zt: How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie

How To Win Friends And Influence People

By Dale Carnegie

--------------

Copyright - 1936 / 1964 / 1981 (Revised Edition)

Library of Congress Catalog Number - 17-19-20-18

ISBN - O-671-42517-X

Scan Version : v 1.0

Format : Text with cover pictures.

Date Scanned: Unknown

Posted to (Newsgroup): alt.binaries.e-book

Scan/Edit Note: I have made minor changes to this work, including a

contents page, covers etc. I did not scan this work (I only have the

1964 version) but decided to edit it since I am working on Dale's

other book "How To Stop Worrying and Start Living" and thought it

best to make minor improvements. Parts 5 and 6 were scanned and

added to this version by me, they were not included (for some

reason) in the version which appeared on alt.binaries.e-book.

-Salmun

--------------

Contents:

Eight Things This Book Will Help You Achieve

Preface to Revised Edition

How This Book Was Written-And Why

Nine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This Book

A Shortcut to Distinction

Part 1 - Fundamental Techniques In Handling People

• 1 - "If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive"

• 2 - The Big Secret of Dealing with People

• 3 - "He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him. He Who

Cannot, Walks a Lonely Way"

• Eight Suggestions On How To Get The Most Out Of This Book

Part 2 - Six Ways To Make People Like You

• 1 - Do This and You'll Be Welcome Anywhere

• 2 - A Simple Way to Make a Good Impression

• 3 - If You Don't Do This, You Are Headed for Trouble

• 4 - An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationalist

• 5 - How to Interest People

• 6 - How To Make People Like You Instantly

• In A Nutshell

Part 3 - Twelve Ways To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking

• 1 - You Can't Win an Argument

• 2 - A Sure Way of Making Enemies—and How to Avoid It

• 3 - If You're Wrong, Admit It

• 4 - The High Road to a Man's Reason

• 5 - The Secret of Socrates

• 6 - The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints

• 7 - How to Get Co-operation

• 8 - A Formula That Will Work Wonders for You

• 9 - What Everybody Wants

• 10 - An Appeal That Everybody Likes

• 11 - The Movies Do It. Radio Does It. Why Don't You Do It?

• 12 - When Nothing Else Works, Try This

• In A Nutshell

Part 4 - Nine Ways To Change People Without Giving Offence Or

Arousing Resentment

• 1 - If You Must Find Fault, This Is the Way to Begin

• 2 - How to Criticize—and Not Be Hated for It

• 3 - Talk About Your Own Mistakes First

• 4 - No One Likes to Take Orders

• 5 - Let the Other Man Save His Face

• 6 - How to Spur Men on to Success

• 7 - Give the Dog a Good Name

• 8 - Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct

• 9 - Making People Glad to Do What You Want

• In A Nutshell

Part 5 - Letters That Produced Miraculous Results

Part 6 - Seven Rules For Making Your Home Life Happier

• 1 - How to Dig Your Marital Grave in the Quickest Possible Way

• 2 - Love and Let Live

• 3 - Do This and You'll Be Looking Up the Time-Tables to Reno

• 4 - A Quick Way to Make Everybody Happy

• 5 - They Mean So Much to a Woman

• 6 - If you Want to be Happy, Don't Neglect This One

• 7 - Don't Be a "Marriage Illiterate"

• In A Nutshell

--------------

Eight Things This Book Will Help You Achieve

• 1. Get out of a mental rut, think new thoughts, acquire new

visions, discover new ambitions.

• 2. Make friends quickly and easily.

• 3. Increase your popularity.

• 4. Win people to your way of thinking.

• 5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things

done.

• 6. Handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts

smooth and pleasant.

• 7. Become a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.

• 8. Arouse enthusiasm among your associates.

This book has done all these things for more than ten million readers

in thirty-six languages.

--------------

Preface to Revised Edition

How to Win Friends and Influence People was first published in 1937

in an edition of only five thousand copies. Neither Dale Carnegie nor

the publishers, Simon and Schuster, anticipated more than this

modest sale. To their amazement, the book became an overnight

sensation, and edition after edition rolled off the presses to keep up

with the increasing public demand. Now to Win Friends and

InfEuence People took its place in publishing history as one of the

all-time international best-sellers. It touched a nerve and filled a

human need that was more than a faddish phenomenon of post-

Depression days, as evidenced by its continued and uninterrupted

sales into the eighties, almost half a century later.

Dale Carnegie used to say that it was easier to make a million dollars

than to put a phrase into the English language. How to Win Friends

and Influence People became such a phrase, quoted, paraphrased,

parodied, used in innumerable contexts from political cartoon to

novels. The book itself was translated into almost every known

written language. Each generation has discovered it anew and has

found it relevant.

Which brings us to the logical question: Why revise a book that has

proven and continues to prove its vigorous and universal appeal?

Why tamper with success?

To answer that, we must realize that Dale Carnegie himself was a

tireless reviser of his own work during his lifetime. How to Win

Friends and Influence People was written to be used as a textbook

for his courses in Effective Speaking and Human Relations and is still

used in those courses today. Until his death in 1955 he constantly

improved and revised the course itself to make it applicable to the

evolving needs of an every-growing public. No one was more

sensitive to the changing currents of present-day life than Dale

Carnegie. He constantly improved and refined his methods of

teaching; he updated his book on Effective Speaking several times.

Had he lived longer, he himself would have revised How to Win

Friends and Influence People to better reflect the changes that have

taken place in the world since the thirties.

Many of the names of prominent people in the book, well known at

the time of first publication, are no longer recognized by many of

today's readers. Certain examples and phrases seem as quaint and

dated in our social climate as those in a Victorian novel. The

important message and overall impact of the book is weakened to

that extent.

Our purpose, therefore, in this revision is to clarify and strengthen

the book for a modern reader without tampering with the content.

We have not "changed" How to Win Friends and Influence People

except to make a few excisions and add a few more contemporary

examples. The brash, breezy Carnegie style is intact-even the thirties

slang is still there. Dale Carnegie wrote as he spoke, in an intensively

exuberant, colloquial, conversational manner.

So his voice still speaks as forcefully as ever, in the book and in his

work. Thousands of people all over the world are being trained in

Carnegie courses in increasing numbers each year. And other

thousands are reading and studying How to Win Friends and

lnfluence People and being inspired to use its principles to better

their lives. To all of them, we offer this revision in the spirit of the

honing and polishing of a finely made tool.

Dorothy Carnegie (Mrs. Dale Carnegie)

--------------------------

How This Book Was Written-And Why

by

Dale Carnegie

During the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century, the

publishing houses of America printed more than a fifth of a million

different books. Most of them were deadly dull, and many were

financial failures. "Many," did I say? The president of one of the

largest publishing houses in the world confessed to me that his

company, after seventy-five years of publishing experience, still lost

money on seven out of every eight books it published.

Why, then, did I have the temerity to write another book? And, after

I had written it, why should you bother to read it?

Fair questions, both; and I'll try to answer them.

I have, since 1912, been conducting educational courses for business

and professional men and women in New York. At first, I conducted

courses in public speaking only - courses designed to train adults, by

actual experience, to think on their feet and express their ideas with

more clarity, more effectiveness and more poise, both in business

interviews and before groups.

But gradually, as the seasons passed, I realized that as sorely as

these adults needed training in effective speaking, they needed still

more training in the fine art of getting along with people in everyday

business and social contacts.

I also gradually realized that I was sorely in need of such training

myself. As I look back across the years, I am appalled at my own

frequent lack of finesse and understanding. How I wish a book such

as this had been placed in my hands twenty years ago! What a

priceless boon it would have been.

Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face,

especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are

a housewife, architect or engineer. Research done a few years ago

under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement

of Teaching uncovered a most important and significant fact - a fact

later confirmed by additional studies made at the Carnegie Institute

of Technology. These investigations revealed that even in such

technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one's financial

success is due to one's technical knowledge and about 85 percent is

due to skill in human engineering-to personality and the ability to

lead people.

For many years, I conducted courses each season at the Engineers'

Club of Philadelphia, and also courses for the New York Chapter of

the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. A total of probably

more than fifteen hundred engineers have passed through my

classes. They came to me because they had finally realized, after

years of observation and experience, that the highest-paid personnel

in engineering are frequently not those who know the most about

engineering. One can for example, hire mere technical ability in

engineering, accountancy, architecture or any other profession at

nominal salaries. But the person who has technical knowledge plus

the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse

enthusiasm among people-that person is headed for higher earning

power.

In the heyday of his activity, John D. Rockefeller said that "the ability

to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or

coffee." "And I will pay more for that ability," said John D., "than for

any other under the sun."

Wouldn't you suppose that every college in the land would conduct

courses to develop the highest-priced ability under the sun? But if

there is just one practical, common-sense course of that kind given

for adults in even one college in the land, it has escaped my

attention up to the present writing.

The University of Chicago and the United Y.M.C.A. Schools conducted

a survey to determine what adults want to study.

That survey cost $25,000 and took two years. The last part of the

survey was made in Meriden, Connecticut. It had been chosen as a

typical American town. Every adult in Meriden was interviewed and

requested to answer 156 questions-questions such as "What is your

business or profession? Your education? How do you spend your

spare time? What is your income? Your hobbies? Your ambitions?

Your problems? What subjects are you most interested in studying?"

And so on. That survey revealed that health is the prime interest of

adults and that their second interest is people; how to understand

and get along with people; how to make people like you; and how to

win others to your way of thinking.

So the committee conducting this survey resolved to conduct such a

course for adults in Meriden. They searched diligently for a practical

textbook on the subject and found-not one. Finally they approached

one of the world's outstanding authorities on adult education and

asked him if he knew of any book that met the needs of this group.

"No," he replied, "I know what those adults want. But the book they

need has never been written."

I knew from experience that this statement was true, for I myself

had been searching for years to discover a practical, working

handbook on human relations.

Since no such book existed, I have tried to write one for use in my

own courses. And here it is. I hope you like it.

In preparation for this book, I read everything that I could find on

the subject- everything from newspaper columns, magazine articles,

records of the family courts, the writings of the old philosophers and

the new psychologists. In addition, I hired a trained researcher to

spend one and a half years in various libraries reading everything I

had missed, plowing through erudite tomes on psychology, poring

over hundreds of magazine articles, searching through countless

biographies, trying to ascertain how the great leaders of all ages had

dealt with people. We read their biographies, We read the life stories

of all great leaders from Julius Caesar to Thomas Edison. I recall that

we read over one hundred biographies of Theodore Roosevelt alone.

We were determined to spare no time, no expense, to discover every

practical idea that anyone had ever used throughout the ages for

winning friends and influencing people.

I personally interviewed scores of successful people, some of them

world-famous-inventors like Marconi and Edison; political leaders like

Franklin D. Roosevelt and James Farley; business leaders like Owen

D. Young; movie stars like Clark Gable and Mary Pickford; and

explorers like Martin Johnson-and tried to discover the techniques

they used in human relations.

From all this material, I prepared a short talk. I called it "How to Win

Friends and Influence People." I say "short." It was short in the

beginning, but it soon expanded to a lecture that consumed one

hour and thirty minutes. For years, I gave this talk each season to

the adults in the Carnegie Institute courses in New York.

I gave the talk and urged the listeners to go out and test it in their

business and social contacts, and then come back to class and speak

about their experiences and the results they had achieved. What an

interesting assignment! These men and women, hungry for selfimprovement,

were fascinated by the idea of working in a new kind

of laboratory - the first and only laboratory of human relationships

for adults that had ever existed.

This book wasn't written in the usual sense of the word. It grew as a

child grows. It grew and developed out of that laboratory, out of the

experiences of thousands of adults.

Years ago, we started with a set of rules printed on a card no larger

than a postcard. The next season we printed a larger card, then a

leaflet, then a series of booklets, each one expanding in size and

scope. After fifteen years of experiment and research came this

book.

The rules we have set down here are not mere theories or

guesswork. They work like magic. Incredible as it sounds, I have

seen the application of these principles literally revolutionize the lives

of many people.

To illustrate: A man with 314 employees joined one of these courses.

For years, he had driven and criticized and condemned his

employees without stint or discretion. Kindness, words of

appreciation and encouragement were alien to his lips. After studying

the principles discussed in this book, this employer sharply altered

his philosophy of life. His organization is now inspired with a new

loyalty, a new enthusiasm, a new spirit of team-work. Three hundred

and fourteen enemies have been turned into 314 friends. As he

proudly said in a speech before the class: "When I used to walk

through my establishment, no one greeted me. My employees

actually looked the other way when they saw me approaching. But

now they are all my friends and even the janitor calls me by my first

name."

This employer gained more profit, more leisure and -what is infinitely

more important-he found far more happiness in his business and in

his home.

Countless numbers of salespeople have sharply increased their sales

by the use of these principles. Many have opened up new accounts -

accounts that they had formerly solicited in vain. Executives have

been given increased authority, increased pay. One executive

reported a large increase in salary because he applied these truths.

Another, an executive in the Philadelphia Gas Works Company, was

slated for demotion when he was sixty-five because of his

belligerence, because of his inability to lead people skillfully. This

training not only saved him from the demotion but brought him a

promotion with increased pay.

On innumerable occasions, spouses attending the banquet given at

the end of the course have told me that their homes have been

much happier since their husbands or wives started this training.

People are frequently astonished at the new results they achieve. It

all seems like magic. In some cases, in their enthusiasm, they have

telephoned me at my home on Sundays because they couldn't wait

forty-eight hours to report their achievements at the regular session

of the course.

One man was so stirred by a talk on these principles that he sat far

into the night discussing them with other members of the class. At

three o'clock in the morning, the others went home. But he was so

shaken by a realization of his own mistakes, so inspired by the vista

of a new and richer world opening before him, that he was unable to

sleep. He didn't sleep that night or the next day or the next night.

Who was he? A naive, untrained individual ready to gush over any

new theory that came along? No, Far from it. He was a sophisticated,

blas

languages fluently and was a graduate of two European universities.

While writing this chapter, I received a letter from a German of the

old school, an aristocrat whose forebears had served for generations

as professional army officers under the Hohenzollerns. His letter,

written from a transatlantic steamer, telling about the application of

these principles, rose almost to a religious fervor.

Another man, an old New Yorker, a Harvard graduate, a wealthy

man, the owner of a large carpet factory, declared he had learned

more in fourteen weeks through this system of training about the

fine art of influencing people than he had learned about the same

subject during his four years in college. Absurd? Laughable?

Fantastic? Of course, you are privileged to dismiss this statement

with whatever adjective you wish. I am merely reporting, without

comment, a declaration made by a conservative and eminently

successful Harvard graduate in a public address to approximately six

hundred people at the Yale Club in New York on the evening of

Thursday, February 23, 1933.

"Compared to what we ought to be," said the famous Professor

William James of Harvard, "compared to 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,"

Those powers which you "habitually fail to use"! The sole purpose of

this book is to help you discover, develop and profit by those

dormant and unused assets,

"Education," said Dr. John G. Hibben, former president of Princeton

University, "is the ability to meet life's situations,"

If by the time you have finished reading the first three chapters of

this book- if you aren't then a little better equipped to meet life's

situations, then I shall consider this book to be a total failure so far

as you are concerned. For "the great aim of education," said Herbert

Spencer, "is not knowledge but action."

And this is an action book.

DALE CARNEGIE 1936

----------------------------------

Nine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This Book

1. If you wish to get the most out of this book, there is one

indispensable requirement, one essential infinitely more important

than any rule or technique. Unless you have this one fundamental

requisite, a thousand rules on how to study will avail little, And if you

do have this cardinal endowment, then you can achieve wonders

without reading any suggestions for getting the most out of a book.

What is this magic requirement? Just this: a deep, driving desire to

learn, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with

people.

How can you develop such an urge? By constantly reminding yourself

how important these principles are to you. Picture to yourself how

their mastery will aid you in leading a richer, fuller, happier and more

fulfilling life. Say to yourself over and over: "My popularity, my

happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my

skill in dealing with people."

2. Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird's-eye view of it.

You will probably be tempted then to rush on to the next one. But

don't - unless you are reading merely for entertainment. But if you

are reading because you want to increase your skill in human

relations, then go back and reread each chapter thoroughly. In the

long run, this will mean saving time and getting results.

3. Stop frequently in your reading to think over what you are

reading. Ask yourself just how and when you can apply each

suggestion.

4. Read with a crayon, pencil, pen, magic marker or highlighter in

your hand. When you come across a suggestion that you feel you

can use, draw a line beside it. If it is a four-star suggestion, then

underscore every sentence or highlight it, or mark it with "****."

Marking and underscoring a book makes it more interesting, and far

easier to review rapidly.

5. I knew a woman who had been office manager for a large

insurance concern for fifteen years. Every month, she read all the

insurance contracts her company had issued that month. Yes, she

read many of the same contracts over month after month, year after

year. Why? Because experience had taught her that that was the

only way she could keep their provisions clearly in mind. I once spent

almost two years writing a book on public speaking and yet I found I

had to keep going back over it from time to time in order to

remember what I had written in my own book. The rapidity with

which we forget is astonishing.

So, if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this book, don't

imagine that skimming through it once will suffice. After reading it

thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every

month, Keep it on your desk in front of you every day. Glance

through it often. Keep constantly impressing yourself with the rich

possibilities for improvement that still lie in the offing. Remember

that the use of these principles can be made habitual only by a

constant and vigorous campaign of review and application. There is

no other way.

6. Bernard Shaw once remarked: "If you teach a man anything, he

will never learn." Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We

learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are

studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at

every opportunity. If you don't you will forget them quickly. Only

knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

You will probably find it difficult to apply these suggestions all the

time. I know because I wrote the book, and yet frequently I found it

difficult to apply everything I advocated. For example, when you are

displeased, it is much easier to criticize and condemn than it is to try

to understand the other person's viewpoint. It is frequently easier to

find fault than to find praise. It is more natural to talk about what

vou want than to talk about what the other person wants. And so on,

So, as you read this book, remember that you are not merely trying

to acquire information. You are attempting to form new habits. Ah

yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will require time and

persistence and daily application.

So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working handbook on

human relations; and whenever you are confronted with some

specific problem - such as handling a child, winning your spouse to

your way of thinking, or satisfying an irritated customer - hesitate

about doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is usually

wrong. Instead, turn to these pages and review the paragraphs you

have underscored. Then try these new ways and watch them achieve

magic for you.

7. Offer your spouse, your child or some business associate a dime

or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating a certain

principle. Make a lively game out of mastering these rules.

8. The president of an important Wall Street bank once described, in

a talk before one of my classes, a highly efficient system he used for

self-improvement. This man had little formal schooling; yet he had

become one of the most important financiers in America, and he

confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant

application of his homemade system. This is what he does, I'll put it

in his own words as accurately as I can remember.

"For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the

appointments I had during the day. My family never made any plans

for me on Saturday night, for the family knew that I devoted a part

of each Saturday evening to the illuminating process of selfexamination

and review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by

myself, opened my engagement book, and thought over all the

interviews, discussions and meetings that had taken place during the

week. I asked myself:

'What mistakes did I make that time?' 'What did I do that was rightand

in what way could I have improved my performance?' 'What

lessons can I learn from that experience?'

"I often found that this weekly review made me very unhappy. I was

frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of course, as the years

passed, these blunders became less frequent. Sometimes I was

inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions.

This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued year after

year, did more for me than any other one thing I have ever

attempted.

"It helped me improve my ability to make decisions - and it aided me

enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it

too highly."

Why not use a similar system to check up on your application of the

principles discussed in this book? If you do, two things will result.

First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational process that is

both intriguing and priceless.

Second, you will find that your ability to meet and deal with people

will grow enormously.

9. You will find at the end of this book several blank pages on which

you should record your triumphs in the application of these

principles. Be specific. Give names, dates, results. Keeping such a

record will inspire you to greater efforts; and how fascinating these

entries will be when you chance upon them some evening years from

now!

In order to get the most out of this book:

• a. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human

relations,

• b. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.

• c. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply

each suggestion.

• d. Underscore each important idea.

• e. Review this book each month.

• f. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this volume as a

working handbook to help you solve your daily problems.

• g. Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend

a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of

these principles.

• h. Check up each week on the progress you are mak-ing. Ask

yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what

lessons you have learned for the future.

• i. Keep notes in the back of this book showing how and when you

have applied these principles.

------------------------------

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 twentyfive

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 fortysix,

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.

This chap who was a total failure the first half-dozen times he tried

to speak in public later became my personal manager. Much of my

success has been due to training under Dale Carnegie.

Young Carnegie had to struggle for an education, for hard luck was

always battering away at the old farm in northwest Missouri with a

flying tackle and a body slam. Year after year, the "102" River rose

and drowned the corn and swept away the hay. Season after season,

the fat hogs sickened and died from cholera, the bottom fell out of

the market for cattle and mules, and the bank threatened to

foreclose the mortgage.

