“How to Win Friends and Influence People” is the single most important book I have read in my life. To call it life-changing is a grand understatement. In fact, most of its individual chapters qualify as life-changing by themselves.
After spending 10 years with the book, I feel it condenses down to the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. The caveat is that most of us don’t really understand how we would like to be treated. We certainly think we do, but we don’t. Most of us go through life as heroes in our own personal movies. In this post I’ll highlight a couple of my favorite Carnegie-isms.
Dealing with mistakes and errors
Dale Carnegie says:
Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
Let the other person save face.
These are perhaps the most challenging lessons to learn. After all, who doesn’t like being right, and don’t you want other people to know it? Whether the context is professional, social, or marital (especially if its marital!) directly calling out the ‘wrong’ side is a risky move. Each of us has a self-image of being a reasonable, logical, largely right person. Whether we know it or not, this is directly tied to our ego and sense of self. For most people, hearing “you’re wrong” is thus a direct attack on their self-image! We feel this way, even if we are wrong, because our sense of being “largely right” and “wrong this time” triggers cognitive dissonance and later embarrassment and resentment (read more here)
If you are dealing with someone who is wrong, or has made a mistake, there are two possibilities.
#1 They don’t think they were in the wrong
#2 They know they were in the wrong
In the first case, a direct “you’re wrong” triggers the cognitive dissonance and resentment described above. In the second case, they already know they were wrong and don’t need your help to re-prove it. (Offering that help merely triggers resentment.) The best case scenario to get to is that you and the other party know they were wrong and don’t have to be embarrassed. Look for ways to get there indirectly. The best way is if the other party can reach the conclusion themselves that they were wrong. If this leads them to come around to your way of thinking they will maintain their self-image and you will maintain the relationship with them. They still get to be the superhero of their personal movie.
Another summarization of this approach is it’s amazing how much you can get done when you are not obsessed with getting the credit.
Win people to your way of thinking
Dale Carnegie says:
Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
Appeal to the nobler motives.
I remind myself daily of these principles. When I talk to my mentees, I refer to these principles as superpowers. The only effective way to get people to do what you want is to speak in terms of what’s in it for them. This is not a cynical ploy. Each of us thinks of themselves as a good person trying to do good, while accomplishing our personal goals. When there’s nothing in it for us, we may not do something.
I was once a developer on a solution bundling other products developed by my corporation. My job was to drive these products to work better together through any means necessary, including opening bug reports. For one product, I found an inaccuracy on the product’s website and opened a bug report with Support. The support tech quickly reached out to me, provided me the corrected information, and closed the bug report. I called him back and asked him to keep the bug report open until the actual product website was fixed. We had a bitter argument over the state of the bug report and he closed it anyway.
The next day I realized my mistake. I was thinking only in terms of what I wanted. Support personnel are judged on closing tickets quickly, and updating a website took time with bureaucracy. I was effectively asking him to get a bad performance rating for my sake! I called him the next day, apologized, and appealed to his nobler motives. I told him I did not want him to get a bad rating on my part, that I did not care what happened to the problem ticket, but could he please work with me through any channel necessary to get the website fixed. His demeanor changed immediately, and he worked extra non-billable hours to fix the website! I went from being a villain in his personal movie to someone giving him a heroic opportunity.
Quick sidebar – if you suffer from road rage, you can appeal to your own nobler motives by realizing other drivers aren’t “in your way” or “out to get you” – they’re just other drivers going to their home, work, school, etc.
Master these Carnegie techniques and you will truly have super powers!
One weird trick to help people like you
Dale Carnegie says:
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
It’s that easy! Remember their name! We are all the heroes in our own personal movie. How highly can a hero think of someone who doesn’t even remember their name? Remembering names is just a matter of effort. You can do it, just try. If you need some help, here are some emotionally intelligent things to do within 5 minutes of meeting someone.
Conclusion
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” is an important and life-changing book, order it and read it right now! This post covers just a fraction of the lifelong lessons I have learned from the book. No matter what you want to accomplish interpersonally, this book has an answer for you.
