M.C.A. Schools made a survey

over a two-year period.

That 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.

So that was what adults wanted to study, was it?

“All right,” said the people making the survey. "Fine.

If that is what they want, we’ll give it to them.”

Looking around for a textbook, they discovered that

no working manual had ever been written to help people

solve their daily problems in human relationships.

Here was a fine kettle of fish! For hundreds of years,

learned volumes had been written on Greek and Latin

and higher mathematics - topics about which the average

adult doesn’t give two hoots. But on the one subject

on which he has a thirst for knowledge, a veritable passion

for guidance and help - nothing!

This explained the presence of twenty-five hundred

eager adults crowding into the grand ballroom of the

Hotel Pennsylvania in response to a newspaper advertisement.

Here, apparently, at last was the thing for

which they had long been seeking.

Back in high school and college, they had pored over

books, believing that knowledge alone was the open sesame

to financial - and professional rewards.

But a few years in the rough-and-tumble of business

and professional life had brought sharp dissillusionment.

They had seen some of the most important business

successes won by men who possessed, in addition

to their knowledge, the ability to talk well, to win people

to their way of thinking, and to "sell" themselves and

their ideas.

They soon discovered that if one aspired to wear the

captain’s cap and navigate the ship of business, personality

and the ability to talk are more important than a

knowledge of Latin verbs or a sheepskin from Harvard.

The advertisement in the New York Sun promised that

the meeting would be highly entertaining. It was.

Eighteen people who had taken the course were marshaled

in front of the loudspeaker - and fifteen of them

were given precisely seventy-five seconds each to tell

his or her story. Only seventy-five seconds of talk, then

“bang” went the gavel, and the chairman shouted,

“Time! Next speaker!”

The affair moved with the speed of a herd of buffalo

thundering across the plains. Spectators stood for an

hour and a half to watch the performance.

The speakers were a cross section of life: several sales

representatives, a chain store executive, a baker, the

president of a trade association, two bankers, an insurance

agent, an accountant, a dentist, an architect, a druggist

who had come from Indianapolis to New York to

take the course, a lawyer who had come from Havana in

order to prepare himself to give one important three-minute

speech.

The first speaker bore the Gaelic name Patrick J.

O'Haire. Born in Ireland, he attended school for only

four years, drifted to America, worked as a mechanic,

then as a chauffeur.

Now, however, he was forty, he had a growing family

and needed more money, so he tried selling trucks. Suffering

from an inferiority complex that, as he put it, was

eating his heart out, he had to walk up and down in front

of an office half a dozen times before he could summon

up enough courage to open the door. He was so discouraged

as a salesman that he was thinking of going back to

working with his hands in a machine shop, when one

day he received a letter inviting him to an organization

meeting of the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective

Speaking.

He didn’t want to attend. He feared he would have to

associate with a lot of college graduates, that he would

be out of place.

His despairing wife insisted that he go, saying, “It

may do you some good, Pat. God knows you need it.”

He went down to the place where the meeting was to be

held and stood on the sidewalk for five minutes before

he could generate enough self-confidence to enter the

room.

The first few times he tried to speak in front of the

others, he was dizzy with fear. But as the weeks drifted

by, he lost all fear of audiences and soon found that he

loved to talk - the bigger the crowd, the better. And he

also lost his fear of individuals and of his superiors. He

presented his ideas to them, and soon he had been advanced

into the sales department. He had become a valued

and much liked member of his company. This night,

in the Hotel Pennsylvania, Patrick O'Haire stood in front

of twenty-five hundred people and told a gay, rollicking

story of his achievements. Wave after wave of laughter

swept over the audience. Few professional speakers

could have equaled his performance.

The next speaker, Godfrey Meyer, was a gray-headed

banker, the father of eleven children. The first time he

had attempted to speak in class, he was literally struck

dumb. His mind refused to function. His story is a vivid

illustration of how leadership gravitates to the person

who can talk.

He worked on Wall Street, and for twenty-five years

he had been living in Clifton, New Jersey. During that

time, he had taken no active part in community affairs

and knew perhaps five hundred people.

Shortly after he had enrolled in the Carnegie course,

he received his tax bill and was infuriated by what he

considered unjust charges. Ordinarily, he would have

sat at home and fumed, or he would have taken it out in

grousing to his neighbors. But instead, he put on his hat

that night, walked into the town meeting, and blew off

steam in public.

As a result of that talk of indignation, the citizens of

Clifton, New Jersey, urged him to run for the town council.

So for weeks he went from one meeting to another,

denouncing waste and municipal extravagance.

There were ninety-six candidates in the field. When

the ballots were counted, lo, Godfrey Meyer’s name led

all the rest. Almost overnight, he had become a public

figure among the forty thousand people in his community.

As a result of his talks, he made eighty times more

friends in six weeks than he had been able to previously

in twenty-five years.

And his salary as councilman meant that he got a return

of 1,000 percent a year on his investment in the

Carnegie course.

The third speaker, the head of a large national association

of food manufacturers, told how he had been unable

to stand up and express his ideas at meetings of a

board of directors.

As a result of learning to think on his feet, two astonishing

things happened. He was soon made president of

his association, and in that capacity, he was obliged to

address meetings all over the United States. Excerpts

from his talks were put on the Associated Press wires

and printed in newspapers and trade magazines

throughout the country.

In two years, after learning to speak more effectively,

he received more free publicity for his company and its

products than he had been able to get previously with a

quarter of a million dollars spent in direct advertising.

This speaker admitted that he had formerly hesitated to

telephone some of the more important business executives

in Manhattan and invite them to lunch with him.

But as a result of the prestige he had acquired by his

talks, these same people telephoned him and invited

him to lunch and apologized to him for encroaching on

his time.

The ability to speak is a shortcut to distinction. It puts

a person in the limelight, raises one head and shoulders

above the crowd. And the person who can speak acceptably

is usually given credit for an ability out of all proportion

to what he or she really possesses.

A movement for adult education has been sweeping

over the nation; and the most spectacular force in that

movement was Dale Carnegie, a man who listened to

and critiqued more talks by adults than has any other

man in captivity. According to a cartoon by "Believe-It-or-

Not” Ripley, he had criticized 150,000 speeches. If

that grand total doesn’t impress you, remember that it

meant one talk for almost every day that has passed since

Columbus discovered America. Or, to put it in other

words, if all the people who had spoken before him had

used only three minutes and had appeared before him

in succession, it would have taken ten months, listening

day and night, to hear them all.

Dale Carnegie’s own career, filled with sharp contrasts,

was a striking example of what a person can accomplish

when obsessed with an original idea and afire

with enthusiasm.

Born on a Missouri farm ten miles from a railway, he

never saw a streetcar until he was twelve years old; yet

by the time he was forty-six, he was familiar with the far-flung

corners of the earth, everywhere from Hong Kong

to Hammerfest; and, at one time, he approached closer

to the North Pole than Admiral Byrd’s headquarters at

Little America was to the South Pole.

This Missouri lad who had once picked strawberries

and cut cockleburs for five cents an hour became the

highly paid trainer of the executives of large corporations

in the art of self-expression.

This erstwhile cowboy who had once punched cattle

and branded calves and ridden fences out in western

South Dakota later went to London to put on shows

under the patronage of the royal family.