Sick with discouragement, the family sold out and bought another

farm near the State Teachers' College at Warrensburg, Missouri.

Board and room could be had in town for a dollar a day, but young

Carnegie couldn't afford it. So he stayed on the farm and commuted

on horseback three miles to college each day. At home, he milked

the cows, cut the wood, fed the hogs, and studied his Latin verbs by

the light of a coal-oil lamp until his eyes blurred and he began to

nod.

Even when he got to bed at midnight, he set the alarm for three

o'clock. His father bred pedigreed Duroc-Jersey hogs - and there was

danger, during the bitter cold nights, that the young pigs would

freeze to death; so they were put in a basket, covered with a gunny

sack, and set behind the kitchen stove. True to their nature, the pigs

demanded a hot meal at 3 A.M. So when the alarm went off, Dale

Carnegie crawled out of the blankets, took the basket of pigs out to

their mother, waited for them to nurse, and then brought them back

to the warmth of the kitchen stove.

There were six hundred students in State Teachers' College, and

Dale Carnegie was one of the isolated half-dozen who couldn't afford

to board in town. He was ashamed of the poverty that made it

necessary for him to ride back to the farm and milk the cows every

night. He was ashamed of his coat, which was too tight, and his

trousers, which were too short. Rapidly developing an inferiority

complex, he looked about for some shortcut to distinction. He soon

saw that there were certain groups in college that enjoyed influence

and prestige - the football and baseball players and the chaps who

won the debating and public-speaking contests.

Realizing that he had no flair for athletics, he decided to win one of

the speaking contests. He spent months preparing his talks. He

practiced as he sat in the saddle galloping to college and back; he

practiced his speeches as he milked the cows; and then he mounted

a bale of hay in the barn and with great gusto and gestures

harangued the frightened pigeons about the issues of the day.

But in spite of all his earnestness and preparation, he met with

defeat after defeat. He was eighteen at the time - sensitive and

proud. He became so discouraged, so depressed, that he even

thought of suicide. And then suddenly he began to win, not one

contest, but every speaking contest in college.

Other students pleaded with him to train them; and they won also.

After graduating from college, he started selling correspondence

courses to the ranchers among the sand hills of western Nebraska

and eastern Wyoming. In spite of all his boundless energy and

enthusiasm, he couldn't make the grade. He became so discouraged

that he went to his hotel room in Alliance, Nebraska, in the middle of

the day, threw himself across the bed, and wept in despair. He

longed to go back to college, he longed to retreat from the harsh

battle of life; but he couldn't. So he resolved to go to Omaha and get

another job. He didn't have the money for a railroad ticket, so he

traveled on a freight train, feeding and watering two carloads of wild

horses in return for his passage, After landing in south Omaha, he

got a job selling bacon and soap and lard for Armour and Company.

His territory was up among the Badlands and the cow and Indian

country of western South Dakota. He covered his territory by freight

train and stage coach and horseback and slept in pioneer hotels

where the only partition between the rooms was a sheet of muslin.

He studied books on salesmanship, rode bucking bronchos, played

poker with the Indians, and learned how to collect money. And

when, for example, an inland storekeeper couldn't pay cash for the

bacon and hams he had ordered, Dale Carnegie would take a dozen

pairs of shoes off his shelf, sell the shoes to the railroad men, and

forward the receipts to Armour and Company.

He would often ride a freight train a hundred miles a day. When the

train stopped to unload freight, he would dash uptown, see three or

four merchants, get his orders; and when the whistle blew, he would

dash down the street again lickety-split and swing onto the train

while it was moving.

Within two years, he had taken an unproductive territory that had

stood in the twenty-fifth place and had boosted it to first place

among all the twenty-nine car routes leading out of south Omaha.

Armour and Company offered to promote him, saying: "You have

achieved what seemed impossible." But he refused the promotion

and resigned, went to New York, studied at the American Academy

of Dramatic Arts, and toured the country, playing the role of Dr.

Hartley in Polly of the Circus.

He would never be a Booth or a Barrymore. He had the good sense

to recognize that, So back he went to sales work, selling automobiles

and trucks for the Packard Motor Car Company.

He knew nothing about machinery and cared nothing about it.

Dreadfully unhappy, he had to scourge himself to his task each day.

He longed to have time to study, to write the books he had dreamed

about writing back in college. So he resigned. He was going to spend

his days writing stories and novels and support himself by teaching

in a night school.

Teaching what? As he looked back and evaluated his college work,

he saw that his training in public speaking had done more to give

him confidence, courage, poise and the ability to meet and deal with

people in business than had all the rest of his college courses put

together, So he urged the Y.M.C.A. schools in New York to give him

a chance to conduct courses in public speaking for people in

business.

What? Make orators out of business people? Absurd. The Y.M.C.A.

people knew. They had tried such courses -and they had always

failed. When they refused to pay him a salary of two dollars a night,

he agreed to teach on a commission basis and take a percentage of

the net profits -if there were any profits to take. And inside of three

years they were paying him thirty dollars a night on that basis -

instead of two.

The course grew. Other "Ys" heard of it, then other cities. Dale

Carnegie soon became a glorified circuit rider covering New York,

Philadelphia, Baltimore and later London and Paris. All the textbooks

were too academic and impractical for the business people who

flocked to his courses. Because of this he wrote his own book

entitled Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business. It became

the official text of all the Y.M.C.A.s as well as of the American

Bankers' Association and the National Credit Men's Association.

Dale Carnegie claimed that all people can talk when they get mad.

He said that if you hit the most ignorant man in town on the jaw and

knock him down, he would get on his feet and talk with an

eloquence, heat and emphasis that would have rivaled that world

famous orator William Jennings Bryan at the height of his career. He

claimed that almost any person can speak acceptably in public if he

or she has self-confidence and an idea that is boiling and stewing

within.

The way to develop self-confidence, he said, is to do the thing you

fear to do and get a record of successful experiences behind you. So

he forced each class member to talk at every session of the course.

The audience is sympathetic. They are all in the same boat; and, by

constant practice, they develop a courage, confidence and

enthusiasm that carry over into their private speaking.

Dale Carnegie would tell you that he made a living all these years,

not by teaching public speaking - that was incidental. His main job

was to help people conquer their fears and develop courage.

He started out at first to conduct merely a course in public speaking,

but the students who came were business men and women. Many of

them hadn't seen the inside of a classroom in thirty years. Most of

them were paying their tuition on the installment plan. They wanted

results and they wanted them quick - results that they could use the

next day in business interviews and in speaking before groups.

So he was forced to be swift and practical. Consequently, he

developed a system of training that is unique - a striking combination

of public speaking, salesmanship, human relations and applied

psychology.

A slave to no hard-and-fast rules, he developed a course that is as

real as the measles and twice as much fun.

When the classes terminated, the graduates formed clubs of their

own and continued to meet fortnightly for years afterward. One

group of nineteen in Philadelphia met twice a month during the

winter season for seventeen years. Class members frequently travel

fifty or a hundred miles to attend classes. One student used to

commute each week from Chicago to New York. Professor William

James of Harvard used to say that the average person develops only

10 percent of his latent mental ability. Dale Carnegie, by helping

business men and women to develop their latent possibilities,

created one of the most significant movements in adult education

LOWELL THOMAS 1936

------------------------------

Part One - Fundamental Techniques In Handling People

1 "If You Want To Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over The Beehive"

On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New York City had

ever known had come to its climax. After weeks of search, "Two

Gun" Crowley - the killer, the gunman who didn't smoke or drink -

was at bay, trapped in his sweetheart's apartment on West End

Avenue.

One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to his topfloor

hideway. They chopped holes in the roof; they tried to smoke

out Crowley, the "cop killer," with teargas. Then they mounted their

machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour

one of New York's fine residential areas reverberated with the crack

of pistol fire and the rut-tat-tat of machine guns. Crowley, crouching

behind an over-stuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten

thousand excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it ever

been seen before on the sidewalks of New York.

When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P. Mulrooney

declared that the two-gun desperado was one of the most dangerous

criminals ever encountered in the history of New York. "He will kill,"

said the Commissioner, "at the drop of a feather."

But how did "Two Gun" Crowley regard himself? We know, because

while the police were firing into his apartment, he wrote a letter

addressed "To whom it may concern, " And, as he wrote, the blood

flowing from his wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In this

letter Crowley said: "Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one

- one that would do nobody any harm."

A short time before this, Crowley had been having a necking party

with his girl friend on a country road out on Long Island. Suddenly a

policeman walked up to the car and said: "Let me see your license."

Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut the policeman

down with a shower of lead. As the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped

out of the car, grabbed the officer's revolver, and fired another bullet

into the prostrate body. And that was the killer who said: "Under my

coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do nobody

any harm.'

Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he arrived at the

death house in Sing Sing, did he say, "This is what I get for killing

people"? No, he said: "This is what I get for defending myself."

The point of the story is this: "Two Gun" Crowley didn't blame

himself for anything.

Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you think so, listen to

this:

"I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter

pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the

existence of a hunted man."

That's Al Capone speaking. Yes, America's most notorious Public

Enemy- the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chicago.

Capone didn't condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a

public benefactor - an unappreciated and misunderstood public

benefactor.

And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gangster

bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of New York's most notorious

rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor.

And he believed it.

I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who

was warden of New York's infamous Sing Sing prison for many years,

on this subject, and he declared that "few of the criminals in Sing

Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you

and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell you why they

had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them

attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their

antisocial acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining

that they should never have been imprisoned at all."

If Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate

men and women behind prison walls don't blame themselves for

anything - what about the people with whom you and I come in

contact?

John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once

confessed: "I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I

have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting

over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of

intelligence."

Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder

through this old world for a third of a century before it even began

to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people

don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may

be.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and

usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous,

because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of

importance, and arouses resentment.

B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his

experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn

much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than

an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that

the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting

changes and often incur resentment.

Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, "As much as we thirst

for approval, we dread condemnation,"

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees,

family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that

has been condemned.

George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordinator for

an engineering company, One of his re-sponsibilities is to see that

employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the

field. He reported that whenever he came across workers who were

not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of authority of

the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get

sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove

the hats.

He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some

of the workers not wearing their hard hat, he asked if the hats were

uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he reminded the men in a

pleasant tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them

from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job. The

result was increased compliance with the regulation with no

resentment or emotional upset.

You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling on a

thousand pages of history, Take, for example, the famous quarrel

between Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft - a quarrel that split

the Republican party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and

wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War and altered the

flow of history. Let's review the facts quickly. When Theodore

Roosevelt stepped out of the White House in 1908, he supported

Taft, who was elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went off

to Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded. He

denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure the nomination

for a third term himself, formed the Bull Moose party, and all but

demolished the G.O.P. In the election that followed, William Howard

Taft and the Republican party carried only two states - Vermont and

Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever known.

Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President Taft blame

himself? Of course not, With tears in his eyes, Taft said: "I don't see

how I could have done any differently from what I have."

Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don't know, and I

don't care. The point I am trying to make is that all of Theodore

Roosevelt's criticism didn't persuade Taft that he was wrong. It

merely made Taft strive to justify himself and to reiterate with tears

in his eyes: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from

what I have."

Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringing

with indignation in the early 1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the

memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in

American public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B.

Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding's cabinet, was entrusted with

the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome -

oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy.

Did secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He handed the

fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what

did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a

"loan" of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed

manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district

to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of

the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at

the ends of guns and bayonets, rushed into court - and blew the lid

off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that it ruined

the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened

to wreck the Republican party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison

bars.

Fall was condemned viciously - condemned as few men in public life

have ever been. Did he repent? Never! Years later Herbert Hoover

intimated in a public speech that President Harding's death had been

due to mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him.

When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her chair, she wept, she

shook her fists at fate and screamed: "What! Harding betrayed by

Fall? No! My husband never betrayed anyone. This whole house full

of gold would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one who

has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified."

There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming

everybody but themselves. We are all like that. So when you and I

are tempted to criticize someone tomorrow, let's remember Al

Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley and Albert Fall. Let's realize that

criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let's

realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will

probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like

the gentle Taft, will say: "I don't see how I could have done any

differently from what I have."

On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a hall

bedroom of a cheap lodging house directly across the street from

Ford's Theater, where John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln's

long body lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was too

short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa Bonheur's famous

painting The Horse Fair hung above the bed, and a dismal gas jet

flickered yellow light.

As Lincoln lay dying, Secretary of War Stanton said, "There lies the

most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen."

What was the secret of Lincoln's success in dealing with people? I

studied the life of Abraham Lincoln for ten years and devoted all of

three years to writing and rewriting a book entitled Lincoln the

Unknown. I believe I have made as detailed and exhaustive a study

of Lincoln's personality and home life as it is possible for any being to

make. I made a special study of Lincoln's method of dealing with

people. Did he indulge in criticism? Oh, yes. As a young man in the

Pigeon Creek Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote

letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these letters on the

country roads where they were sure to be found. One of these

letters aroused resentments that burned for a lifetime.

Even after Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer in Springfield,

Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly in letters published in the

newspapers. But he did this just once too often.

In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by

the name of James Shields. Lincoln lamned him through an

anonymous letter published in Springfield Journal. The town roared

with laughter. Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation.

He found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse, started after

Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel. Lincoln didn't want to

fight. He was opposed to dueling, but he couldn't get out of it and

save his honor. He was given the choice of weapons. Since he had

very long arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in

sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the appointed

day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River,

prepared to fight to the death; but, at the last minute, their seconds

interrupted and stopped the duel.

That was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln's life. It taught

him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people. Never

again did he write an insulting letter. Never again did he ridicule

anyone. And from that time on, he almost never criticized anybody

for anything.

Time after time, during the Civil War, Lincoln put a new general at

the head of the Army of the Potomac, and each one in turn -

McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade - blundered tragically and

drove Lincoln to pacing the floor in despair. Half the nation savagely

condemned these incompetent generals, but Lincoln, "with malice

toward none, with charity for all," held his peace. One of his favorite

quotations was "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

And when Mrs. Lincoln and others spoke harshly of the southern

people, Lincoln replied: "Don't criticize them; they are just what we

would be under similar circumstances."

Yet if any man ever had occasion to criticize, surely it was Lincoln.

Let's take just one illustration:

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first three days of

July 1863. During the night of July 4, Lee began to retreat southward

while storm clouds deluged the country with rain. When Lee reached

the Potomac with his defeated army, he found a swollen, impassable

river in front of him, and a victorious Union Army behind him. Lee

was in a trap. He couldn't escape. Lincoln saw that. Here was a

golden, heaven-sent opportunity-the opportunity to capture Lee's

army and end the war immediately. So, with a surge of high hope,

Lincoln ordered Meade not to call a council of war but to attack Lee

immediately. Lincoln telegraphed his orders and then sent a special

messenger to Meade demanding immediate action.

And what did General Meade do? He did the very opposite of what

he was told to do. He called a council of war in direct violation of

Lincoln's orders. He hesitated. He procrastinated. He telegraphed all

manner of excuses. He refused point-blank to attack Lee. Finally the

waters receded and Lee escaped over the Potomac with his forces.

Lincoln was furious, " What does this mean?" Lincoln cried to his son

Robert. "Great God! What does this mean? We had them within our

grasp, and had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours;

yet nothing that I could say or do could make the army move. Under

the circumstances, almost any general could have defeated Lee. If I

had gone up there, I could have whipped him myself."

In bitter disappointment, Lincoln sat down and wrote Meade this

letter. And remember, at this period of his life Lincoln was extremely

conservative and restrained in his phraseology. So this letter coming

from Lincoln in 1863 was tantamount to the severest rebuke.

My dear General,

I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune

involved in Lee's escape. He was within our easy grasp, and to have

closed upon him would, in connection With our other late successes,

have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If

you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly

do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few-no

more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be

unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can now effect

much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed

immeasurably because of it.

What do you suppose Meade did when he read the letter?

Meade never saw that letter. Lincoln never mailed it. It was found

among his papers after his death.

My guess is - and this is only a guess - that after writing that letter,

Lincoln looked out of the window and said to himself, "Just a minute.

Maybe I ought not to be so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit

here in the quiet of the White House and order Meade to attack; but

if I had been up at Gettysburg, and if I had seen as much blood as

Meade has seen during the last week, and if my ears had been

pierced with the screams and shrieks of the wounded and dying,

maybe I wouldn't be so anxious to attack either. If I had Meade's

timid temperament, perhaps I would have done just what he had

done. Anyhow, it is water under the bridge now. If I send this letter,

it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade try to justify

himself. It will make him condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings,

impair all his further usefulness as a commander, and perhaps force

him to resign from the army."

So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had

learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost

invariably end in futility.

Theodore Roosevelt said that when he, as President, was confronted

with a perplexing problem, he used to lean back and look up at a

large painting of Lincoln which hung above his desk in the White

House and ask himself, "What would Lincoln do if he were in my

shoes? How would he solve this problem?"

The next time we are tempted to admonish somebody, /let's pull a

five-dollar bill out of our pocket, look at Lincoln's picture on the bill,

and ask. "How would Lincoln handle this problem if he had it?"

Mark Twain lost his temper occasionally and wrote letters that turned

the Paper brown. For example, he once wrote to a man who had

aroused his ire: "The thing for you is a burial permit. You have only

to speak and I will see that you get it." On another occasion he

wrote to an editor about a proofreader's attempts to "improve my

spelling and punctuation." He ordered: "Set the matter according to

my copy hereafter and see that the proofreader retains his

suggestions in the mush of his decayed brain."

The writing of these stinging letters made Mark Twain feel better.

They allowed him to blow off steam, and the letters didn't do any

real harm, because Mark's wife secretly lifted them out of the mail.

They were never sent.

Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and

improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor of it, But why not begin

on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more

profitable than trying to improve others - yes, and a lot less

dangerous. "Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof,"

said Confucius, "when your own doorstep is unclean."

When I was still young and trying hard to impress people, I wrote a

foolish letter to Richard Harding Davis, an author who once loomed

large on the literary horizon of America. I was preparing a magazine

article about authors, and I asked Davis to tell me about his method

of work. A few weeks earlier, I had received a letter from someone

with this notation at the bottom: "Dictated but not read." I was quite

impressed. I felt that the writer must be very big and busy and

important. I wasn't the slightest bit busy, but I was eager to make

an impression on Richard Harding Davis, so I ended my short note

with the words: "Dictated but not read."

He never troubled to answer the letter. He simply returned it to me

with this scribbled across the bottom: "Your bad manners are

exceeded only by your bad manners." True, I had blundered, and

perhaps I deserved this rebuke. But, being human, I resented it. I

resented it so sharply that when I read of the death of Richard

Harding Davis ten years later, the one thought that still persisted in

my mind - I am ashamed to admit - was the hurt he had given me.

If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle

across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a

little stinging criticism-no matter how certain we are that it is

justified.

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with

creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion,

creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest

novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the

writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English

poet, to suicide.

Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so

adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador

to France. The secret of his success? "I will speak ill of no man," he

said, " . . and speak all the good I know of everybody."

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do.

But it takes character and self-control to be under-standing and

forgiving.

"A great man shows his greatness," said Carlyle, "by the way he

treats little men."

Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent per-former at air

shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in

San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three

hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft

maneuvering he managed to land the plane, but it was badly

damaged although nobody was hurt.

Hoover's first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the

airplane's fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller

plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than

gasoline.

Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had

serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his

mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He

had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have

caused the loss of three lives as well.

You can imagine Hoover's anger. One could anticipate the tonguelashing

that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that

carelessness. But Hoover didn't scold the mechanic; he didn't even

criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man's shoulder

and said, "To show you I'm sure that you'll never do this again, I

want you to service my F-51 tomorrow."

Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. You would

expect me to say "don't." But I will not, I am merely going to say,

"Before you criticize them, read one of the classics of American

journalism, 'Father Forgets.' " It originally appeared as an editorial in

the People's Home Journnl. We are reprinting it here with the

author's permission, as condensed in the Reader's Digest:

"Father Forgets" is one of those little pieces which-dashed of in a

moment of sincere feeling - strikes an echoing chord in so many

readers as to become a perenial reprint favorite. Since its first

appearance, "Father Forgets" has been reproduced, writes the

author, W, Livingston Larned, "in hundreds of magazines and house

organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has been reprinted

almost as extensively in many foreign languages. I have given

personal permission to thousands who wished to read it from school,

church, and lecture platforms. It has been 'on the air' on countless

occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals have

used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a little piece seems

mysteriously to 'click.' This one certainly did."

FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw

crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your

damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few

minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave

of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I

scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your

face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning

your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things

on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down

your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too

thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for

my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye,

Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders

back!"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the

road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were

holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by

marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive -

and if you had to

buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a

father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you

came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I

glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you

hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and

threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small

arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your

heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were

gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my

hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit

been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding - this

was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love

you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you

by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your

character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over

the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush

in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have

come to your bed-side in the darkness, and I have knelt there,

ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these

things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow

I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you

suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when

impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is

nothing but a boy - a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now,

son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.

Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her

shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them. Let's try

to figure out why they do what they do. That's a lot more profitable

and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and

kindness. "To know all is to forgive all."

As Dr. Johnson said: "God himself, sir, does not propose to judge

man until the end of his days."

Why should you and I?

• Principle 1 - Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

~~~~~~~

2 - The Big Secret Of Dealing With People

There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do

anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And

that is by making the other person want to do it.

Remember, there is no other way.

Of course, you can make someone want to give you his watch by

sticking a revolver in his ribs. YOU can make your employees give

you cooperation - until your back is turned - by threatening to fire

them. You can make a child do what you want it to do by a whip or a

threat. But these crude methods have sharply undesirable

repercussions.

The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you

want.

What do you want?

Sigmund Freud said that everything you and I do springs from two

motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great.

John Dewey, one of America's most profound philosophers, phrased

it a bit differently. Dr. Dewey said that the deepest urge in human

nature is "the desire to be important." Remember that phrase: "the

desire to be important." It is significant. You are going to hear a lot

about it in this book.

What do you want? Not many things, but the few that you do wish,

you crave with an insistence that will not be denied. Some of the

things most people want include:

1. Health and the preservation of life. 2. Food. 3. Sleep. 4. Money

and the things money will buy. 5. Life in the hereafter. 6. Sexual

gratification. 7. The well-being of our children. 8. A feeling of

importance.

Almost all these wants are usually gratified-all except one. But there

is one longing - almost as deep, almost as imperious, as the desire

for food or sleep - which is seldom gratified. It is what Freud calls

"the desire to be great." It is what Dewey calls the "desire to be

important."

Lincoln once began a letter saying: "Everybody likes a compliment."

William James said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the

craving to be appreciated." He didn't speak, mind you, of the "wish"

or the "desire" or the "longing" to be appreciated. He said the

"craving" to be appreciated.

Here is a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger, and the rare

individual who honestly satisfies this heart hunger will hold people in

the palm of his or her hand and "even the undertaker will be sorry

when he dies."

The desire for a feeling of importance is one of the chief

distinguishing differences between mankind and the animals. To

illustrate: When I was a farm boy out in Missouri, my father bred fine

Duroc-Jersey hogs and . pedigreed white - faced cattle. We used to

exhibit our hogs and white-faced cattle at the country fairs and livestock

shows throughout the Middle West. We won first prizes by the

score. My father pinned his blue ribbons on a sheet of white muslin,

and when friends or visitors came to the house, he would get out the

long sheet of muslin. He would hold one end and I would hold the

other while he exhibited the blue ribbons.

The hogs didn't care about the ribbons they had won. But Father did.

These prizes gave him a feeling of importance.

If our ancestors hadn't had this flaming urge for a feeling of

importance, civilization would have been impossible. Without it, we

should have been just about like animals.

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an uneducated,

poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in

the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for

fifty cents. You have probably heard of this grocery clerk. His name

was Lincoln.

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that inspired Dickens to

write his immortal novels. This desire inspired Sir Christoper Wren to

design his symphonies in stone. This desire made Rockefeller amass

millions that he never spent! And this same desire made the richest

family in your town build a house far too large for its requirements.

This desire makes you want to wear the latest styles, drive the latest

cars, and talk about your brilliant children.

It is this desire that lures many boys and girls into joining gangs and

engaging in criminal activities. The average young criminal,

according to E. P. Mulrooney, onetime police commissioner of New

York, is filled with ego, and his first request after arrest is for those

lurid newspapers that make him out a hero. The disagreeable

prospect of serving time seems remote so long as he can gloat over

his likeness sharing space with pictures of sports figures, movie and

TV stars and politicians.

If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I'll tell you

what you are. That determines your character. That is the most

significant thing about you. For example, John D. Rockefeller got his

feeling of importance by giving money to erect a modern hospital in

Peking, China, to care for millions of poor people whom he had never

seen and never would see. Dillinger, on the other hand, got his

feeling of importance by being a bandit, a bank robber and killer.

When the FBI agents were hunting him, he dashed into a farmhouse

up in Minnesota and said, "I'm Dillinger!" He was proud of the fact

that he was Public Enemy Number One. "I'm not going to hurt you,

but I'm Dillinger!" he said.

Yes, the one significant difference between Dillinger and Rockefeller

is how they got their feeling of importance.

History sparkles with amusing examples of famous people struggling

for a feeling of importance. Even George Washington wanted to be

called "His Mightiness, the President of the United States"; and

Columbus pleaded for the title "Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of

India." Catherine the Great refused to open letters that were not

addressed to "Her Imperial Majesty"; and Mrs. Lincoln, in the White

House, turned upon Mrs. Grant like a tigress and shouted, "How dare

you be seated in my presence until I invite you!"

Our millionaires helped finance Admiral Byrd's expedition to the

Antarctic in 1928 with the understanding that ranges of icy

mountains would be named after them; and Victor Hugo aspired to

have nothing less than the city of Paris renamed in his honor. Even

Shakespeare, mightiest of the mighty, tried to add luster to his name

by procuring a coat of arms for his family.

People sometimes became invalids in order to win sympathy and

attention, and get a feeling of importance. For example, take Mrs.

McKinley. She got a feeling of importance by forcing her husband,

the President of the United States, to neglect important affairs of

state while he reclined on the bed beside her for hours at a time, his

arm about her, soothing her to sleep. She fed her gnawing desire for

attention by insisting that he remain with her while she was having

her teeth fixed, and once created a stormy scene when he had to

leave her alone with the dentist while he kept an appointment with

John Hay, his secretary of state.

The writer Mary Roberts Rinehart once told me of a bright, vigorous

young woman who became an invalid in order to get a feeling of

importance. "One day," said Mrs. Rinehart, "this woman had been

obliged to face something, her age perhaps. The lonely years were

stretching ahead and there was little left for her to anticipate.

"She took to her bed; and for ten years her old mother traveled to

the third floor and back, carrying trays, nursing her. Then one day

the old mother, weary with service, lay down and died. For some

weeks, the invalid languished; then she got up, put on her clothing,

and resumed living again."

Some authorities declare that people may actually go insane in order

to find, in the dreamland of insanity, the feeling of importance that

has been denied them in the harsh world of reality. There are more

patients suffering from mental diseases in the United States than

from all other diseases combined.

What is the cause of insanity?

Nobody can answer such a sweeping question, but we know that

certain diseases, such as syphilis, break down and destroy the brain

cells and result in insanity. In fact, about one-half of all mental

diseases can be attributed to such physical causes as brain lesions,

alcohol, toxins and injuries. But the other half - and this is the

appalling part of the story - the other half of the people who go

insane apparently have nothing organically wrong with their brain

cells. In post-mortem examinations, when their brain tissues are

studied under the highest-powered microscopes, these tissues are

found to be apparently just as healthy as yours and mine.

Why do these people go insane?

I put that question to the head physician of one of our most

important psychiatric hospitals. This doctor, who has received the

highest honors and the most coveted awards for his knowledge of

this subject, told me frankly that he didn't know why people went

insane. Nobody knows for sure But he did say that many people who

go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were

unable to achieve in the world of reality. Then he told me this story:

"I have a patient right now whose marriage proved to be a tragedy.

She wanted love, sexual gratification, children and social prestige,

but life blasted all her hopes. Her husband didn't love her. He

refused even to eat with her and forced her to serve his meals in his

room upstairs. She had no children, no social standing. She went

insane; and, in her imagination, she divorced her husband and

resumed her maiden name. She now believes she has married into

English aristocracy, and she insists on being called Lady Smith.

"And as for children, she imagines now that she has had a new child

every night. Each time I call on her she says: 'Doctor, I had a baby

last night.' "

Life once wrecked all her dream ships on the sharp rocks of reality;

but in the sunny, fantasy isles of insanity, all her barkentines race

into port with canvas billowing and winds singing through the masts.

" Tragic? Oh, I don't know. Her physician said to me: If I could

stretch out my hand and restore her sanity, I wouldn't do it. She's

much happier as she is."

If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they

actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can

achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity.

One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of

over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a

person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was

Charles Schwab, He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become

the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company

in 1921, when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old. (Schwab later

left U.S. Steel to take over the then-troubled Bethlehem Steel

Company, and he rebuilt it into one of the most profitable companies

in America.)

Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than

three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab? Why? Because

Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the

manufacture of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab

told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew

more about the manufacture of steel than he did.

Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his

ability to deal with people. I asked him how he did it. Here is his

secret set down in his own words - words that ought to be cast in

eternal bronze and hung in every home and school, every shop and

office in the land - words that children ought to memorize instead of

wasting their time memorizing the conjugation of Latin verbs or the

amount of the annual rainfall in Brazil - words that will all but

transform your life and mine if we will only live them:

"I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people," said

Schwab, "the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the

best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement.

"There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as

criticisms from superiors. I never criticize any-one. I believe in giving

a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to

find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish

in my praise. "

That is what Schwab did. But what do average people do? The exact

opposite. If they don't like a thing, they bawl out their subordinates;

if they do like it, they say nothing. As the old couplet says: "Once I

did bad and that I heard ever/Twice I did good, but that I heard

never."

"In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great people

in various parts of the world," Schwab declared, "I have yet to find

the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do

better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval

than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism."

That he said, frankly, was one of the outstanding reasons for the

phenomenal success of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie praised his

associates publicly as well as pr-vately.

Carnegie wanted to praise his assistants even on his tombstone. He

wrote an epitaph for himself which read: "Here lies one who knew

how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself:"

Sincere appreciation was one of the secrets of the first John D.

Rockefeller's success in handling men. For example, when one of his

partners, Edward T. Bedford, lost a million dollars for the firm by a

bad buy in South America, John D. might have criticized; but he

knew Bedford had done his best - and the incident was closed. So

Rockefeller found something to praise; he congratulated Bedford

because he had been able to save 60 percent of the money he had

invested. "That's splendid," said Rockefeller. "We don't always do as

well as that upstairs."

I have among my clippings a story that I know never happened, but

it illustrates a truth, so I'll repeat it:

According to this silly story, a farm woman, at the end of a heavy

day's work, set before her menfolks a heaping pile of hay. And when

they indignantly demanded whether she had gone crazy, she replied:

"Why, how did I know you'd notice? I've been cooking for you men

for the last twenty years and in all that time I ain't heard no word to

let me know you wasn't just eating hay."

When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do

you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It

was "lack of appreciation." And I'd bet that a similar study made of

runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our

spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we

appreciate them.

A member of one of our classes told of a request made by his wife.

She and a group of other women in her church were involved in a

self-improvement program. She asked her husband to help her by

listing six things he believed she could do to help her become a

better wife. He reported to the class: "I was surprised by such a

request. Frankly, it would have been easy for me to list six things I

would like to change about her - my heavens, she could have listed a

thousand things she would like to change about me - but I didn't. I

said to her, 'Let me think about it and give you an answer in the

morning.'

"The next morning I got up very early and called the florist and had

them send six red roses to my wife with a note saying: 'I can't think

of six things I would like to change about you. I love you the way

you are.'

"When I arrived at home that evening, who do you think greeted me

at the door: That's right. My wife! She was almost in tears. Needless

to say, I was extremely glad I had not criticized her as she had

requested.

"The following Sunday at church, after she had reported the results

of her assignment, several women with whom she had been studying

came up to me and said, 'That was the most considerate thing I

have ever heard.' It was then I realized the power of appreciation."

Florenz Ziegfeld, the most spectacular producer who ever dazzled

Broadway, gained his reputation by his subtle ability to "glorify the

American girl." Time after time, he took drab little creatures that no

one ever looked at twice and transformed them on the stage into

glamorous visions of mystery and seduction. Knowing the value of

appreciation and confidence, he made women feel beautiful by the

sheer power of his gallantry and consideration. He was practical: he

raised the salary of chorus girls from thirty dollars a week to as high

as one hundred and seventy-five. And he was also chivalrous; on

opening night at the Follies, he sent telegrams to the stars in the

cast, and he deluged every chorus girl in the show with American

Beauty roses.

I once succumbed to the fad of fasting and went for six days and

nights without eating. It wasn't difficult. I was less hungry at the end

of the sixth day than I was at the end of the second. Yet I know, as

you know, people who would think they had committed a crime if

they let their families or employees go for six days without food; but

they will let them go for six days, and six weeks, and sometimes

sixty years without giving them the hearty appreciation that they

crave almost as much as they crave food.

When Alfred Lunt, one of the great actors of his time, played the

leading role in Reunion in Vienna, he said, "There is nothing I need

so much as nourishment for my self-esteem."

We nourish the bodies of our children and friends and employees,

but how seldom do we nourish their selfesteem? We provide them

with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give

them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories

for years like the music of the morning stars.

Paul Harvey, in one of his radio broadcasts, "The Rest of the Story,"

told how showing sincere appreciation can change a person's life. He

reported that years ago a teacher in Detroit asked Stevie Morris to

help her find a mouse that was lost in the classroom. You see, she

appreciated the fact that nature had given Stevie something no one

else in the room had. Nature had given Stevie a remarkable pair of

ears to compensate for his blind eyes. But this was really the first

time Stevie had been shown appreciation for those talented ears.

Now, years later, he says that this act of appreciation was the

beginning of a new life. You see, from that time on he developed his

gift of hearing and went on to become, under the stage name of

Stevie Wonder, one of the great pop singers and and songwriters of

the seventies.*

* Paul Aurandt, Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story (New York:

Doubleday, 1977). Edited and compiled by Lynne Harvey. Copyright

(c) by Paulynne, Inc.

Some readers are saying right now as they read these lines: "Oh,

phooey! Flattery! Bear oil! I've tried that stuff. It doesn't work - not

with intelligent people."

Of course flattery seldom works with discerning people. It is shallow,

selfish and insincere. It ought to fail and it usually does. True, some

people are so hungry, so thirsty, for appreciation that they will

swallow anything, just as a starving man will eat grass and

fishworms.

Even Queen Victoria was susceptible to flattery. Prime Minister

Benjamin Disraeli confessed that he put it on thick in dealing with

the Queen. To use his exact words, he said he "spread it on with a

trowel." But Disraeli was one of the most polished, deft and adroit

men who ever ruled the far-flung British Empire. He was a genius in

his line. What would work for him wouldn't necessarily work for you

and me. In the long run, flattery will do you more harm than good.

Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually

get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else.

The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple.

One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart

out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish.

One is universally admired; the other universally condemned.

I recently saw a bust of Mexican hero General Alvaro Obregon in the

Chapultepec palace in Mexico City. Below the bust are carved these

wise words from General Obregon's philosophy: "Don't be afraid of

enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you."

No! No! No! I am not suggesting flattery! Far from it. I'm talking

about a new way of life. Let me repeat. I am talking about a new

way of life.

King George V had a set of six maxims displayed on the walls of his

study at Buckingham Palace. One of these maxims said: "Teach me

neither to proffer nor receive cheap praise." That's all flattery is -

cheap praise. I once read a definition of flattery that may be worth

repeating: "Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he

thinks about himself."

"Use what language you will," said Ralph Waldo Emerson, "you can

never say anything but what you are ."

If all we had to do was flatter, everybody would catch on and we

should all be experts in human relations.

When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite problem,

we usually spend about 95 percent of our time thinking about

ourselves. Now, if we stop thinking about ourselves for a while and

begin to think of the other person's good points, we won't have to

resort to flattery so cheap and false that it can be spotted almost

before it is out of the mouth,

One of the most neglected virtues of our daily existence is

appreciation, Somehow, we neglect to praise our son or daughter

when he or she brings home a good report card, and we fail to

encourage our children when they first succeed in baking a cake or

building a birdhouse.

Nothing pleases children more than this kind of parental interest and

approval.

The next time you enjoy filet mignon at the club, send word to the

chef that it was excellently prepared, and when a tired salesperson

shows you unusual courtesy, please mention it.

Every minister, lecturer and public speaker knows the

discouragement of pouring himself or herself out to an audience and

not receiving a single ripple of appreciative comment. What applies

to professionals applies doubly to workers in offices, shops and

factories and our families and friends. In our interpersonal relations

we should never forget that all our associates are human beings and

hunger for appreciation. It is the legal tender that all souls enjoy.

Try leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily

trips. You will be surprised how they will set small flames of

friendship that will be rose beacons on your next visit.

Pamela Dunham of New Fairfield, Connecticut, had among her

responsibilities on her job the supervision of a janitor who was doing

a very poor job. The other employees would jeer at him and litter the

hallways to show him what a bad job he was doing. It was so bad,

productive time was being lost in the shop.

Without success, Pam tried various ways to motivate this person.

She noticed that occasionally he did a particularly good piece of

work. She made a point to praise him for it in front of the other

people. Each day the job he did all around got better, and pretty

soon he started doing all his work efficiently. Now he does an

excellent job and other people give him appreciation and recognition.

Honest appreciation got results where criticism and ridicule failed.

Hurting people not only does not change them, it is never called for.

There is an old saying that I have cut out and pasted on my mirror

where I cannot help but see it every day:

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.

Emerson said: "Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In

that, I learn of him."

If that was true of Emerson, isn't it likely to be a thousand times

more true of you and me? Let's cease thinking of our

accomplishments, our wants. Let's try to figure out the other

person's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere

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

praise," and people will cherish your words and treasure them and

repeat them over a lifetime - repeat them years after you have

forgotten them.

• Principle 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation.

~~~~~~~

3 - "He Who Can Do This Has The Whole World With Him. He Who

Cannot Walks A Lonely Way"

I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am

very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some

strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't

think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I

didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a

worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you

like to have that?"

Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

That is what Lloyd George, Great Britain's Prime Minister during

World War I, did. When someone asked him how he managed to

stay in power after the other wartime leaders - Wilson, Orlando and

Clemenceau - had been forgotten, he replied that if his staying on

top might be attributed to any one thing, it would be to his having

learned that it was necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish .

Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course,

you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in

it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are

interested in what we want.

So the only way cm earth to influence other people is to talk about

what they want and show them how to get it.

Remember that tomorrow when you are trying to get somebody to

do something. If, for example, you don't want your children to

smoke, don't preach at them, and don't talk about what you want;

but show them that cigarettes may keep them from making the

basketball team or winning the hundred-yard dash.

This is a good thing to remember regardless of whether you are

dealing with children or calves or chimpanzees. For example: one

day Ralph Waldo Emerson and his son tried to get a calf into the

barn. But they made the common mistake of thinking only of what

they wanted: Emerson pushed and his son pulled. But the calf was

doing just what they were doing; he was thinking only of what he

wanted; so he stiffened his legs and stubbornly refused to leave the

pasture. The Irish housemaid saw their predicament. She couldn't

write essays and books; but, on this occasion at least, she had more

horse sense, or calf sense, than Emerson had. She thought of what

the calf wanted; so she put her maternal finger in the calf's mouth

and let the calf suck her finger as she gently led him into the barn.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was

performed because you wanted something. How about the time you

gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception

to the rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you

wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful,

unselfish, divine act. " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the

least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

If you hadn't wanted that feeling more than you wanted your money,

you would not have made the contribution. Of course, you might

have made the contribution because you were ashamed to refuse or

because a customer asked you to do it. But one thing is certain. You

made the contribution because you wanted something.

Harry A, Overstreet in his illuminating book Influencing Human

Behavior said; "Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire

... and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be

persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in

politics, is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who

can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a

lonely way."

Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotch lad who started to

work at two cents an hour and finally gave away $365 million,

learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in

terms of what the other person wants. He attended school only four

years; yet he learned how to handle people.

To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over her two boys.

They were at Yale, and they were so busy with their own affairs that

they neglected to write home and paid no attention whatever to their

mother's frantic letters.

Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that he could get

an answer by return mail, without even asking for it. Someone called

his bet; so he wrote his nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually

in a post-script that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill.

He neglected, however, to enclose the money.

Back came replies by return mail thanking "Dear Uncle Andrew" for

his kind note and-you can finish the sentence yourself.

Another example of persuading comes from Stan Novak of Cleveland,

Ohio, a participant in our course. Stan came home from work one

evening to find his youngest son, Tim, kicking and screaming on the

living room floor. He was to start kindergarten the next day and was

protesting that he would not go. Stan's normal reaction would have

been to banish the child to his room and tell him he'd just better

make up his mind to go. He had no choice. But tonight, recognizing

that this would not really help Tim start kindergarten in the best

frame of mind, Stan sat down and thought, "If I were Tim, why

would I be excited about going to kindergarten?" He and his wife

made a list of all the fun things Tim would do such as finger painting,

singing songs, making new friends. Then they put them into action.

