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Book Report - How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

Don't criticize, condemn or complain

  • Father forgets story - the criticism of his child does nothing for that child except discourage him
  • God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days. Why should you and I?

Give honest and sincere appreciation

  • The desire to be important is very significant
  • Do flatter, be sincere - the different is that one comes from the heart, while the other from the teeth out. One is selfish, the other is not.
  • "Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him." - Emerson
  • "I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Arouse in the other person an eager want

  • Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.
  • How can I make this person want to do it?
  • "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 your own" Henry Ford
  • "People who can put themselves in the pace of other people, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for then." Owen D. Young, Lawyer

Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise

Six Ways to Make People Like You

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.
  • 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 failure springs.

Smile.

  • People rarely succeed in anything unless they are having fun. 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.

  • To be a good conversationalist, be a good listener and always be interested. Ask questions the other person will enjoy answering and encourage them to talk about themselves.

Talk in terms of the other person's interests.

  • The royal road to a person's heart is to talk about the things that he or she treasures most. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.
  • Do unto others…
  • Talk to people about themselves and they will talk for hours.
  • The life of many a person could probably be changed if they only felt important
  • Almost all people feel somehow superior to you

Win people to your way of thinking

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

  • A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still
  • 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.
  • When two people argue, there is no communication, just noise and bad vibrations.

Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say - you're wrong.

  • Never begin by saying "I am going to prove so and so to you." That's the same thing as saying "I'm smarter than you."
  • Men must be taught as if you taught them not and things unknown proposed as things forgot. - Alexander Pope
  • One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing - Socrates · Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not them so - Lord Chesterfield
  • "I made it a rule," said Franklin, "to forbear all dis-positive assertion of my own."

If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

  • "By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected."
  • When we are right, let's try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking.

Begin in a friendly way.

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

Get the other person saying "yes, yes."

  • "He who treads softly, goes far." - Chinese proverb
  • Instead of saying you are wrong, ask a question that makes them say "yes, yes."

Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

  • When our friends excel us, they feel important; but when we excel them, they - or at least some of them - will feel inferior and envious.

Let the other person feel that the idea is his or her own.

  • "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty"

Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.

  • Even though someone may be totally wrong, they don't think so - don't condemn them. Any fool can do that - instead, try to understand them.
  • I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person's office for two hours before an interview than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person - from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives - was likely to answer.

Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.

  • "I don't blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do."
  • Humans crave sympathy

Appeal to nobler motives.

  • Assume people are honest and noble and want to discharge their obligations.

Dramatize your ideas.

Throw down a challenge.

  • Sometimes, you have to issue a challenge and people respond
  • Every successful person loves a challenge, the chance for self-expression, the chance to win.

Be a leader

Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

  • Beginning w/praise is like a dentist who begins w/Novocain - the patient still gets a drilling, but the Novocain is pain-killing.

Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.

  • Instead of humiliating people, correct them indirectly - like Schwab giving his men cigars under the no smoking sign, but reminding them there is no smoking at the spot

Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.

  • The other person will be more ready to admit mistakes if you have first admitted to your own.

Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

  • Flip orders around to get the person to agree to a question and do the task on their own

Let the other person save face.

  • Even if you are right, and the other person wrong, we only destroy ego by causing someone to lose face.
  • I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes - Antoine de Saint-Exupery · Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement.

Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."

  • B.F. Skinner's approach of using praise instead of criticism
  • "Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use." - William James

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

  • Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him - but give a dog a good name and see what happen - old saying Use encouragement.

Make the fault feel easy to correct.

Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

  • Be sincere
  • Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do
  • Be empathetic - ask what the other person really wants
  • Consider the benefit to the other person if they do what you want
  • Match those benefits to the other person's wants
  • Put the request in a form so the other person understands the benefits