"How to Win Friends and Influence People," first published in 1937, shows how timeless is the advice author Dale Carnegie gives on mastering the art of communication. The result of years of research and interviews, Carnegie's book offers comprehensive training that helps you learn "how to understand and get along with people; how to make people like you; and how to win others to your way of thinking." The book features four sections in which Carnegie uses anecdotes and examples of well-known people to highlight the principles that throughout the years have brought its readers success at winning friends and influencing people.
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Step 1
Don't, criticize, condemn or complain. "When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic," Carnegie explains. "We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity."
Step 2
Give honest, sincere appreciation. "One of the most neglected virtues of our daily existence is appreciation," Carnegie writes.
Step 3
Arouse in the other person an eager want. "Looking at the other person's point of view and arousing in him an eager want for something is not to be construed as manipulating the person so that he will do something that is only for your benefit and his detriment," Carnegie cautions. "Each party should gain from the negotiation."
Six Ways to Make People Like You
Step 1
Become genuinely interested in other people. "A show of interest, as with every other principle in human relations, must be sincere," Carnegie says. "It must pay off not only for the person showing the interest, but for the person receiving the attention."
Step 2
Smile. "Your smile is a messenger of your good will," Carnegie writes.
Step 3
Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. "The ability to remember names is almost as important in business and social contacts as it is in politics," Carnegie says.
Step 4
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. "If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested," Carnegie advises.
Step 5
Talk in terms of the other person's interests. Conversing with someone about her interests helps create a connection that pays off for both parties, according to Carnegie.
Step 6
Make the other person feel important--and do it sincerely. Carnegie says that making the other person feel important is the most important law of human conduct. "That law, if obeyed will bring us countless friends and constant happiness."
Win People to Your Way of Thinking
Step 1
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. "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," Carnegie advises.
Step 2
Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong," Carnegie advises. "When we are wrong, we may admit it to ourselves. And if we are handled gently and tactfully, we may admit it to others....But not if someone else is trying to ram the unpalatable fact down our esophagus," he writes.
Step 3
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically," Carnegie advises. "Not only will that technique produce astonishing results; but believe it or not, it is a lot more fun, under the circumstances, than trying to defend oneself."
Step 4
Begin in a friendly way," Carnegie says. "The use of gentleness and friendliness is demonstrated day after day by people who have learned that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall."
Step 5
Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately. "This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving into the affirmative direction," Carnegie says.
Step 6
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking, "Even our friends would much rather talk to us about their achievements than listen to us boast about ours," Carnegie writes.
Step 7
Let the other person feel that the idea is his. "No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something or told to do a thing," Carnegie says. "We much prefer to feel that we are buying on our own accord or acting on our own ideas."
Step 8
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view. "If you get only that one thing from this book, it may easily prove to be one of the stepping-stones of your career," Carnegie advises.
Step 9
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires. "Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy," Carnegie writes. "Give it to them, and they will love you."
Step 10
Appeal to the nobler motives, Carnegie writes. When negotiating with people to see things your way, try to identify a higher principle. "The fact is all people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be fine and unselfish in their own estimation," Carnegie says.
Step 11
Dramatize your ideas. "Merely stating a truth isn't enough," Carnegie writes. "The truth has to be made vivid, interesting and dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention."
Step 12
Throw down a challenge. Carnegie says that when all else fails, stimulate competition. "That is what every successful person loves: the game."
Be a Leader
Step 1
Begin with praise and honest appreciation. "Beginning with praise is like the dentist who begins his work with Novocain," Carnegie writes. "The patient still gets a drilling, but the Novocain is painkilling."
Step 2
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. This technique works well when managing "sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism," Carnegie writes.
Step 3
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. "Admitting one's own mistakes--even when one hasn't corrected them--can help convince somebody to change his behavior," Carnegie advises.
Step 4
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. This technique, Carnegie says, makes it easy for a person to correct errors, saves a person's pride, gives him a feeling of importance and encourages cooperation instead of rebellion.
Step 5
Let the other person save face. "Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face," Carnegie advises.
Step 6
Praise the slightest improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise," Carnegie writes, quoting steel industry magnate Charles M. Schwab.
Step 7
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. "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," Carnegie says.
Step 8
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct. "Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or 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," Carnegie warns.
Step 9
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest. "It is naive 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," Carnegie writes.
Tips and Warnings
- Dale Carnegie Training provides leadership courses designed to help you succeed in today's business environment that are based upon the principles in "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
References
- "How to Win Friends and Influence People;" Dale Carnegie
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