"We all started finger-painting on the kitchen table-my wife, Lil, my

other son Bob, and myself, all having fun. Soon Tim was peeping

around the corner. Next he was begging to participate. 'Oh, no! You

have to go to kindergarten first to learn how to finger-paint.' With all

the enthusiasm I could muster I went through the list talking in

terms he could understand-telling him all the fun he would have in

kindergarten. The next morning, I thought I was the first one up. I

went downstairs and found Tim sitting sound asleep in the living

room chair. 'What are you doing here?' I asked. 'I'm waiting to go to

kindergarten. I don't want to be late.' The enthusiasm of our entire

family had aroused in Tim an eager want that no amount of

discussion or threat could have possibly accomplished."

Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do something.

Before you speak, pause and ask yourself: "How can I make this

person want to do it?"

That question will stop us from rushing into a situation heedlessly,

with futile chatter about our desires.

At one time I rented the grand ballroom of a certain New York hotel

for twenty nights in each season in order to hold a series of lectures.

At the beginning of one season, I was suddenly informed that I

should have to pay almost three times as much rent as formerly.

This news reached me after the tickets had been printed and

distributed and all announcements had been made.

Naturally, I didn't want to pay the increase, but what was the use of

talking to the hotel about what I wanted? They were interested only

in what they wanted. So a couple of days later I went to see the

manager.

"I was a bit shocked when I got your letter," I said, "but I don't

blame you at all. If I had been in your position, I should probably

have written a similar letter myself. Your duty as the manager of the

hotel is to make all the profit possible. If you don't do that, you will

be fired and you ought to be fired. Now, let's take a piece of paper

and write down the advantages and the disadvantages that will

accrue to you, if you insist on this increase in rent."

Then I took a letterhead and ran a line through the center and

headed one column "Advantages" and the other column

"Disadvantages."

I wrote down under the head "Advantages" these words: "Ballroom

free." Then I went on to say: "You will have the advantage of having

the ballroom free to rent for dances and conventions. That is a big

advantage, for affairs like that will pay you much more than you can

get for a series of lectures. If I tie your ballroom up for twenty nights

during the course of the season, it is sure to mean a loss of some

very profitable business to you.

"Now, let's 'consider the disadvantages. First, instead of increasing

your income from me, you are going to decrease it. In fact, you are

going to wipe it out because I cannot pay the rent you are asking. I

shall be forced to hold these lectures at some other place.

"There's another disadvantage to you also. These lectures attract

crowds of educated and cultured people to your hotel. That is good

advertising for you, isn't it? In fact, if you spent five thousand dollars

advertising in the newspapers, you couldn't bring as many people to

look at your hotel as I can bring by these lectures. That is worth a lot

to a hotel, isn't it?"

As I talked, I wrote these two "disadvantages" under the proper

heading, and handed the sheet of paper to the manager, saying: "I

wish you would carefully consider both the advantages and

disadvantages that are going to accrue to you and then give me your

final decision."

I received a letter the next day, informing me that my rent would be

increased only 50 percent instead of 300 percent.

Mind you, I got this reduction without saying a word about what I

wanted. I talked all the time about what the other person wanted

and how he could get it.

Suppose I had done the human, natural thing; suppose I had

stormed into his office and said, "What do you mean by raising my

rent three hundred percent when you know the tickets have been

printed and the announcements made? Three hundred percent!

Ridiculous! Absurd! I won't pay it!"

What would have happened then? An argument would have begun

to steam and boil and sputter - and you know how arguments end.

Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have

made it difficult for him to back down and give in.

Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of

human relationships. "If there is any one secret of success," said

Henry Ford, "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 from your

own."

That is so good, I want to repeat 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 from your own."

That is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see the truth of it

at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people on this earth ignore it 90

percent of the time.

An example? Look at the letters that come across your desk

tomorrow morning, and you will find that most of them violate this

important canon of common sense. Take this one, a letter written by

the head of the radio department of an advertising agency with

offices scattered across the continent. This letter was sent to the

managers of local radio stations throughout the country. (I have set

down, in brackets, my reactions to each paragraph.)

Mr. John Blank, Blankville, Indiana

Dear Mr. Blank: The ------ company desires to retain its position in

advertising agency leadership in the radio field.

[Who cares what your company desires? I am worried about my own

problems. The bank is foreclosing the mortage on my house, the

bugs are destroying the hollyhocks, the stock market tumbled

yesterday. I missed the eight-fifteen this morning, I wasn't invited to

the Jones's dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high blood

pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what happens? I come

down to the office this morning worried, open my mail and here is

some little whippersnapper off in New York yapping about what his

company wants. Bah! If he only realized what sort of impression his

letter makes, he would get out of the advertising business and start

manufacturing sheep dip.]

This agency's national advertising accounts were the bulwark of the

network. Our subsequent clearances of station time have kept us at

the top of agencies year after year.

[You are big and rich and right at the top, are you? So what? I don't

give two whoops in Hades if you are as big as General Motors and

General Electric and the General Staff of the U.S. Army all combined.

If you had as much sense as a half-witted hummingbird, you would

realize that I am interested in how big I am - not how big you are.

All this talk about your enormous success makes me feel small and

unimportant.]

We desire to service our accounts with the last word on radio station

information.

[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I'm not interested in

what you desire or what the President of the United States desires.

Let me tell you once and for all that I am interested in what I desire

- and you haven't said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of

yours .]

Will you, therefore, put the ---------- company on your preferred list

for weekly station information - every single detail that will be useful

to an agency in intelligently booking time.

["Preferred list." You have your nerve! You make me feel

insignificant by your big talk about your company - nd then you ask

me to put you on a "preferred" list, and you don't even say "please"

when you ask it.]

A prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your latest

"doings," will be mutually helpful.

[You fool! You mail me a cheap form letter - a letter scattered far

and wide like the autumn leaves - and you have the gall to ask me,

when I am worried about the mortgage and the hollyhocks and my

blood pressure, to sit down and dictate a personal note

acknowledging your form letter - and you ask me to do it "promptly."

What do you mean, "promptly".? Don't you know I am just as busy

as you are - or, at least, I like to think I am. And while we are on the

subject, who gave you the lordly right to order me around? ... You

say it will be "mutually helpful." At last, at last, you have begun to

see my viewpoint. But you are vague about how it will be to my

advantage.]

Very truly yours, John Doe Manager Radio Department

P.S. The enclosed reprint from the Blankville Journal will be of

interest to you, and you may want to broadcast it over your station.

[Finally, down here in the postscript, you mention something that

may help me solve one of my problems. Why didn't you begin your

letter with - but what's the use? Any advertising man who is guilty of

perpetrating such drivel as you have sent me has something wrong

with his medulla oblongata. You don't need a letter giving our latest

doings. What you need is a quart of iodine in your thyroid gland.]

Now, if people who devote their lives to advertising and who pose as

experts in the art of influencing people to buy - if they write a letter

like that, what can we expect from the butcher and baker or the auto

mechanic?

Here is another letter, written by the superintendent of a large

freight terminal to a student of this course, Edward Vermylen. What

effect did this letter have on the man to whom it was addressed?

Read it and then I'll tell you.

A. Zerega's Sons, Inc. 28 Front St. Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201 Attention:

Mr. Edward Vermylen Gentlemen:

The operations at our outbound-rail-receiving station are

handicapped because a material percentage of the total business is

delivered us in the late afternoon. This condition results in

congestion, overtime on the part of our forces, delays to trucks, and

in some cases delays to freight. On November 10, we received from

your company a lot of 510 pieces, which reached here at 4:20 P.M.

We solicit your cooperation toward overcoming the undesirable

effects arising from late receipt of freight. May we ask that, on days

on which you ship the volume which was received on the above

date, effort be made either to get the truck here earlier or to deliver

us part of the freight during the morning?

The advantage that would accrue to you under such an arrangement

would be that of more expeditious discharge of your trucks and the

assurance that your business would go forward on the date of its

receipt.

Very truly yours, J----- B ----- Supt.

After reading this letter, Mr. Vermylen, sales manager for A. Zerega's

Sons, Inc., sent it to me with the following comment:

This letter had the reverse effect from that which was intended. The

letter begins by describing the Terminal's difficulties, in which we are

not interested, generally speaking. Our cooperation is then requested

without any thought as to whether it would inconvenience us, and

then, finally, in the last paragraph, the fact is mentioned that if we

do cooperate it will mean more expeditious discharge of our trucks

with the assurance that our freight will go forward on the date of its

receipt.

In other words, that in which we are most interested is mentioned

last and the whole effect is one of raising a spirit of antagonism

rather than of cooperation.

Let's see if we can't rewrite and improve this letter. Let's not waste

any time talking about our problems. As Henry Ford admonishes,

let's "get the other person's point of view and see things from his or

her angle, as well as from our own."

Here is one way of revising the letter. It may not be the best way,

but isn't it an improvement?

Mr. Edward Vermylen % A. Zerega's Sons, Inc. 28 Front St.

Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201

Dear Mr. Vermylen:

Your company has been one of our good customers for fourteen

years. Naturally, we are very grateful for your patronage and are

eager to give you the speedy, efficient service you deserve.

However, we regret to say that it isn't possible for us to do that

when your trucks bring us a large shipment late in the afternoon, as

they did on November 10. Why? Because many other customers

make late afternoon deliveries also. Naturally, that causes

congestion. That means your trucks are held up unavoidably at the

pier and sometimes even your freight is delayed.

That's bad, but it can be avoided. If you make your deliveries at the

pier in the morning when possible, your trucks will be able to keep

moving, your freight will get immediate attention, and our workers

will get home early at night to enjoy a dinner of the delicious

macaroni and noodles that you manufacture.

Regardless of when your shipments arrive, we shall always cheerfully

do all in our power to serve you promptly. You are busy. Please don't

trouble to answer this note.

Yours truly, J----- B-----, supt.

Barbara Anderson, who worked in a bank in New York, desired to

move to Phoenix, Arizona, because of the health of her son. Using

the principles she had learned in our course, she wrote the following

letter to twelve banks in Phoenix:

Dear Sir:

My ten years of bank experience should be of interest to a rapidly

growing bank like yours.

In various capacities in bank operations with the Bankers Trust

Company in New York, leading to my present assignment as Branch

Manager, I have acquired skills in all phases of banking including

depositor relations, credits, loans and administration.

I will be relocating to Phoenix in May and I am sure I can contribute

to your growth and profit. I will be in Phoenix the week of April 3

and would appreciate the opportunity to show you how I can help

your bank meet its goals.

Sincerely, Barbara L. Anderson

Do you think Mrs. Anderson received any response from that letter?

Eleven of the twelve banks invited her to be interviewed, and she

had a choice of which bank's offer to accept. Why? Mrs. Anderson

did not state what she wanted, but wrote in the letter how she could

help them, and focused on their wants, not her own.

Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired,

discouraged and underpaid. Why? Because they are always thinking

only of what they want. They don't realize that neither you nor I

want to buy anything. If we did, we would go out and buy it. But

both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems. And if

salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help

us solve our problems, they won't need to sell us. We'll buy. And

customers like to feel that they are buying - not being sold.

Yet many salespeople spend a lifetime in selling without seeing

things from the customer's angle. For example, for many years I

lived in Forest Hills, a little community of private homes in the center

of Greater New York. One day as I was rushing to the station, I

chanced to meet a real-estate operator who had bought and sold

property in that area for many years. He knew Forest Hills well, so I

hurriedly asked him whether or not my stucco house was built with

metal lath or hollow tile. He said he didn't know and told me what I

already knew - that I could find out by calling the Forest Hills Garden

Association. The following morning, I received a letter from him. Did

he give me the information I wanted? He could have gotten it in

sixty seconds by a telephone call. But he didn't. He told me again

that I could get it by telephoning, and then asked me to let him

handle my insurance.

He was not interested in helping me. He was interested only in

helping himself.

J. Howard Lucas of Birmingham, Alabama, tells how two salespeople

from the same company handled the same type of situation, He

reported:

"Several years ago I was on the management team of a small

company. Headquartered near us was the district office of a large

insurance company. Their agents were assigned territories, and our

company was assigned to two agents, whom I shall refer to as Carl

and John.

"One morning, Carl dropped by our office and casually mentioned

that his company had just introduced a new life insurance policy for

executives and thought we might be interested later on and he

would get back to us when he had more information on it.

"The same day, John saw us on the sidewalk while returning from a

coffee break, and he shouted: 'Hey Luke, hold up, I have some great

news for you fellows.' He hurried over and very excitedly told us

about an executive life insurance policy his company had introduced

that very day. (It was the same policy that Carl had casually

mentioned.) He wanted us to have one of the first issued. He gave

us a few important facts about the coverage and ended saying, 'The

policy is so new, I'm going to have someone from the home office

come out tomorrow and explain it. Now, in the meantime, let's get

the applications signed and on the way so he can have more

information to work with.' His enthusiasm aroused in us an eager

want for this policy even though we still did not have details, When

they were made available to us, they confirmed John's initial

understanding of the policy, and he not only sold each of us a policy,

but later doubled our coverage.

"Carl could have had those sales, but he made no effort to arouse in

us any desire for the policies."

The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the

rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous

advantage. He has little competition. Owen D. Young, a noted lawyer

and one of America's great business leaders, once said: "People who

can put themselves in the place of other people who can understand

the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future

has in store for them."

If out of reading this book you get just one thing - an increased

tendency to think always in terms of other people's point of view,

and see things from their angle - if you get that one thing out of this

book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your

career.

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

that person so that he will do something that is only for your benefit

and his detriment. Each party should gain from the negotiation. In

the letters to Mr. Vermylen, both the sender and the receiver of the

correspondence gained by implementing what was suggested. Both

the bank and Mrs. Anderson won by her letter in that the bank

obtained a valuable employee and Mrs. Anderson a suitable job. And

in the example of John's sale of insurance to Mr. Lucas, both gained

through this transaction.

Another example in which everybody gains through this principle of

arousing an eager want comes from Michael E. Whidden of Warwick,

Rhode Island, who is a territory salesman for the Shell Oil Company.

Mike wanted to become the Number One salesperson in his district,

but one service station was holding him back. It was run by an older

man who could not be motivated to clean up his station. It was in

such poor shape that sales were declining significantly.

This manager would not listen to any of Mike's pleas to upgrade the

station. After many exhortations and heart-to-heart talks - all of

which had no impact - Mike decided to invite the manager to visit the

newest Shell station in his territory.

The manager was so impressed by the facilities at the new station

that when Mike visited him the next time, his station was cleaned up

and had recorded a sales increase. This enabled Mike to reach the

Number One spot in his district. All his talking and discussion hadn't

helped, but by arousing an eager want in the manager, by showing

him the modern station, he had accomplished his goal, and both the

manager and Mike benefited.

Most people go through college and learn to read Virgil and master

the mysteries of calculus without ever discovering how their own

minds function. For instance: I once gave a course in Effective

Speaking for the young college graduates who were entering the

employ of the Carrier Corporation, the large air-conditioner

manufacturer. One of the participants wanted to persuade the others

to play basketball in their free time, and this is about what he said:

"I want you to come out and play basketball. I like to play basketball,

but the last few times I've been to the gymnasium there haven't

been enough people to get up a game. Two or three of us got to

throwing the ball around the other night - and I got a black eye. I

wish all of you would come down tomorrow night. I want to play

basketball."

Did he talk about anything you want? You don't want to go to a

gymnasium that no one else goes to, do you? You don't care about

what he wants. You don't want to get a black eye.

Could he have shown you how to get the things you want by using

the gymnasium? Surely. More pep. Keener edge to the appetite.

Clearer brain. Fun. Games. Basketball.

To repeat Professor Overstreet's wise advice: First, arouse in the

other person an eager want He who can do this has the whole world

with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.

One of the students in the author's training course was worried

about his little boy. The child was underweight and refused to eat

properly. His parents used the usual method. They scolded and

nagged. "Mother wants you to eat this and that." "Father wants you

to grow up to be a big man."

Did the boy pay any attention to these pleas? Just about as much as

you pay to one fleck of sand on a sandy beach.

No one with a trace of horse sense would expect a child three years

old to react to the viewpoint of a father thirty years old. Yet that was

precisely what that father had expected. It was absurd. He finally

saw that. So he said to himself: "What does that boy want? How can

I tie up what I want to what he wants?"

It was easy for the father when he starting thinking about it. His boy

had a tricycle that he loved to ride up and down the sidewalk in front

of the house in Brooklyn. A few doors down the street lived a bully -

a bigger boy who would pull the little boy off his tricycle and ride it

himself.

Naturally, the little boy would run screaming to his mother, and she

would have to come out and take the bully off the tricycle and put

her little boy on again, This happened almost every day.

What did the little boy want? It didn't take a Sherlock Holmes to

answer that one. His pride, his anger, his desire for a feeling of

importance - all the strongest emotions in his makeup - goaded him

to get revenge, to smash the bully in the nose. And when his father

explained that the boy would be able to wallop the daylights out of

the bigger kid someday if he would only eat the things his mother

wanted him to eat - when his father promised him that - there was

no longer any problem of dietetics. That boy would have eaten

spinach, sauerkraut, salt mackerel - anything in order to be big

enough to whip the bully who had humiliated him so often.

After solving that problem, the parents tackled another: the little boy

had the unholy habit of wetting his bed.

He slept with his grandmother. In the morning, his grandmother

would wake up and feel the sheet and say: "Look, Johnny, what you

did again last night."

He would say: "No, I didn't do it. You did it."

Scolding, spanking, shaming him, reiterating that the parents didn't

want him to do it - none of these things kept the bed dry. So the

parents asked: "How can we make this boy want to stop wetting his

bed?"

What were his wants? First, he wanted to wear pajamas like Daddy

instead of wearing a nightgown like Grandmother. Grandmother was

getting fed up with his nocturnal iniquities, so she gladly offered to

buy him a pair of pajamas if he would reform. Second, he wanted a

bed of his own. Grandma didn't object.

His mother took him to a department store in Brooklyn, winked at

the salesgirl, and said: "Here is a little gentleman who would like to

do some shopping."

The salesgirl made him feel important by saying: "Young man, what

can I show you?"

He stood a couple of inches taller and said: "I want to buy a bed for

myself."

When he was shown the one his mother wanted him to buy, she

winked at the salesgirl and the boy was persuaded to buy it.

The bed was delivered the next day; and that night, when Father

came home, the little boy ran to the door shouting: "Daddy! Daddy!

Come upstairs and see my bed that I bought!"

The father, looking at the bed, obeyed Charles Schwab's injunction:

he was "hearty in his approbation and lavish in his praise."

"You are not going to wet this bed, are you?" the father said. " Oh,

no, no! I am not going to wet this bed." The boy kept his promise,

for his pride was involved. That was his bed. He and he alone had

bought it. And he was wearing pajamas now like a little man. He

wanted to act like a man. And he did.

Another father, K.T. Dutschmann, a telephone engineer, a student of

this course, couldn't get his three-year old daughter to eat breakfast

food. The usual scolding, pleading, coaxing methods had all ended in

futility. So the parents asked themselves: "How can we make her

want to do it?"

The little girl loved to imitate her mother, to feel big and grown up;

so one morning they put her on a chair and let her make the

breakfast food. At just the psychological moment, Father drifted into

the kitchen while she was stirring the cereal and she said: "Oh, look,

Daddy, I am making the cereal this morning."

She ate two helpings of the cereal without any coaxing, because she

was interested in it. She had achieved a feeling of importance; she

had found in making the cereal an avenue of self-expression.

William Winter once remarked that "self-expression is the dominant

necessity of human nature." Why can't we adapt this same

psychology to business dealings? When we have a brilliant idea,

instead of making others think it is ours, why not let them cook and

stir the idea themselves. They will then regard it as their own; they

will like it and maybe eat a couple of helpings of it.

Remember: "First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He

who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks

a lonely way."

• Principle 3 - Arouse in the other person an eager want.

In a Nutshell Fundamental Techniques In Handling People

• Principle 1 Don't criticize, condemn or complain.

• Principle 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation.

• Principle 3 Arouse in the other person an eager want.

---------------------------------

Part Two - Ways To Make People Like You

1 Do This And You'll Be Welcome Anywhere

Why read this book to find out how to win friends? Why not study

the technique of the greatest winner of friends the world has ever

known? Who is he? You may meet him tomorrow coming down the

street. When you get within ten feet of him, he will begin to wag his

tail. If you stop and pat him, he will almost jump out of his skin to

show you how much he likes you. And you know that behind this

show of affection on his part, there are no ulterior motives: he

doesn't want to sell you any real estate, and he doesn't want to

marry you.

