{"id":185,"date":"2017-08-06T02:12:18","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T02:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/?p=185"},"modified":"2019-04-12T14:08:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T14:08:38","slug":"everything-i-learned-about-dealing-with-people-i-learned-from-dale-carnegie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/06\/everything-i-learned-about-dealing-with-people-i-learned-from-dale-carnegie\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything I learned about dealing with people, I learned from Dale Carnegie."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow to Win Friends and Influence People<\/a>\u201d is the single most important book I have read in my life.  <\/span>To call it life-changing is a grand understatement.  <\/span>In fact, most of its individual chapters qualify as life-changing by themselves.<\/p>\n

After spending 10 years with the book, I feel it condenses down to the Golden Rule – \u201cDo unto others as you would have them do unto you\u201d.  <\/span>The caveat is that most of us don\u2019t really understand how we would like to be treated.  <\/span>We certainly think we do, but we don\u2019t.  <\/span>Most of us go through life as heroes in our own personal movies.  <\/span>In this post I\u2019ll highlight a couple of my favorite Carnegie-isms.<\/p>\n

Dealing with mistakes and errors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dale Carnegie says:<\/p>\n

\n

Show respect for the other person\u2019s opinions. Never say, \u201cYou\u2019re wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Call attention to people\u2019s mistakes indirectly.<\/p>\n

Let the other person save face.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These are perhaps the most challenging lessons to learn.  <\/span>After all, who doesn\u2019t like being right, and don\u2019t you want other people to know it?  <\/span>Whether the context is professional, social, or marital (especially if its marital!) directly calling out the \u2018wrong\u2019 side is a risky move.  <\/span>Each of us has a self-image of being a reasonable, logical, largely right person.  <\/span>Whether we know it or not, this is directly tied to our ego and sense of self.  <\/span>For most people, hearing \u201cyou\u2019re wrong\u201d is thus a direct attack on their self-image!  <\/span>We feel this way, even if we are wrong, because our sense of being \u201clargely right\u201d and \u201cwrong this time\u201d triggers cognitive dissonance and later embarrassment and resentment (read more here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

If you are dealing with someone who is wrong, or has made a mistake, there are two possibilities.<\/p>\n

#1 They don\u2019t think they were in the wrong<\/p>\n

#2 They know they were in the wrong<\/p>\n

In the first case, a direct \u201cyou\u2019re wrong\u201d triggers the cognitive dissonance and resentment described above.  <\/span>In the second case, they already know they were wrong and don\u2019t need your help to re-prove it.  <\/span>(Offering that help merely triggers resentment.)  <\/span>The best case scenario to get to is that you and the other party know they were wrong and don\u2019t have to be embarrassed.  <\/span>Look for ways to get there indirectly.  <\/span>The best way is if the other party can reach the conclusion themselves that they were wrong.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>They still get to be the superhero of their personal movie.<\/p>\n

Another summarization of this approach is it\u2019s amazing how much you can get done when you are not obsessed with getting the credit.<\/p>\n

Win people to your way of thinking<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dale Carnegie says:<\/p>\n

\n

Try honestly to see things from the other person\u2019s point of view.
\nBe sympathetic with the other person\u2019s ideas and desires.
\nAppeal to the nobler motives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I remind myself daily of these principles.  <\/span>When I talk to my mentees<\/a>, I refer to these principles as superpowers.  <\/span>The only effective way to get people to do what you want is to speak in terms of what\u2019s in it for them.  <\/span>This is not a cynical ploy.  <\/span>Each of us thinks of themselves as a good person trying to do good, while accomplishing our personal goals.  <\/span>When there’s nothing in it for us, we may not do something.<\/p>\n

I was once a developer on a solution bundling other products developed by my corporation.  <\/span>My job was to drive these products to work better together through any means necessary, including opening bug reports.  <\/span>For one product, I found an inaccuracy on the product\u2019s website and opened a bug report with Support.  <\/span>The support tech quickly reached out to me, provided me the corrected information, and closed the bug report.  <\/span>I called him back and asked him to keep the bug report open until the actual product website was fixed.  <\/span>We had a bitter argument over the state of the bug report and he closed it anyway.<\/p>\n

The next day I realized my mistake.  <\/span>I was thinking only in terms of what I wanted.  <\/span>Support personnel are judged on closing tickets quickly, and updating a website took time with bureaucracy.  <\/span>I was effectively asking him to get a bad performance rating for my sake!  <\/span>I called him the next day, apologized, and appealed to his nobler motives.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>His demeanor changed immediately, and he worked extra non-billable hours to fix the website!  <\/span>I went from being a villain in his personal movie to someone giving him a heroic opportunity.<\/p>\n

Quick sidebar – if you suffer from road rage, you can appeal to your own nobler motives by realizing other drivers aren\u2019t \u201cin your way\u201d or \u201cout to get you\u201d – they\u2019re just other drivers going to their home, work, school, etc.<\/p>\n

Master these Carnegie techniques and you will truly have super powers!<\/p>\n

One weird trick to help people like you<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dale Carnegie says:<\/p>\n

\n

Remember that a person\u2019s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow to Win Friends and Influence People<\/a>\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow to Win Friends and Influence People\u201d 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freedville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}