Did you ever stop to think that a dog is the only animal that doesn't

have to work for a living? A hen has to lay eggs, a cow has to give

milk, and a canary has to sing. But a dog makes his living by giving

you nothing but love.

When I was five years old, my father bought a little yellow-haired

pup for fifty cents. He was the light and joy of my childhood. Every

afternoon about four-thirty, he would sit in the front yard with his

beautiful eyes staring steadfastly at the path, and as soon as he

heard my voice or saw me swinging my dinner pail through the buck

brush, he was off like a shot, racing breathlessly up the hill to greet

me with leaps of joy and barks of sheer ecstasy.

Tippy was my constant companion for five years. Then one tragic

night - I shall never forget it - he was killed within ten feet of my

head, killed by lightning. Tippy's death was the tragedy of my

boyhood.

You never read a book on psychology, Tippy. You didn't need to. You

knew by some divine instinct that you can make more friends in two

months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you

can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Let

me repeat that. 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.

Yet I know and you know people who blunder through life trying to

wigwag other people into becoming interested in them.

Of course, it doesn't work. People are not interested in you. They are

not interested in me. They are interested in themselves - morning,

noon and after dinner.

The New York Telephone Company made a detailed study of

telephone conversations to find out which word is the most

frequently used. You have guessed it: it is the personal pronoun "I."

"I." I." It was used 3,900 times in 500 telephone conversations. "I."

"I." "I." "I." When you see a group photograph that you are in,

whose picture do you look for first?

If we merely try to impress people and get people interested in us,

we will never have many true, sincere friends. Friends, real friends,

are not made that way.

Napoleon tried it, and in his last meeting with Josephine he said:

"Josephine, I have been as fortunate as any man ever was on this

earth; and yet, at this hour, you are the only person in the world on

whom I can rely." And historians doubt whether he could rely even

on her.

Alfred Adler, the famous Viennese psychologist, wrote a book

entitled What Life Should Mean to You. In that book he says: "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 failures spring."

You may read scores of erudite tomes on psychology without coming

across a statement more significant for you and for me. Adler's

statement is so rich with meaning that I am going to repeat it in

italics:

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has

the greatest difjculties in life and provides the greutest injury to

others. It is from umong such individuals that all humun failures

spring.

I once took a course in short-story writing at New York University,

and during that course the editor of a leading magazine talked to our

class. He said he could pick up any one of the dozens of stories that

drifted across his desk every day and after reading a few paragraphs

he could feel whether or not the author liked people. "If the author

doesn't like people," he said, "people won't like his or her stories."

This hard-boiled editor stopped twice in the course of his talk on

fiction writing and apologized for preaching a sermon. "I am telling

you," he said, "the same things your preacher would tell you, but

remember, you have to be interested in people if you want to be a

successful writer of stories."

If that is true of writing fiction, you can be sure it is true of dealing

with people face-to-face.

I spent an evening in the dressing room of Howard Thurston the last

time he appeared on Broadway -Thurston was the acknowledged

dean of magicians. For forty years he had traveled all over the world,

time and again, creating illusions, mystifying audiences, and making

people gasp with astonishment. More than 60 million people had

paid admission to his show, and he had made almost $2 million in

profit.

I asked Mr. Thurston to tell me the secret of his success. His

schooling certainly had nothing to do with it, for he ran away from

home as a small boy, became a hobo, rode in boxcars, slept in

haystacks, begged his food from door to door, and learned to read

by looking out of boxcars at signs along the railway.

Did he have a superior knowledge of magic? No, he told me

hundreds of books had been written about legerdemain and scores

of people knew as much about it as he did. But he had two things

that the others didn't have. First, he had the ability to put his

personality across the footlights. He was a master showman. He

knew human nature. Everything he did, every gesture, every

intonation of his voice, every lifting of an eyebrow had been carefully

rehearsed in advance, and his actions were timed to split seconds.

But, in addition to that, Thurston had a genuine interest in people.

He told me that many magicians would look at the audience and say

to themselves, "Well, there is a bunch of suckers out there, a bunch

of hicks; I'll fool them all right." But Thurston's method was totally

different. He told me that every time he went on stage he said to

himself: "I am grateful because these people come to see me, They

make it possible for me to make my living in a very agreeable way.

I'm going to give them the very best I possibly can."

He declared he never stepped in front of the footlights without first

saying to himself over and over: "I love my audience. I love my

audience." Ridiculous? Absurd? You are privileged to think anything

you like. I am merely passing it on to you without comment as a

recipe used by one of the most famous magicians of all time.

George Dyke of North Warren, Pennsylvania, was forced to retire

from his service station business after thirty years when a new

highway was constructed over the site of his station. It wasn't long

before the idle days of retirement began to bore him, so he started

filling in his time trying to play music on his old fiddle. Soon he was

traveling the area to listen to music and talk with many of the

accomplished fiddlers. In his humble and friendly way he became

generally interested in learning the background and interests of

every musician he met. Although he was not a great fiddler himself,

he made many friends in this pursuit. He attended competitions and

soon became known to the country music fans in the eastern part of

the United States as "Uncle George, the Fiddle Scraper from Kinzua

County." When we heard Uncle George, he was seventy-two and

enjoying every minute of his life. By having a sustained interest in

other people, he created a new life for himself at a time when most

people consider their productive years over.

That, too, was one of the secrets of Theodore Roosevelt's

astonishing popularity. Even his servants loved him. His valet, James

E. Amos, wrote a book about him entitled Theodore Roosevelt, Hero

to His Valet. In that book Amos relates this illuminating incident:

My wife one time asked the President about a bobwhite. She had

never seen one and he described it to her fully. Sometime later, the

telephone at our cottage rang. [Amos and his wife lived in a little

cottage on the Roosevelt estate at Oyster Bay.] My wife answered it

and it was Mr. Roosevelt himself. He had called her, he said, to tell

her that there was a bobwhite outside her window and that if she

would look out she might see it. Little things like that were so

characteristic of him. Whenever he went by our cottage, even

though we were out of sight, we would hear him call out: "Oo-oo-oo,

Annie?" or "Oo-oo-oo, James!" It was just a friendly greeting as he

went by.

How could employees keep from liking a man like that? How could

anyone keep from liking him? Roosevelt called at the White House

one day when the President and Mrs. Taft were away. His honest

liking for humble people was shown by the fact that he greeted all

the old White House servants by name, even the scullery maids.

"When he saw Alice, the kitchen maid," writes Archie Butt, "he asked

her if she still made corn bread. Alice told him that she sometimes

made it for the servants, but no one ate it upstairs.

"'They show bad taste,' Roosevelt boomed, 'and I'll tell the President

so when I see him.'

"Alice brought a piece to him on a plate, and he went over to the

office eating it as he went and greeting gardeners and laborers as he

passed. . .

"He addressed each person just as he had addressed them in the

past. Ike Hoover, who had been head usher at the White House for

forty years, said with tears in his eyes: 'It is the only happy day we

had in nearly two years, and not one of us would exchange it for a

hundred-dollar bill.' "

The same concern for the seemingly unimportant people helped

sales representative Edward M. Sykes, Jr., of Chatham, New Jersey,

retain an account. "Many years ago," he reported, "I called on

customers for Johnson and Johnson in the Massachusetts area. One

account was a drug store in Hingham. Whenever I went into this

store I would always talk to the soda clerk and sales clerk for a few

minutes before talking to the owner to obtain his order. One day I

went up to the owner of the store, and he told me to leave as he

was not interested in buying J&J products anymore because he felt

they were concentrating their activities on food and discount stores

to the detriment of the small drugstore. I left with my tail between

my legs and drove around the town for several hours. Finally, I

decided to go back and try at least to explain our position to the

owner of the store.

"When I returned I walked in and as usual said hello to the soda

clerk and sales clerk. When I walked up to the owner, he smiled at

me and welcomed me back. He then gave me double the usual

order, I looked at him with surprise and asked him what had

happened since my visit only a few hours earlier. He pointed to the

young man at the soda fountain and said that after I had left, the

boy had come over and said that I was one of the few salespeople

that called on the store that even bothered to say hello to him and to

the others in the store. He told the owner that if any salesperson

deserved his business, it was I. The owner agreed and remained a

loyal customer. I never forgot that to be genuinely interested in

other people is a most important quality for a sales-person to

possess - for any person, for that matter."

I have discovered from personal experience that one can win the

attention and time and cooperation of even the most sought-after

people by becoming genuinely interested in them. Let me illustrate.

Years ago I conducted a course in fiction writing at the Brooklyn

Institute of Arts and Sciences, and we wanted such distinguished and

busy authors as Kathleen Norris, Fannie Hurst, Ida Tarbell, Albert

Payson Terhune and Rupert Hughes to come to Brooklyn and give us

the benefit of their experiences. So we wrote them, saying we

admired their work and were deeply interested in getting their advice

and learning the secrets of their success.

Each of these letters was signed by about a hundred and fifty

students. We said we realized that these authors were busy - too

busy to prepare a lecture. So we enclosed a list of questions for

them to answer about themselves and their methods of work. They

liked that. Who wouldn't like it? So they left their homes and traveled

to Brooklyn to give us a helping hand.

By using the same method, I persuaded Leslie M. Shaw, secretary of

the treasury in Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet; George W.

Wickersham, attorney general in Taft's cabinet; William Jennings

Bryan; Franklin D. Roosevelt and many other prominent men to

come to talk to the students of my courses in public speaking.

All of us, be we workers in a factory, clerks in an office or even a

king upon his throne - all of us like people who admire us. Take the

German Kaiser, for example. At the close of World War I he was

probably the most savagely and universally despised man on this

earth. Even his own nation turned against him when he fled over into

Holland to save his neck. The hatred against him was so intense that

millions of people would have loved to tear him limb from limb or

burn him at the stake. In the midst of all this forest fire of fury, one

little boy wrote the Kaiser a simple, sincere letter glowing with

kindliness and admiration. This little boy said that no matter what

the others thought, he would always love Wilhelm as his Emperor.

The Kaiser was deeply touched by his letter and invited the little boy

to come to see him. The boy came, so did his mother - and the

Kaiser married her. That little boy didn't need to read a book on how

to win friends and influence people. He knew how instinctively.

If we want to make friends, let's put ourselves out to do things for

other people - things that require time, energy, unselfishness and

thoughtfulness. When the Duke of Windsor was Prince of Wales, he

was scheduled to tour South America, and before he started out on

that tour he spent months studying Spanish so that he could make

public talks in the language of the country; and the South Americans

loved him for it.

For years I made it a point to find out the birthdays of my friends.

How? Although I haven't the foggiest bit of faith in astrology, I

began by asking the other party whether he believed the date of

one's birth has anything to do with character and disposition. I then

asked him or her to tell me the month and day of birth. If he or she

said November 24, for example, I kept repeating to myself,

"November 24, November 24." The minute my friend's back was

turned, I wrote down the name and birthday and later would transfer

it to a birthday book. At the beginning of each year, I had these

birthday dates scheduled in my calendar pad so that they came to

my attention automatically. When the natal day arrived, there was

my letter or telegram. What a hit it made! I was frequently the only

person on earth who remembered.

If we want to make friends, let's greet people with animation and

enthusiasm. When somebody calls you on the telephone use the

same psychology. Say "Hello" in tones that bespeak how pleased

YOU are to have the person call. Many companies train their

telephone operatars to greet all callers in a tone of voice that

radiates interest and enthusiasm. The caller feels the company is

concerned about them. Let's remember that when we answer the

telephone tomorrow.

Showing a genuine interest in others not only wins friends for you,

but may develop in its customers a loyalty to your company. In an

issue of the publication of the National Bank of North America of

New York, the following letter from Madeline Rosedale, a depositor,

was published: *

* Eagle, publication of the Natirmal Bank of North America, h-ew

York, March 31, 1978.

"I would like you to know how much I appreciate your staff.

Everyone is so courteous, polite and helpful. What a pleasure it is,

after waiting on a long line, to have the teller greet you pleasantly.

"Last year my mother was hospitalized for five months. Frequently I

went to Marie Petrucello, a teller. She was concerned about my

mother and inquired about her progress."

Is there any doubt that Mrs. Rosedale will continue to use this bank?

Charles R. Walters, of one of the large banks in New York City, was

assigned to prepare a confidential report on a certain corporation. He

knew of only one person who possessed the facts he needed so

urgently. As Mr. Walters was ushered into the president's office, a

young woman stuck her head through a door and told the president

that she didn't have any stamps for him that day.

"I am collecting stamps for my twelve-year-old son," the president

explained to Mr. Walters.

Mr. Walters stated his mission and began asking questions. The

president was vague, general, nebulous. He didn't want to talk, and

apparently nothing could persuade him to talk. The interview was

brief and barren.

"Frankly, I didn't know what to do," Mr. Walters said as he related

the story to the class. "Then I remembered what his secretary had

said to him - stamps, twelve-year-old son. . . And I also recalled that

the foreign department of our bank collected stamps - stamps taken

from letters pouring in from every continent washed by the seven

seas.

"The next afternoon I called on this man and sent in word that I had

some stamps for his boy. Was I ushered in with enthusiasm? Yes sir,

He couldn't have shaken my hand with more enthusiasm if he had

been running for Congress. He radiated smiles and good will. 'My

George will love this one,' he kept saying as he fondled the stamps.

'And look at this! This is a treasure.'

"We spent half an hour talking stamps and looking at a picture of his

boy, and he then devoted more than an hour of his time to giving

me every bit of information I wanted - without my even suggesting

that he do it. He told me all he knew, and then called in his

subordinates and questioned them. He telephoned some of his

associates. He loaded me down with facts, figures, reports and

correspondence. In the parlance of newspaper reporters, I had a

scoop."

Here is another illustration:

C. M. Knaphle, Jr., of Philadelphia had tried for years to sell fuel to a

large chain-store organization. But the chain-store company

continued to purchase its fuel from an out-of-town dealer and haul it

right past the door of Knaphle's office. Mr, Knaphle made a speech

one night before one of my classes, pouring out his hot wrath upon

chain stores, branding them as a curse to the nation.

And still he wondered why he couldn't sell them.

I suggested that he try different tactics. To put it briefly, this is what

happened. We staged a debate between members of the course on

whether the spread of the chain store is doing the country more

harm than good.

Knaphle, at my suggestion, took the negative side; he agreed to

defend the chain stores, and then went straight to an executive of

the chain-store organization that he despised and said: "I am not

here to try to sell fuel. I have come to ask you to do me a favor." He

then told about his debate and said, "I have come to you for help

because I can't think of anyone else who would be more capable of

giving me the facts I want. I'm anxious to win this debate, and I'll

deeply appreciate whatever help you can give me."

Here is the rest of the story in Mr. Knaphle's own words:

I had asked this man for precisely one minute of his time. It was

with that understanding that he consented to see me. After I had

stated my case, he motioned me to a chair and talked to me for

exactly one hour and forty-seven minutes. He called in another

executive who had written a book on chain stores. He wrote to the

National Chain Store Association and secured for me a copy of a

debate on the subject. He feels that the chain store is rendering a

real service to humanity. He is proud of what he is doing for

hundreds of communities. His eyes fairly glowed as he talked, and I

must confess that he opened my eyes to things I had never even

dreamed of. He changed my whole mental attitude. As I was leaving,

he walked with me to the door, put his arm around my shoulder,

wished me well in my debate, and asked me to stop in and see him

again and let him know how I made out. The last words he said to

me were: "Please see me again later in the spring. I should like to

place an order with you for fuel."

To me that was almost a miracle. Here he was offering to buy fuel

without my even suggesting it. I had made more headway in two

hours by becoming genuinely interested in him and his problems

than I could have made in ten years trying to get him interested in

me and my product.

You didn't discover a new truth, Mr. Knaphle, for a long time ago, a

hundred years before Christ was born a famous old Roman poet,

Publilius Syrus, remarked; "We are interested in others when they

are interested in us."

A show of interest, as with every other principle of human relations,

must be sincere. It must pay off not only for the person showing the

interest, but for the person receiving the attention. It is a two-way

street-both parties benefit.

Martin Ginsberg, who took our Course in Long Island New York,

reported how the special interest a nurse took in him profoundly

affected his life:

"It was Thanksgiving Day and I was ten years old. I was in a welfare

ward of a city hospital and was scheduled to undergo major

orthopedic surgery the next day. I knew that I could only look

forward to months of confinement, convalescence and pain. My

father was dead; my mother and I lived alone in a small apartment

and we were on welfare. My mother was unable to visit me that day.

"As the day went on, I became overwhelmed with the feeling of

loneliness, despair and fear. I knew my mother was home alone

worrying about me, not having anyone to be with, not having anyone

to eat with and not even having enough money to afford a

Thanksgiving Day dinner.

"The tears welled up in my eyes, and I stuck my head under the

pillow and pulled the covers over it, I cried silently, but oh so bitterly,

so much that my body racked with pain.

"A young student nurse heard my sobbing and came over to me. She

took the covers off my face and started wiping my tears. She told me

how lonely she was, having to work that day and not being able to

be with her family. She asked me whether I would have dinner with

her. She brought two trays of food: sliced turkey, mashed a

potatoes, cranberry sauce and ice cream for dessert. She talked to

me and tried to calm my fears. Even though she was scheduled to go

off duty at 4 P.M., she stayed on her own time until almost 11 P.M.

She played games with me, talked to me and stayed with me until I

finally fell asleep.

"Many Thanksgivings have come and gone since I was ten, but one

never passes without me remembering that particular one and my

feelings of frustration, fear, loneliness and the warmth and

tenderness of the stranger that somehow made it all bearable."

If you want others to like you, if you want to develop real

friendships, if you want to help others at the same time as you help

yourself, keep this principle in mind:

• Principle 1 Become genuinely interested in other people.

~~~~~~~

2 - A Simple Way To Make A Good First Impression

At a dinner party in New York, one of the guests, a woman who had

inherited money, was eager to make a pleasing impression on

everyone. She had squandered a modest fortune on sables,

diamonds and pearls. But she hadn't done anything whatever about

her face. It radiated sourness and selfishness. She didn't realize what

everyone knows: namely, that the expression one wears on one's

face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one's back.

Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars.

And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab's

personality, his charm, his ability to make people like him, were

almost wholly responsible for his extraordinary success; and one of

the most delightful factors in his personality was his captivating

smile.

Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, "I like you, You

make me happy. I am glad to see you." That is why dogs make such

a hit. They are so glad to see us that they almost jump out of their

skins. So, naturally, we are glad to see them.

A baby's smile has the same effect.

Have you ever been in a doctor's waiting room and looked around at

all the glum faces waiting impatiently to be seen? Dr, Stephen K.

Sproul, a veterinarian in Raytown, Missouri, told of a typical spring

day when his waiting room was full of clients waiting to have their

pets inoculated. No one was talking to anyone else, and all were

probably thinking of a dozen other things they would rather be doing

than "wasting time" sitting in that office. He told one of our classes:

"There were six or seven clients waiting when a young woman came

in with a nine-month-old baby and a kitten. As luck would have it,

she sat down next to a gentleman who was more than a little

distraught about the long wait for service. The next thing he knew,

the baby just looked up at him with that great big smile that is so

characteristic of babies. What did that gentleman do? Just what you

and I would do, of course; he-smiled back at the baby. Soon he

struck up a conversation with the woman about her baby and his

grandchildren, and soon the entire reception room joined in, and the

boredom and tension were converted into a pleasant and enjoyable

experience."

An insincere grin? No. That doesn't fool anybody. We know it is

mechanical and we resent it. I am talking about a real smile, a

heartwarming smile, a smile that comes from within, the kind of

smile that will bring a good price in the marketplace.

Professor James V. McConnell, a psychologist at the University of

Michigan, expressed his feelings about a smile. "People who smile,"

he said, "tend to manage teach and sell more effectively, and to

raise happier children. There's far more information in a smile than a

frown. That's why encouragement is a much more effective teaching

device than punishment."

The employment manager of a large New York department store told

me she would rather hire a sales clerk who hadn't finished grade

school, if he or she has a pleasant smile, than to hire a doctor of

philosophy with a somber face.

The effect of a smile is powerful - even when it is unseen. Telephone

companies throughout the United States have a program called

"phone power" which is offered to employees who use the telephone

for selling their services or products. In this program they suggest

that you smile when talking on the phone. Your "smile" comes

through in your voice.

Robert Cryer, manager of a computer department for a Cincinnati,

Ohio, company, told how he had successfully found the right

applicant for a hard-to-fill position:

"I was desperately trying to recruit a Ph.D. in computer science for

my department. I finally located a young man with ideal

qualifications who was about to be graduated from Purdue

University. After several phone conversations I learned that he had

several offers from other companies, many of them larger and better

known than mine. I was delighted when he accepted my offer. After

he started on the job, I asked him why he had chosen us over the

others. He paused for a moment and then he said: 'I think it was

because managers in the other companies spoke on the phone in a

cold, business-like manner, which made me feel like just another

business transaction, Your voice sounded as if you were glad to hear

from me ... that you really wanted me to be part of your

organization. ' You can be assured, I am still answering my phone

with a smile."

The chairman of the board of directors of one of the largest rubber

companies 'in the United States told me that, according to his

observations, people rarely succeed at anything unless they have fun

doing it. This industrial leader doesn't put much faith in the old

adage that hard work alone is the magic key that will unlock the door

to our desires, "I have known people," he said, "who succeeded

because they had a rip-roaring good time conducting their business.

Later, I saw those people change as the fun became work. The

business had grown dull, They lost all joy in it, and they failed."

You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to

have a good time meeting you.

I have asked thousands of business people to smile at someone

every hour of the day for a week and then come to class and talk

about the results. How did it work? Let's see ... Here is a letter from

William B. Steinhardt, a New York stockbroker. His case isn't isolated.

In fact, it is typical of hundreds of cases.

"1 have been married for over eighteen years," wrote Mr. Steinhardt,

"and in all that time I seldom smiled at my wife or spoke two dozen

words to her from the time I got up until I was ready to leave for

business. I was one of the worst grouches who ever walked down

Broadway.

"When you asked me to make a talk about my experience with

smiles, I thought I would try it for a week. So the next morning,

while combing my hair, I looked at my glum mug in the mirror and

said to myself, 'Bill, you are going to wipe the scowl off that sour

puss of yours today. You are going to smile. And you are going to

begin right now.' As I sat down to breakfast, I greeted my wife with

a 'Good morning, my dear,' and smiled as I said it.

"You warned me that she might be surprised. Well, you

underestimated her reaction. She was bewildered. She was shocked.

I told her that in the future she could expect this as a regular

occurrence, and I kept it up every morning.

"This changed attitude of mine brought more happiness into our

home in the two months since I started than there was during the

last year.

"As I leave for my office, I greet the elevator operator in the

apartment house with a 'Good morning' and a smile, I greet the

doorman with a smile. I smile at the cashier in the subway booth

when I ask for change. As I stand on the floor of the Stock

Exchange, I smile at people who until recently never saw me smile.

"I soon found that everybody was smiling back at me, I treat those

who come to me with complaints or grievances in a cheerful manner,

I smile as I listen to them and I find that adjustments are

accomplished much easier. I find that smiles are bringing me dollars,

many dollars every day.

"I share my office with another broker. One of his clerks is a likable

young chap, and I was so elated about the results I was getting that

I told him recently about my new philosophy of human relations. He

then confessed that when I first came to share my office with his

firm he thought me a terrible grouch - and only recently changed his

mind. He said I was really human when I smiled.

"I have also eliminated criticism from my system. I give appreciation

and praise now instead of condemnation. I have stopped talking

about what I want. I am now trying to see the other person's

viewpoint. And these things have literally revolutionized my life. I am

a totally different man, a happier man, a richer man, richer in

friendships and happiness - the only things that matter much after

all."

You don't feel like smiling? Then what? Two things. First, force

yourself to smile. If you are alone, force yourself to whistle or hum a

tune or sing. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to

make you happy. Here is the way the psychologist and philosopher

William James put it:

"Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go

together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more

direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which

is not.

"Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our

cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if

cheerfulness were already there. ..."

Every body in the world is seeking happiness - and there is one sure

way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness

doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner

conditions.

It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you

are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think

about it. For example, two people may be in the same place, doing

the same thing; both may have about an equal amount of money

and prestige - and yet one may be miserable and the other happy.

Why? Because of a different mental attitude. I have seen just as

many happy faces among the poor peasants toiling with their

primitive tools in the devastating heat of the tropics as I have seen in

air-conditioned offices in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.

"There is nothing either good or bad," said Shakespeare, "but

thinking makes it so."

Abe Lincoln once remarked that "most folks are about as happy as

they make up their minds to be." He was right. I saw a vivid

illustration of that truth as I was walking up the stairs of the Long

Island Railroad station in New York. Directly in front of me thirty or

forty crippled boys on canes and crutches were struggling up the

stairs. One boy had to be carried up. I was astonished at their

laughter and gaiety. I spoke about it to one of.the men in charge of

the boys. "Oh, yes," he said, "when a boy realizes that he is going to

be a cripple for life, he is shocked at first; but after he gets over the

shock, he usually resigns himself to his fate and then becomes as

happy as normal boys."

I felt like taking my hat off to those boys. They taught me a lesson I

hope I shall never forget.

Working all by oneself in a closed-off room in an office not only is

lonely, but it denies one the opportunity of making friends with other

employees in the company. Se

Mexico, had such a job. She envied the shared comradeship of other

people in the company as she heard their chatter and laughter. As

she passed them in the hall during the first weeks of her

employment, she shyly looked the other way.

After a few weeks, she said to herself, "Maria, you can't expect those

women to come to you. You have to go out and meet them. " The

next time she walked to the water cooler, she put on her brightest

smile and said, "Hi, how are you today" to each of the people she

met. The effect was immediate. Smiles and hellos were returned, the

hallway seemed brighter, the job friendlier.

Acquaintanceships developed and some ripened into friendships. Her

job and her life became more pleasant and interesting.

Peruse this bit of sage advice from the essayist and publisher Elbert

Hubbard - but remember, perusing it won't do you any good unless

you apply it:

Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of

the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine;

greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp.

Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking

about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would

like to do; and then, without veering off direction, you will move

straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid things

you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding away, you will

find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are

required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect

takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your

mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the

thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular

individual.. . . Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude -

the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly

is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer

is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed.

Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in

the chrysalis.

The ancient Chinese were a wise lot - wise in the ways of the world;

and they had a proverb that you and I ought to cut out and paste

inside our hats. It goes like this: "A man without a smiling face must

not open a shop."

Your smile is a messenger of your good will. Your smile brightens the

lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a dozen people

frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like the sun

breaking through the clouds. Especially when that someone is under

pressure from his bosses, his customers, his teachers or parents or

children, a smile can help him realize that all is not hopeless - that

there is joy in the world.

Some years ago, a department store in New York City, in recognition

of the pressures its sales clerks were under during the Christmas

rush, presented the readers of its advertisements with the following

homely philosophy:

The Value Of A Smile At Christmas

It costs nothing, but creates much. It enriches those who receive,

without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the

memory of it sometimes lasts forever, None are so rich they can get

along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits. It

creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is

the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the

discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature's best antidote fee

trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it

is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.

And if in the last-minute rush of Christmas buying some of our

salespeople should be too tired to give you a smile, may we ask you

to leave one of yours? For nobody needs a smile so much as those

who have none left to give!

• Principle 2 - Smile.

~~~~~~~

3 - If You Don't Do This, You Are Headed For Trouble

Back in 1898, a tragic thing happened in Rockland County, New

York. A child had died, and on this particular day the neighbors were

preparing to go to the funeral.

Jim Farley went out to the barn to hitch up his horse. The ground

was covered with snow, the air was cold and snappy; the horse

hadn't been exercised for days; and as he was led out to the

watering trough, he wheeled playfully, kicked both his heels high in

the air, and killed Jim Farley. So the little village of Stony Point had

two funerals that week instead of one.

Jim Farley left behind him a widow and three boys, and a few

hundred dollars in insurance.

His oldest boy, Jim, was ten, and he went to work in a brickyard,

wheeling sand and pouring it into the molds and turning the brick on

edge to be dried by the sun. This boy Jim never had a chance to get

much education. But with his natural geniality, he had a flair for

making people like him, so he went into politics, and as the years

went by, he developed an uncanny ability for remembering people's

names.

He never saw the inside of a high school; but before he was forty-six

years of age, four colleges had honored him with degrees and he

had become chairman of the Democratic National Committee and

Postmaster General of the United States.

I once interviewed Jim Farley and asked him the secret of his

success. He said, "Hard work," and I said, "Don't be funny."

He then asked me what I thought was the reason for his success. I

replied: "I understand you can call ten thousand people by their first

names."

"No. You are wrong, " he said. "I can call fifty thousand people by

their first names."

Make no mistake about it. That ability helped Mr. Farley put Franklin

D. Roosevelt in the White House when he managed Roosevelt's

campaign in 1932.

During the years that Jim Farley traveled as a salesman for a gypsum

concern, and during the years that he held office as town clerk in

Stony Point, he built up a system for remembering names.

In the beginning, it was a very simple one. Whenever he met a new

acquaintance, he found out his or her complete name and some

facts about his or her family, business and political opinions. He fixed

all these facts well in mind as part of the picture, and the next time

he met that person, even if it was a year later, he was able to shake

hands, inquire after the family, and ask about the hollyhocks in the

backyard. No wonder he developed a following!

For months before Roosevelt's campaign for President began, Jim

Farley wrote hundreds of letters a day to people all over the western

and northwestern states. Then he hopped onto a train and in

nineteen days covered twenty states and twelve thousand miles,

traveling by buggy, train, automobile and boat. He would drop into

town, meet his people at lunch or breakfast, tea or dinner, and give

them a "heart-to-heart talk." Then he'd dash off again on another leg

of his journey.

As soon as he arrived back East, he wrote to one person in each

town he had visited, asking for a list of all the guests to whom he

had talked. The final list contained thousands and thousands of

names; yet each person on that list was paid the subtle flattery of

getting a personal letter from James Farley. These letters began

"Dear Bill" or "Dear Jane," and they were always signed "Jim."

Jim Farley discovered early in life that the average person is more

interested in his or her own name than in all the other names on

earth put together. Remember that name and call it easily, and you

have paid a subtle and very effective compliment. But forget it or

misspell it - and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage.

For example, I once organized a public-speaking course in Paris and

sent form letters to all the American residents in the city. French

typists with apparently little knowledge of English filled in the names

and naturally they made blunders. One man, the manager of a large

American bank in Paris, wrote me a scathing rebuke because his

name had been misspelled.

Sometimes it is difficult to remember a name, particularly if it is hard

to pronounce. Rather than even try to learn it, many people ignore it

or call the person by an easy nickname. Sid Levy called on a

customer for some time whose name was Nicodemus Papadoulos.

Most people just called him "Nick." Levy told us: "I made a special

effort to say his name over several times to myself before I made my

call. When I greeted him by his full name: 'Good afternoon, Mr.

Nicodemus Papadoulos,' he was shocked. For what seemed like

several minutes there was no reply from him at all. Finally, he said

with tears rolling down his cheeks, 'Mr. Levy, in all the fifteen years I

have been in this country, nobody has ever made the effort to call

me by my right name.' "

What was the reason for Andrew Carnegie's success?

He was called the Steel King; yet he himself knew little about the

manufacture of steel. He had hundreds of people working for him

who knew far more about steel than he did.

But he knew how to handle people, and that is what made him rich.

Early in life, he showed a flair for organization, a genius for

leadership. By the time he was ten, he too had discovered the

astounding importance people place on their own name. And he

used that discovery to win cooperation. To illustrate: When he was a

boy back in Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit, a mother rabbit.

Presto! He soon had a whole nest of little rabbits - and nothing to

feed them. But he had a brilliant idea. He told the boys and girls in

the neighborhood that if they would go out and pull enough clover

and dandelions to feed the rabbits, he would name the bunnies in

their honor.

The plan worked like magic, and Carnegie never forgot it.

Years later, he made millions by using the same psychology in

business. For example, he wanted to sell steel rails to the

Pennsylvania Railroad. J. Edgar Thomson was the president of the

Pennsylvania Railroad then. So Andrew Carnegie built a huge steel

mill in Pittsburgh and called it the "Edgar Thomson Steel Works."

Here is a riddle. See if you can guess it. When the Pennsylvania

Railroad needed steel rails, where do you suppose J. Edgar Thomson

bought them?. . , From Sears, Roebuck? No. No. You're wrong.

Guess again. When Carnegie and George Pullman were battling each

other for supremacy in the railroad sleeping-car business, the Steel

King again remembered the lesson of the rabbits.

The Central Transportation Company, which Andrew Carnegie

controlled, was fighting with the company that Pullman owned. Both

were struggling to get the sleeping-car business of the Union Pacific

Railroad, bucking each other, slashing prices, and destroving all

chance of profit. Both Carnegie and Pullman had gone to New York

to see the board of directors of the Union Pacific. Meeting one

evening in the St. Nicholas Hotel, Carnegie said: "Good evening, Mr.

Pullman, aren't we making a couple of fools of ourselves?"

"What do you mean.?" Pullman demanded.

Then Carnegie expressed what he had on his mind - a merger of

their two interests. He pictured in glowing terms the mutual

advantages of working with, instead of against, each other. Pullman

listened attentively, but he was not wholly convinced. Finally he

asked, "What would you call the new company?" and Carnegie

replied promptly: "Why, the Pullman Palace Car Company, of

course."

Pullman's face brightened. "Come into my room," he said. "Let's talk

it over." That talk made industrial history.

This policy of remembering and honoring the names of his friends

and business associates was one of the secrets of Andrew Carnegie's

leadership. He was proud of the fact that he could call many of his

factory workers by their first names, and he boasted that while he

was personally in charge, no strike ever disturbed his flaming steel

mills.

Benton Love, chairman of Texas Commerce Banc-shares, believes

that the bigger a corporation gets, the colder it becomes. " One way

to warm it up," he said, "is to remember people's names. The

executive who tells me he can't remember names is at the same time

telling me he can't remember a significant part of his business and is

operating on quicksand."

Karen Kirsech of Rancho Palos Verdes, California, a flight attendant

for TWA, made it a practice to learn the names of as many

passengers in her cabin as possible and use the name when serving

them. This resulted in many compliments on her service expressed

both to her directly and to the airline. One passenger wrote: "I

haven't flown TWA for some time, but I'm going to start flying

nothing but TWA from now on. You make me feel that your airline

has become a very personalized airline and that is important to me."

People are so proud of their names that they strive to perpetuate

them at any cost. Even blustering, hard-boiled old P. T. Barnum, the

greatest showman of his time, disappointed because he had no sons

to carry on his name, offered his grandson, C. H. Seeley, $25,000

dollars if he would call himself "Barnum" Seeley.

For many centuries, nobles and magnates supported artists,

musicians and authors so that their creative works would be

dedicated to them.

Libraries and museums owe their richest collections to people who

cannot bear to think that their names might perish from the memory

of the race. The New York Public Library has its Astor and Lenox

collections. The Metropolitan Museum perpetuates the names of

Benjamin Altman and J. P. Morgan. And nearly every church is

beautified by stained-glass windows commemorating the names of

their donors. Many of the buildings on the campus of most

universities bear the names of donors who contributed large sums of

money for this honor.

Most people don't remember names, for the simple reason that they

don't take the time and energy necessary to concentrate and repeat

and fix names indelibly in their minds. They make excuses for

themselves; they are too busy.

But they were probably no busier than Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he

took time to remember and recall even the names of mechanics with

whom he came into contact.

To illustrate: The Chrysler organization built a special car for Mr.

Roosevelt, who could not use a standard car because his legs were

paralyzed. W. F. Chamberlain and a mechanic delivered it to the

White House. I have in front of me a letter from Mr. Chamberlain

relating his experiences. "I taught President Roosevelt how to handle

a car with a lot of unusual gadgets, but he taught me a lot about the

fine art of handling people.

"When I called at the White House," Mr. Chamberlain writes, "the

President was extremely pleasant and cheerful. He called me by

name, made me feel very comfortable, and particularly impressed

me with the fact that he was vitally interested in things I had to

show him and tell him. The car was so designed that it could be

operated entirely by hand. A crowd gathered around to look at the

car; and he remarked: 'I think it is marvelous. All you have to do is

to touch a button and it moves away and you can drive it without

effort. I think it is grand - I don't know what makes it go. I'd love to

have the time to tear it down and see how it works.'

"When Roosevelt's friends and associates admired the machine, he

said in their presence: 'Mr. Chamberlain, I certainly appreciate all the

time and effort you have spent in developing this car. It is a mighty

fine job.' He admired the radiator, the special rear-vision mirror and

clock, the special spotlight, the kind of upholstery, the sitting position

of the driver's seat, the special suitcases in the trunk with his

monogram on each suitcase. In other words, he took notice of every

detail to which he knew I had given considerable thought. He made

a point of bringing these various pieces of equipment to the attention

of Mrs. Roosevelt, Miss Perkins, the Secretary of Labor, and his

secretary. He even brought the old White House porter into the

picture by saying, 'George, you want to take particularly good care of

the suitcases.'

"When the driving lesson was finished, the President turned to me

and said: 'Well, Mr. Chamberlain, I have been keeping the Federal

Reserve Board waiting thirty minutes. I guess I had better get back

to work.'

"I took a mechanic with me to the White House. He was introduced

to Roosevelt when he arrived. He didn't talk to the President, and

Roosevelt heard his name only once. He was a shy chap, and he

kept in the background. But before leaving us, the President looked

for the mechanic, shook his hand, called him by name, and thanked

him for coming to Washington. And there was nothing perfunctory

about his thanks. He meant what he said. I could feel that.

"A few days after returning to New York, I got an autographed

photograph of President Roosevelt and a little note of thanks again

expressing his appreciation for my assistance. How he found time to

do it is a mystery to me ."

Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that one of the simplest, most obvious

and most important ways of gaining good will was by remembering

names and making people feel important - yet how many of us do it?

Half the time we are introduced to a stranger, we chat a few minutes

and can't even remember his or her name by the time we say

goodbye.

One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: "To recall a voter's

name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion."

And the ability to remember names is almost as important in

business and social contacts as it is in politics.

Napoleon the Third, Emperor of France and nephew of the great

Napoleon, boasted that in spite of all his royal duties he could

remember the name of every person he met.

His technique? Simple. If he didn't hear the name distinctly, he said,

"So sorry. I didn't get the name clearly." Then, if it was an unusual

name, he would say, "How is it spelled?"

During the conversation, he took the trouble to repeat the name

several times, and tried to associate it in his mind with the person's

features, expression and general appearance.

If the person was someone of importance, Napoleon went to even

further pains. As soon as His Royal Highness was alone, he wrote the

name down on a piece of paper, looked at it, concentrated on it,

fixed it securely in his mind, and then tore up the paper. In this way,

he gained an eye impression of the name as well as an ear

impression.

All this takes time, but "Good manners," said Emerson, "are made up

of petty sacrifices."

The importance of remembering and using names is not just the

prerogative of kings and corporate executives. It works for all of us.

Ken Nottingham, an employee of General Motors in Indiana, usually

had lunch at the company cafeteria. He noticed that the woman who

worked behind the counter always had a scowl on her face. "She had

been making sandwiches for about two hours and I was just another

sandwich to her. I told her what I wanted. She weighed out the ham

on a little scale, then she gave me one leaf of lettuce, a few potato

chips and handed them to me.

"The next day I went through the same line. Same woman, same

scowl. The only difference was I noticed her name tag. I smiled and

said, 'Hello, Eunice,' and then told her what I wanted. Well, she

forgot the scale, piled on the ham, gave me three leaves of lettuce

and heaped on the potato chips until they fell off the plate."

We should be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize

that this single item is wholly and completely owned by the person

with whom we are dealing and nobody else. The name sets the

individual apart; it makes him or her unique among all others. The

information we are imparting or the request we are making takes on

a special importance when we approach the situation with the name

of the individual. From the waitress to the senior executive, the

name will work magic as we deal with others.

• Principle 3 - Remember that a person's name is to that person the

sweetest and most important sound in any language.

~~~~~~~

4 - An Easy Way To Become A Good Conversationalist

Some time ago, I attended a bridge party. I don't play bridge - and

there was a woman there who didn't play bridge either. She had

discovered that I had once been Lowell Thomas' manager before he

went on the radio and that I had traveled in Europe a great deal

while helping him prepare the illustrated travel talks he was then

delivering. So she said: "Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do want you to tell me

about all the wonderful places you have visited and the sights you

have seen."

As we sat down on the sofa, she remarked that she and her husband

had recently returned from a trip to Africa. "Africa!" I exclaimed.

"How interesting! I've always wanted to see Africa, but I never got

there except for a twenty-four-hour stay once in Algiers. Tell me, did

you visit the big-game country? Yes? How fortunate. I envy you. Do

tell me about Africa."

That kept her talking for forty-five minutes. She never again asked

me where I had been or what I had seen. She didn't want to hear

me talk about my travels. All she wanted was an interested listener,

so she could expand her ego and tell about where she had been.

Was she unusual? No. Many people are like that.

For example, I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given

by a New York book publisher. I had never talked with a botanist

before, and I found him fascinating. I literally sat on the edge of my

chair and listened while he spoke of exotic plants and experiments in

developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and even told

me astonishing facts about the humble potato). I had a small indoor

garden of my own - and he was good enough to tell me how to solve

some of my problems.

As I said, we were at a dinner party. There must have been a dozen

other guests, but I violated all the canons of courtesy, ignored

everyone else, and talked for hours to the botanist.

Midnight came, I said good night to everyone and departed. The

botanist then turned to our host and paid me several flattering

compliments. I was "most stimulating." I was this and I was that,

and he ended by saying I was a "most interesting conversationalist."

An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at

all. I couldn't have said anything if I had wanted to without changing

the subject, for I didn't know any more about botany than I knew

about the anatomy of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened

intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested. And he

felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That kind of listening is one of the

highest compliments we can pay anyone. "Few human beings,"

wrote Jack Woodford in Strangers in Love, "few human beings are

proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention." I went even

further than giving him rapt attention. I was "hearty in my

approbation and lavish in my praise."

I told him that I had been immensely entertained and instructed -

and I had. I told him I wished I had his knoledge - and I did. I told

him that I should love to wander the fields with him - and I have. I

told him I must see him again - and I did.

And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in

reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him

to talk.

What is the secret, the mystery, of a successful business interview?

Well, according to former Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, "There

is no mystery about successful business intercourse. ... Exclusive

attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important.

Nothing else is so flattering as that."

Eliot himself was a past master of the art of listening, Henry James,

one of America's first great novelists, recalled: "Dr. Eliot's listening

was not mere silence, but a form of activity. Sitting very erect on the

end of his spine with hands joined in his lap, making no movement

except that he revolved his thumbs around each other faster or

slower, he faced his interlocutor and seemed to be hearing with his

eyes as well as his ears. He listened with his mind and attentively

considered what you had to say while you said it. ... At the end of an

interview the person who had talked to him felt that he had had his

say."

Self-evident, isn't it? You don't have to study for four years in

Harvard to discover that. Yet I know and you know department store

owners who will rent expensive space, buy their goods economically,

dress their windows appealingly, spend thousands of dollars in

advertising and then hire clerks who haven't the sense to be good

listeners - clerks who interrupt customers, contradict them, irritate

them, and all but drive them from the store.

A department store in Chicago almost lost a regular customer who

spent several thousand dollars each year in that store because a

sales clerk wouldn't listen. Mrs. Henrietta Douglas, who took our

course in Chicago, had purchased a coat at a special sale. After she

had brought it home she noticed that there was a tear in the lining.

She came back the next day and asked the sales clerk to exchange

it. The clerk refused even to listen to her complaint. "You bought this

at a special sale," she said. She pointed to a sign on the wall. "Read

that," she exclaimed. " 'All sales are final.' Once you bought it, you

have to keep it. Sew up the lining yourself."

"But this was damaged merchandise," Mrs. Douglas complained.

"Makes no difference," the clerk interrupted. "Final's final "

Mrs. Douglas was about to walk out indignantly, swearing never to

return to that store ever, when she was greeted by the department

manager, who knew her from her many years of patronage. Mrs.

Douglas told her what had happened.

The manager listened attentively to the whole story, examined the

coat and then said: "Special sales are 'final' so we can dispose of

merchandise at the end of the season. But this 'no return' policy

does not apply to damaged goods. We will certainly repair or replace

the lining, or if you prefer, give you your money back."

What a difference in treatment! If that manager had not come along

and listened to the Customer, a long-term patron of that store could

have been lost forever.

Listening is just as important in one's home life as in the world of

business. Millie Esposito of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, made it her

business to listen carefully when one of her children wanted to speak

with her. One evening she was sitting in the kitchen with her son,

Robert, and after a brief discussion of something that was on his

mind, Robert said: "Mom, I know that you love me very much."

Mrs. Esposito was touched and said: "Of course I love you very

much. Did you doubt it?"

Robert responded: "No, but I really know you love me because

whenever I want to talk to you about something you stop whatever

you are doing and listen to me."

The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften

and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener - a

listener who will he silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a

king cobra and spews the poison out of his system. To illustrate: The

New York Telephone Company discovered a few years ago that it

had to deal with one of the most vicious customers who ever cursed

a customer service representative. And he did curse. He raved. He

threatened to tear the phone out by its roots. He refused to pay

certain charges that he declared were false. He wrote letters to the

newspapers. He filed innumerable complaints with the Public Service

Commission, and he started several suits against the telephone

company.

At last, one of the company's most skillful "trouble-shooters" was

sent to interview this stormy petrel. This "troubleshooter" listened

and let the cantankerous customer enjoy himself pouring out his

tirade. The telephone representative listened and said "yes" and

sympathized with his grievance.

"He raved on and I listened for nearlv three hours," the

"troubleshooter" said as he related his experiences before one of the

author's classes. "Then I went back and listened some more. I

interviewed him four times, and before the fourth visit was over I

had become a charter member of an organization he was starting.

He called it the 'Telephone Subscribers' Protective Association.' I am

still a member of this organization, and, so far as I know, I'm the

only member in the world today besides Mr. ----.

"I listened and sympathized with him on every point that he made

during these interviews. He had never had a telephone

representative talk with him that way before, and he became almost

friendly. The point on which I went to see him was not even

mentioned on the first visit, nor was it mentioned on the second or

third, but upon the fourth interview, I closed the case completely, he

paid all his bills in full, and for the first time in the history of his

difficulties with the telephone company he voluntarily withdrew his

complaints from the Public Service Commission."

Doubtless Mr. ----- had considered himself a holy crusader,

defending the public rights against callous exploitation. But in reality,

what he had really wanted was a feeling of importance. He got this

feeling of importance at first by kicking and complaining. But as soon

as he got his feeling of importance from a representative of the

company, his imagined grievances vanished into thin air.

One morning years ago, an angry customer stormed into the office

of Julian F. Detmer, founder of the Detmer Woolen Company, which

later became the world's largest distributor of woolens to the

tailoring trade.

"This man owed us a small sum of money," Mr. Detmer explained to

me. "The customer denied it, but we knew he was wrong. So our

credit department had insisted that he pay. After getting a number of

letters from our credit department, he packed his grip, made a trip to

Chicago, and hurried into my office to inform me not only that he

was not going to pay that bill, but that he was never going to buy

another dollar's worth of goods from the Detmer Woolen Company.

"I listened patiently to all he had to say. I was tempted to interrupt,

but I realized that would be bad policy, So I let him talk himself out.

When he finally simmered down and got in a receptive mood, I said

quietly: 'I want to thank vou for coming to Chicago to tell me about

this. You have done me a great favor, for if our credit department

has annoyed you, it may annoy other good customers, and that

would be just too bad. Believe me, I am far more eager to hear this

than you are to tell it.'

"That was the last thing in the world he expected me to say. I think

he was a trifle disappointed, because he had come to Chicago to tell

me a thing or two, but here I was thanking him instead of scrapping

with him. I assured him we would wipe the charge off the books and

forget it, because he was a very careful man with only one account

to look after, while our clerks had to look after thousands. Therefore,

he was less likely to be wrong than we were.

"I told him that I understood exactly how he felt and that, if I were

in his shoes, I should undoubtedly feel precisely as he did. Since he

wasn't going to buy from us anymore, I recommended some other

woolen houses.

"In the past, we had usually lunched together when he came to

Chicago, so I invited him to have lunch with me this day. He

accepted reluctantly, but when we came back to the office he placed

a larger order than ever before. He returned home in a softened

mood and, wanting to be just as fair with us as we had been with

him, looked over his bills, found one that had been mislaid, and sent

us a check with his apologies.

"Later, when his wife presented him with a baby boy, he gave his

son the middle name of Detmer, and he remained a friend and

customer of the house until his death twenty-two years afterwards."

Years ago, a poor Dutch immigrant boy washed the windows of a

bakery shop after school to help support his family. His people were

so poor that in addition he used to go out in the street with a basket

every day and collect stray bits of coal that had fallen in the gutter

where the coal wagons had delivered fuel. That boy, Edward Bok,

never got more than six years of schooling in his life; yet eventually

he made himself one of the most successful magazine editors in the

history of American journalism. How did he do it? That is a long

story, but how he got his start can be told briefly. He got his start by

using the principles advocated in this chapter.

He left school when he was thirteen and became an office boy for

Western Union, but he didn't for one moment give up the idea of an

education. Instead, he started to educate himself, He saved his

carfares and went without lunch until he had enough money to buy

an encyclopedia of American biography - and then he did an

unheard-of thing. He read the lives of famous people and wrote

them asking for additional information about their childhoods. He

was a good listener. He asked famous people to tell him more about

themselves. He wrote General James A. Garfield, who was then

running for President, and asked if it was true that he was once a

tow boy on a canal; and Garfield replied. He wrote General Grant

asking about a certain battle, and Grant drew a map for him and

invited this fourteen-year old boy to dinner and spent the evening

talking to him.

Soon our Western Union messenger boy was corresponding with

many of the most famous people in the nation: Ralph Waldo

Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Longfellow, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln,

Louisa May Alcott, General Sherman and Jefferson Davis. Not only

did he correspond with these distinguished people, but as soon as he

got a vacation, he visited many of them as a welcome guest in their

homes. This experience imbued him with a confidence that was

invaluable. These men and women fired him with a vision and

ambition that shaped his life. And all this, let me repeat, was made

possible solely by the application of the principles we are discussing

here.

Isaac F. Marcosson, a journalist who interviewed hundreds of

celebrities, declared that many people fail to make a favorable

impression because they don't listen attentively. "They have been so

much concerned with what they are going to say next that they do

not keep their ears open. ... Very important people have told me that

they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen

seems rarer than almost any other good trait ."

And not only important personages crave a good listener, but

ordinary folk do too. As the Reader's Digest once said: "Many

persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience,"

During the darkest hours of the Civil War, Lincoln wrote to an old

friend in Springfield, Illinois, asking him to come to Washington.

Lincoln said he had some problems he wanted to discuss with him.

The old neighbor called at the White House, and Lincoln talked to

him for hours about the advisability of issuing a proclamation freeing

the slaves. Lincoln went over all the arguments for and against such

a move, and then read letters and newspaper articles, some

denouncing him for not freeing the slaves and others denouncing

him for fear he was going to free them. After talking for hours,

Lincoln shook hands with his old neighbor, said good night, and sent

him back to Illinois without even asking for his opinion. Lincoln had

done all the talking himself. That seemed to clarify his mind. "He

seemed to feel easier after that talk," the old friend said. Lincoln

hadn't wanted advice, He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic

listener to whom he could unburden himself. That's what we all want

when we are in trouble. That is frequently all the irritated customer

wants, and the dissatisfied employee or the hurt friend.

One of the great listeners of modern times was Sigmund Freud. A

man who met Freud described his manner of listening: "It struck me

so forcibly that I shall never forget him. He had qualities which I had

never seen in any other man. Never had I seen such concentrated

attention. There was none of that piercing 'soul penetrating gaze'

business. His eyes were mild and genial. His voice was low and kind.

His gestures were few. But the attention he gave me, his

appreciation of what I said, even when I said it badly, was

extraordinary, You've no idea what it meant to be listened to like

that."

If you want to know how to make people shun you and laugh at you

behind your back and even despise you, here is the recipe: Never

listen to anyone for long. Talk incessantly about yourself. If you have

an idea while the other person is talking, don't wait for him or her to

finish: bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.

Do you know people like that? I do, unfortunately; and the

astonishing part of it is that some of them are prominent.

Bores, that is all they are - bores intoxicated with their own egos,

drunk with a sense of their own importance.

People who talk only of themselves think only of themselves. And

"those people who think only of themselves," Dr. Nicholas Murray

Butler, longtime president of Columbia University, said, "are

hopelessly uneducated. They are not educated," said Dr. Butler, "no

matter how instructed they may be."

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive

listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other

persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about

themselves and their accomplishments.

Remember that the people you are talking to are a hundred times

more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than

they are in you and your problems. A person's toothache means

more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million

people. A boil on one's neck interests one more than forty

earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a

conversation.

• Principle 4 - Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about

themselves.

~~~~~~~

5 - How To Interest People

Everyone who was ever a guest of Theodore Roosevelt was

astonished at the range and diversity of his knowledge. Whether his

visitor was a cowboy or a Rough Rider, a New York politician or a

diplomat, Roosevelt knew what to say. And how was it done? The

answer was simple. Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he sat

up late the night before, reading up on the subject in which he knew

his guest was particularly interested.

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a

person's heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.

The genial William Lyon Phelps, essayist and professor of literature

at Yale, learned this lesson early in life.

"When I was eight years old and was spending a weekend visiting

my Aunt Libby Linsley at her home in Stratford on the Housatonic,"

he wrote in his essay on Human Nature, "a middle-aged man called

one evening, and after a polite skirmish with my aunt, he devoted his

attention to me. At that time, I happened to be excited about boats,

and the visitor discussed the subject in a way that seemed to me

particularly interesting. After he left, I spoke of him with enthusiasm.

What a man! My aunt informed me he was a New York lawyer, that

he cared nothing whatever about boats - that he took not the

slightest interest in the subject. 'But why then did he talk all the time

about boats?'

" 'Because he is a gentleman. He saw you were interested in boats,

and he talked about the things he knew would interest and please

you. He made himself agreeable.' "

And William Lyon Phelps added: "I never forgot my aunt's remark."

As I write this chapter, I have before me a letter from Edward L.

Chalif, who was active in Boy Scout work.

"One day I found I needed a favor," wrote Mr. Chalif. "A big Scout

jamboree was coming off in Europe, and I wanted the president of

one of the largest corporations in America to pay the expenses of

one of my boys for the trip.

"Fortunately, just before I went to see this man, I heard that he had

drawn a check for a million dollars, and that after it was canceled, he

had had it framed.

"So the first thing I did when I entered his office was to ask to see

the check. A check for a million dollars! I told him I never knew that

anybody had ever written such a check, and that I wanted to tell my

boys that I had actually seen a check for a million dollars. He gladly

showed it to me; I admired it and asked him to tell me all about how

it happened to be drawn."

You notice, don't you, that Mr. Chalif didn't begin by talking about

the Boy Scouts, or the jamboree in Europe, or what it was he

wanted? He talked in terms of what interested the other man. Here's

the result:

"Presently, the man I was interviewing said: 'Oh, by the way, what

was it you wanted to see me about?' So I told him.

"To my vast surprise," Mr. Chalif continues, "he not only granted

immediately what I asked for, but much more. I had asked him to

send only one boy to Europe, but he sent five boys and myself, gave

me a letter of credit for a thousand dollars and told us to stay in

Europe for seven weeks. He also gave me letters of introduction to

his branch presidents, putting them at our service, and he himself

met us in Paris and showed us the town.

Since then, he has given jobs to some of the boys whose parents

were in want, and he is still active in our group.

"Yet I know if I hadn't found out what he was interested in, and got

him warmed up first, I wouldn't have found him one-tenth as easy to

approach."

Is this a valuable technique to use in business? Is it? Let's see, Take

Henry G. Duvernoy of Duvemoy and Sons, a wholesale baking firm in

New York.

Mr. Duvernoy had been trying to sell bread to a certain New York

hotel. He had called on the manager every week for four years. He

went to the same social affairs the manager attended. He even took

rooms in the hotel and lived there in order to get the business. But

he failed.

"Then," said Mr. Duvernoy, "after studying human relations, I

resolved to change my tactics. I decided to find out what interested

this man - what caught his enthusiasm.

"I discovered he belonged to a society of hotel executives called the

Hotel Greeters of America. He not only belonged, but his bubbling

enthusiasm had made him president of the organization, and

president of the International Greeters. No matter where its

conventions were held, he would be there.

"So when I saw him the next day, I began talking about the

Greeters. What a response I got. What a response! He talked to me

for half an hour about the Greeters, his tones vibrant with

enthusiasm. I could plainly see that this society was not only his

hobby, it was the passion of his life. Before I left his office, he had

'sold' me a membership in his organization.

"In the meantime, I had said nothing about bread. But a few days

later, the steward of his hotel phoned me to come over with samples

and prices.

" 'I don't know what you did to the old boy,' the steward greeted me,

'but he sure is sold on you!'

"Think of it! I had been drumming at that man for four years - trying

to get his business - and I'd still be drumming at him if I hadn't

finally taken the trouble to find out what he was interested in, and

what he enjoyed talking about."

Edward E. Harriman of Hagerstown, Maryland, chose to live in the

beautiful Cumberland Valley of Maryland after he completed his

military service. Unfortunately, at that time there were few jobs

available in the area. A little research uncovered the fact that a

number of companies in the area were either owned or controlled by

an unusual business maverick, R. J. Funkhouser, whose rise from

poverty to riches intrigued Mr. Harriman. However, he was known for

being inaccessible to job seekers. Mr. Harriman wrote:

"I interviewed a number of people and found that his major interest

was anchored in his drive for power and money. Since he protected

himself from people like me by use of a dedicated and stern

secretary, I studied her interests and goals and only then I paid an

unannounced visit at her office. She had been Mr. Funkhouser's

orbiting satellite for about fifteen years. When I told her I had a

proposition for him which might translate itself into financial and

political success for him, she became enthused. I also conversed

with her about her constructive participation in his success. After this

conversation she arranged for me to meet Mr. Funkhouser.

"I entered his huge and impressive office determined not to ask

directly for a job. He was seated behind a large carved desk and

thundered at me, 'How about it, young man?' I said, 'Mr.

Funkhouser, I believe I can make money for you.' He immediately

rose and invited me to sit in one of the large upholstered chairs. I

enumerated my ideas and the qualifications I had to realize these

ideas, as well as how they would contribute to his personal success

and that of his businesses.

" 'R. J.,' as he became known to me, hired me at once and for over

twenty years I have grown in his enterprises and we both have

prospered."

Talking in terms of the other person's interests pays off for both

parties. Howard Z. Herzig, a leader in the field of employee

communications, has always followed this principle. When asked

what reward he got from it, Mr. Herzig responded that he not only

received a different reward from each person but that in general the

reward had been an enlargement of his life each time he spoke to

someone.

• Principle 5 - Talk in terms of the other person's interests.

~~~~~~~

6 - How To Make People Like You Instantly

I was waiting in line to register a letter in the post office at Thirtythird

Street and Eighth Avenue in New York. I noticed that the clerk

appeared to be bored with the job -weighing envelopes, handing out

stamps, making change, issuing receipts - the same monotonous

grind year after year. So I said to myself: "I am going to try to make

that clerk like me. Obviously, to make him like me, I must say

something nice, not about myself, but about him. So I asked myself,

'What is there about him that I can honestly admire?' " That is

sometimes a hard question to answer, especially with strangers; but,

in this case, it happened to be easy. I instantly saw something I

admired no end.

So while he was weighing my envelope, I remarked with enthusiasm:

"I certainly wish I had your head of hair."

He looked up, half-startled, his face beaming with smiles. "Well, it

isn't as good as it used to be," he said modestly. I assured him that

although it might have lost some of its pristine glory, nevertheless it

was still magnificent. He was immensely pleased. We carried on a

pleasant little conversation and the last thing he said to me was:

"Many people have admired my hair."

I'll bet that person went out to lunch that day walking on air. I'll bet

he went home that night and told his wife about it. I'll bet he looked

in the mirror and said: "It is a beautiful head of hair."

I told this story once in public and a man asked me afterwards:

"'What did you want to get out of him?"

What was I trying to get out of him!!! What was I trying to get out of

him!!!

If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can't radiate a little

happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to

get something out of the other person in return - if our souls are no

bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure we so

richly deserve. Oh yes, I did want something out of that chap. I

wanted something priceless. And I got it. I got the feeling that I had

done something for him without his being able to do anything

whatever in return for me. That is a feeling that flows and sings in

your memory lung after the incident is past.

There is one all-important law of human conduct. If we obey that

law, we shall almost never get into trouble. In fact, that law, if

obeyed, will bring us countless friends and constant happiness. But

the very instant we break the law, we shall get into endless trouble.

The law is this: Always make the other person feel important. John

Dewey, as we have already noted, said that the desire to be

important is the deepest urge in human nature; and William James

said: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be

appreciated." As I have already pointed out, it is this urge that

differentiates us from the animals. It is this urge that has been

responsible for civilization itself.

Philosophers have been speculating on the rules of human

relationships for thousands of years, and out of all that speculation,

there has evolved only one important precept. It is not new. It is as

old as history. Zoroaster taught it to his followers in Persia twentyfive

hundred years ago. Confucius preached it in China twenty-four

centuries ago. Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism, taught it to his

disciples in the Valley of the Han. Buddha preached it on the bank of

the Holy Ganges five hundred years before Christ. The sacred books

of Hinduism taught it a thousand years before that. Jesus taught it

among the stony hills of Judea nineteen centuries ago. Jesus

summed it up in one thought -probably the most important rule in

the world: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

You want the approval of those with whom you come in contact. You

want recognition of your true worth. You want a feeling that you are

important in your little world. You don't want to listen to cheap,

insincere flattery, but you do crave sincere appreciation. You want

your friends and associates to be, as Charles Schwab put it, "hearty

in their approbation and lavish in their praise." All of us want that.

So let's obey the Golden Rule, and give unto others what we would

have others give unto us, How? When? Where? The answer is: All

the time, everywhere.

David G. Smith of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, told one of our classes how

he handled a delicate situation when he was asked to take charge of

the refreshment booth at a charity concert,

"The night of the concert I arrived at the park and found two elderly

ladies in a very bad humor standing next to the refreshment stand.

Apparently each thought that she was in charge of this project. As I

stood there pondering what to do, me of the members of the

sponsoring committee appeared and handed me a cash box and

thanked me for taking over the project. She introduced Rose and

Jane as my helpers and then ran off.

"A great silence ensued. Realizing that the cash box was a symbol of

authority (of sorts), I gave the box to Rose and explained that I

might not be able to keep the money straight and that if she took

care of it I would feel better. I then suggested to Jane that she show

two teenagers who had been assigned to refreshments how to

operate the soda machine, and I asked her to be responsible for that

part of the project.

"The evening was very enjoyable with Rose happily counting the

money, Jane supervising the teenagers, and me enjoying the

concert."

You don't have to wait until you are ambassador to France or

chairman of the Clambake Committee of your lodge before you use

this philosophy of appreciation. You can work magic with it almost

every day.

If, for example, the waitress brings us mashed potatoes when we

have ordered French fried, let's say: "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I

prefer French fried." She'll probably reply, "No trouble at all" and will

be glad to change the potatoes, because we have shown respect for

her.

Little phrases such as "I'm sorry to trouble you," "Would you be so

kind as to ----? " "Won't you please?" " Would you mind?" "Thank

you" - little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous

grind of everyday life- and, incidentally, they are the hallmark of

good breeding.

Let's take another illustration. Hall Caine's novels-The Christian, The

Deemster, The Manxman, among them - were all best-sellers in the

early part of this century. Millions of people read his novels,

countless millions. He was the son of a blacksmith. He never had

more than eight years' schooling in his life; yet when he died he was

the richest literary man of his time.

The story goes like this: Hall Caine loved sonnets and ballads; so he

devoured all of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poetry. He even wrote a

lecture chanting the praises of Rossetti's artistic achievement-and

sent a copy to Rossetti himself. Rossetti was delighted. "Any young

man who has such an exalted opinion of my ability," Rossetti

probably said to himself, "must be brilliant," So Rossetti invited this

blacksmith's son to come to London and act as his secretary. That

was the turning point in Hall Caine's life; for, in his new position, he

met the literary artists of the day. Profiting by their advice and

inspired by their encouragement, he launched upon a career that

emblazoned his name across the sky.

His home, Greeba Castle, on the Isle of Man, became a Mecca for

tourists from the far corners of the world, and he left a multimillion

dollar estate. Yet - who knows - he might have died poor and

unknown had he not written an essay expressing his admiration for a

famous man.

Such is the power, the stupendous power, of sincere, heartfelt

appreciation.

Rossetti considered himself important. That is not strange, Almost

everyone considers himself important, very important.

The life of many a person could probably be changed if only

someone would make him feel important. Ronald J. Rowland, who is

one of the instructors of our course in California, is also a teacher of

arts and crafts. He wrote to us about a student named Chris in his

beginning crafts class:

Chris was a very quiet, shy boy lacking in self-confidence, the kind of

student that often does not receive the attention he deserves. I also

teach an advanced class that had grown to be somewhat of a status

symbol and a privilege for a student to have earned the right to be in

it. On Wednesday, Chris was diligently working at his desk. I really

felt there was a hidden fire deep inside him. I asked Chris if he

would like to be in the advanced class. How I wish I could express

the look in Chris's face, the emotions in that shy fourteen-year-old

boy, trying to hold back his tears.

"Who me, Mr. Rowland? Am I good enough?"

"Yes, Chris, you are good enough."

I had to leave at that point because tears were coming to my eyes.

As Chris walked out of class that day, seemingly two inches taller, he

looked at me with bright blue eyes and said in a positive voice,

"Thank you, Mr. Rowland."

Chris taught me a lesson I will never forget-our deep desire to feel

important. To help me never forget this rule, I made a sign which

reads "YOU ARE IMPORTANT." This sign hangs in the front of the

classroom for all to see and to remind me that each student I face is

equally important.

The unvarnished truth is that almost all the people you meet feel

themselves superior to you in some way, and a sure way to their

hearts is to let them realize in some subtle way that you recognize

their importance, and recognize it sincerely.

Remember what Emerson said: "Every man I meet is my superior in

some way. In that, I learn of him."

And the pathetic part of it is that frequently those who have the least

justification for a feeling of achievement bolster up their egos by a

show of tumult and conceit which is truly nauseating. As

Shakespeare put it: "... man, proud man,/Drest in a little brief

authority,/ ... Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven/As make

the angels weep."

I am going to tell you how business people in my own courses have

applied these principles with remarkable results. Let's take the case

of a Connecticut attorney (because of his relatives he prefers not to

have his name mentioned).

Shortly after joining the course, Mr. R----- drove to Long Island with

his wife to visit some of her relatives. She left him to chat with an old

aunt of hers and ther rushed off by herself to visit some of the

younger relatives. Since he soon had to give a speech professionally

on how he applied the principles of appreciation, he thought he

would gain some worthwhile experience talking with the-elderly lady.

So he looked around the house to see what he could honestly

admire.

"This house was built about 1890, wasn't it?" he inquired.

"Yes," she replied, "that is precisely the year it was built."

"It reminds me of the house I was born in," he said. "It's beautiful.

Well built. Roomy. You know, they don't build houses like this

anymore."

"You're right," the old lady agreed. "The young folks nowadays don't

care for beautiful homes. All they want is a small apartment, and

then they go off gadding about in their automobiles.

"This is a dream house," she said in a voice vibrating with tender

memories. "This house was built with love. My husband and I

dreamed about it for years before we built it. We didn't have an

architect. We planned it all ourselves."

She showed Mr. R----- about the house, and he expressed his hearty

admiration for the beautiful treasures she had picked up in her

travels and cherished over a lifetime - paisley shawls, an old English

tea set, Wedgwood china, French beds and chairs, Italian paintings,

and silk draperies that had once hung in a French chateau.

After showing Mr. R----- through the house, she took him out to the

garage. There, jacked up on blocks, was a Packard car - in mint

condition.

"My husband bought that car for me shortly before he passed on,"

she said softly. "I have never ridden in it since his death. ... You

appreciate nice things, and I'm going to give this car to you."

"Why, aunty," he said, "you overwhelm me. I appreciate your

generosity, of course; but I couldn't possibly accept it. I'm not even

a relative of yours. I have a new car, and you have many relatives

that would like to have that Packard."

"Relatives!" she exclaimed. "Yes, I have relatives who are just

waiting till I die so they can get that car. But they are not going to

get it."

"If you don't want to give it to them, you can very easily sell it to a

secondhand dealer," he told her.

"Sell it!" she cried. "Do you think I would sell this car? Do you think I

could stand to see strangers riding up and down the street in that

car - that car that my husband bought for me? I wouldn't dream of

selling it. I'm going to give it to you. You appreciate beautiful

things."

He tried to get out of accepting the car, but he couldn't without

hurting her feelings.

This lady, left all alone in a big house with her paisley shawls, her

French antiques, and her memories, was starving for a little

recognition, She had once been young and beautiful and sought

after She had once built a house warm with love and had collected

things from all over Europe to make it beautiful. Now, in the isolated

loneliness of old age, she craved a little human warmth, a little

genuine appreciation - and no one gave it to her. And when she

found it, like a spring in the desert, her gratitude couldn't adequately

express itself with anything less than the gift of her cherished

Packard.

Let's take another case: Donald M. McMahon, who was

superintendent of Lewis and Valentine, nurserymen and landscape

architects in Rye, New York, related this incident:

"Shortly after I attended the talk on 'How to Win Friends and

Influence People,' I was landscaping the estate of a famous attorney.

The owner came out to give me a few instructions about where he

wished to plant a mass of rhododendrons and azaleas.

"I said, 'Judge, you have a lovely hobby. I've been admiring your

beautiful dogs. I understand you win a lot of blue ribbons every year

at the show in Madison Square Garden.'

"The effect of this little expression of appreciation was striking.

" 'Yes,' the judge replied, 'I do have a lot of fun with my dogs. Would

you like to see my kennel?'

"He spent almost an hour showing me his dogs and the prizes they

had won. He even brought out their pedigrees and explained about

the bloodlines responsible for such beauty and intelligence.

"Finally, turning to me, he asked: 'Do you have any small children?'

" 'Yes, I do,' I replied, 'I have a son.'

" 'Well, wouldn't he like a puppy?' the judge inquired.

" 'Oh, yes, he'd be tickled pink.'

" 'All right, I'm going to give him one,' the . judge announced.

He started to tell me how to feed the puppy. Then he paused. 'You'll

forget it if I tell you. I'll write it out.' So the judge went in the house,

typed out the pedigree and feeding instructions, and gave me a

puppy worth several hundred dollars and one hour and fifteen

minutes of his valuable time largely because I had expressed my

honest admiration for his hobby and achievements."

George Eastman, of Kodak fame, invented the transparent film that

made motion pictures possible, amassed a fortune of a hundred

million dollars, and made himself one of the most famous

businessmen on earth. Yet in spite of all these tremendous

accomplishments, he craved little recognitions even as you and I.

To illustrate: When Eastman was building the Eastman School of

Music and also Kilbourn Hall in Rochester, James Adamson, then

president of the Superior Seating Company of New York, wanted to

get the order to supply the theater chairs for these buildings.

Phoning the architect, Mr. Adamson made an appointment to see Mr.

Eastman in Rochester.

When Adamson arrived, the architect said: "I know you want to get

this order, but I can tell you right now that you won't stand a ghost

of a show if you take more than five minutes of George Eastman's

time. He is a strict disciplinarian. He is very busy. So tell your story

quickly and get out."

Adamson was prepared to do just that.

When he was ushered into the room he saw Mr. Eastman bending

over a pile of papers at his desk. Presently, Mr. Eastman looked up,

removed his glasses, and walked toward the architect and Mr.

Adamson, saying: "Good morning, gentlemen, what can I do for

you?"

The architect introduced them, and then Mr. Adamson said: "While

we've been waiting for you, Mr. Eastman, I've been admiring your

office. I wouldn't mind working in a room like this myself. I'm in the

interior-woodworking business, and I never saw a more beautiful

office in all my life."

George Eastman replied: "You remind me of something I had almost

forgotten. It is beautiful, isn't it? I enjoyed it a great deal when it

was first built. But I come down here now with a lot of other things

on my mind and sometimes don't even see the room for weeks at a

time ."

Adamson walked over and rubbed his hand across a panel. "This is

English oak, isn't it? A little different texture from Italian oak."

"Yes," Eastman replied. "Imported English oak. It was selected for

me by a friend who specializes in fine woods ."

Then Eastman showed him about the room, commenting on the

proportions, the coloring, the hand carving and other effects he had

helped to plan and execute.

While drifting about the room, admiring the wood-work, they paused

before a window, and George Eastman, in his modest, soft-spoken

way, pointed out some of the institutions through which he was

trying to help humanity: the University of Rochester, the General

Hospital, the Homeopathic Hospital, the Friendly Home, the

Children's Hospital. Mr. Adamson congratulated him warmly on the

idealistic way he was using his wealth to alleviate the sufferings of

humanity. Presently, George Eastman unlocked a glass case and

pulled out the first camera he had ever owned - an invention he had

bought from an Englishman.

Adamson questioned him at length about his early struggles to get

started in business, and Mr. Eastman spoke with real feeling about

the poverty of his childhood, telling how his widowed mother had

kept a boardinghouse while he clerked in an insurance office. The

terror of poverty haunted him day and night, and he resolved to

make enough money so that his mother wouldn't have to work, Mr.

Adamson drew him out with further questions and listened,

absorbed, while he related the story of his experiments with dry

photographic plates. He told how he had worked in an office all day,

and sometimes experimented all night, taking only brief naps while

the chemicals were working, sometimes working and sleeping in his

clothes for seventy-two hours at a stretch.

James Adamson had been ushered into Eastman's office at tenfifteen

and had been warned that he must not take more than five

minutes; but an hour had passed, then two hours passed. And they

were still talking. Finally, George Eastman turned to Adamson and

said, "The last time I was in Japan I bought some chairs, brought

them home, and put them in my sun porch. But the sun peeled the

paint, so I went downtown the other day and bought some paint and

painted the chairs myself. Would you like to see what sort of a job I

can do painting chairs? All right. Come up to my home and have

lunch with me and I'll show you."

After lunch, Mr. Eastman showed Adamson the chairs he had

brought from Japan. They weren't worth more than a few dollars,

but George Eastman, now a multimillionaire, was proud of them

because he himself had painted them.

The order for the seats amounted to $90,000. Who do you suppose

got the order - James Adamson or one of his competitors?

From the time of this story until Mr. Eastman's death, he and James

Adamson were close friends.

Claude Marais, a restaurant owner in Rouen, France, used this

principle and saved his restaurant the loss of a key employee. This

woman had been in his employ for five years and was a vital link

between M. Marais and his staff of twenty-one people. He was

shocked to receive a registered letter from her advising him of her

resignation.

M. Marais reported: "I was very surprised and, even more,

disappointed, because I was under the impression that I had been

fair to her and receptive to her needs. Inasmuch as she was a friend

as well as an employee, I probably had taken her too much for

granted and maybe was even more demanding of her than of other

employees.

"I could not, of course, accept this resignation without some

explanation. I took her aside and said, 'Paulette, you must

understand that I cannot accept your resignation You mean a great

deal to me and to this company, and you are as important to the

success of this restaurant as I am.' I repeated this in front of the

entire staff, and I invited her to my home and reiterated my

confidence in her with my family present.

"Paulette withdrew her resignation, and today I can rely on her as

never before. I frequently reinforce this by expressing my

appreciation for what she does and showing her how important she

is to me and to the restaurant."

"Talk to people about themselves," said Disraeli, one of the

shrewdest men who ever ruled the British Empire. "Talk to people

about themselves and they will listen for hours ."

• Principle 6 - Make the other person feel important-and do it

sincerely.

~~~~

In a Nutshell - Six Ways To Make People Like You

• Principle 1 - Become genuinely interested in other people.

• Principle 2 - Smile.

• Principle 3 - Remember that a person's name is to that person the

sweetest and most important sound in any language.

• Principle 4 - Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about

themselves.

• Principle 5 - Talk in terms of the other person's interests.

• Principle 6 - Make the other person feel important-and do it

sincerely.

---------------------------------------

Part Three - How To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking

1 You Can't Win An Argument

Shortly after the close of World War I, I learned an invaluable lesson

one night in London. I was manager at the time for Sir Ross Smith.

During the war, Sir Ross had been the Australian ace out in

Palestine; and shortly after peace was declared, he astonished the

world by flying halfway around it in thirty days. No such feat had

ever been attempted before. It created a tremendous sensation. The

Australian government awarded him fifty thousand dollars; the King

of England knighted him; and, for a while, he was the most talkedabout

man under the Union Jack. I was attending a banquet one

night given in Sir Ross's honor; and during the dinner, the man

sitting next to me told a humorous story which hinged on the

quotation "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them

how we will."

The raconteur mentioned that the quotation was from the Bible. He

was wrong. I knew that, I knew it positively. There couldn't be the

slightest doubt about it. And so, to get a feeling of importance and

display my superiority, I appointed myself as an unsolicited and

unwelcome committee of one to correct him. He stuck to his guns.

What? From Shakespeare? Impossible! Absurd! That quotation was

from the Bible. And he knew it.

The storyteller was sitting on my right; and Frank Gammond, an old

friend of mine, was seated at my left. Mr. Gammond had devoted

years to the study of Shakespeare, So the storyteller and I agreed to

submit the question to Mr. Gammond. Mr. Gammond listened, kicked

me under the table, and then said: "Dale, you are wrong. The

gentleman is right. It is from the Bible."

On our way home that night, I said to Mr. Gammond: "Frank, you

knew that quotation was from Shakespeare,"

"Yes, of course," he replied, "Hamlet, Act Five, Scene Two. But we

were guests at a festive occasion, my dear Dale. Why prove to a

man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let

him save his face? He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it.

Why argue with him? Always avoid the acute angle." The man who

said that taught me a lesson I'll never forget. I not only had made

the storyteller uncomfortable, but had put my friend in an

embarrassing situation. How much better it would have been had I

not become argumentative.

It was a sorely needed lesson because I had been an inveterate

arguer. During my youth, I had argued with my brother about

everything under the Milky Way. When I went to college, I studied

logic and argumentation and went in for debating contests. Talk

about being from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown.

Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New York; and once, I

am ashamed to admit, I planned to write a book on the subject.

Since then, I have listened to, engaged in, and watched the effect of

thousands of arguments. As a result of all this, I have come to the

conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the

best of an argument - and that is to avoid it .

Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the

contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely

right.

You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose

it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well, suppose you triumph

over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove

that he is non compos mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But

what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his

pride. He will resent your triumph. And -

A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still.

Years ago Patrick J. O'Haire joined one of my classes. He had had

little education, and how he loved a scrap! He had once been a

chauffeur, and he came to me because he had been trying, without

much success, to sell trucks. A little questioning brought out the fact

that he was continually scrapping with and antagonizing the very

people he was trying to do business with, If a prospect said anything

derogatory about the trucks he was selling, Pat saw red and was

right at the customer's throat. Pat won a lot of arguments in those

days. As he said to me afterward, "I often walked out of an office

saving: 'I told that bird something.' Sure I had told him something,

but I hadn't sold him anything."

Mv first problem was not to teach Patrick J. O'Haire to talk. My

immediate task was to train him to refrain from talking and to avoid

verbal fights.

Mr. O'Haire became one of the star salesmen for the White Motor

Company in New York. How did he do it? Here is his story in his own

words: "If I walk into a buyer's office now and he says: 'What? A

White truck?

They're no good! I wouldn't take one if you gave it to me. I'm going

to buy the Whose-It truck,' I say, 'The Whose-It is a good truck. If

you buy the Whose-It, you'll never make a mistake. The Whose-Its

are made by a fine company and sold by good people.'

"He is speechless then. There is no room for an argument. If he says

the Whose-It is best and I say sure it is, he has to stop. He can't

keep on all afternoon saying, 'It's the best' when I'm agreeing with

him. We then get off the subject of Whose-It and I begin to talk

about the good points of the White truck.

"There was a time when a remark like his first one would have made

me see scarlet and red and orange. I would start arguing against the

Whose-It; and the more I argued against it, the more my prospect

argued in favor of it; and the more he argued, the more he sold

himself on my competitor's product.

"As I look back now I wonder how I was ever able to sell anything. I

lost years of my life in scrapping and arguing. I keep my mouth shut

now. It pays."

As wise old Ben Franklin used to say:

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.

So figure it out for yourself. Which would you rather have, an

academic, theatrical victory or a person's good will? You can seldom

have both.

The Boston Transcript once printed this bit of significant doggerel:

Here lies the body of William Jay, . Who died maintaining his right of

way-He was right, dead right, as he sped along, But he's just as

dead as if he were wrong.

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.

Frederick S. Parsons, an income tax consultant, had been disputing

and wrangling for an hour with a gover-ment tax inspector. An item

of nine thousand dollars was at stake. Mr. Parsons claimed that this

nine thousand dollars was in reality a bad debt, that it would never

be collected, that it ought not to be taxed. "Bad debt, my eye !"

retorted the inspector. "It must be taxed."

"This inspector was cold, arrogant and stubborn," Mr. Parsons said

as he told the story to the class. "Reason was wasted and so were

facts. . . The longer we argued, the more stubborn he became. So I

decided to avoid argument, change the subject, and give him

appreciation.

"I said, 'I suppose this is a very petty matter in comparison with the

really important and difficult decisions you're required to make. I've

made a study of taxation myself. But I've had to get my knowledge

from books. You are getting yours from the firing line of experience.

I sometime wish I had a job like yours. It would teach me a lot.' I

meant every word I said.

"Well." The inspector straightened up in his chair, leaned back, and

talked for a long time about his work, telling me of the clever frauds

he had uncovered. His tone gradually became friendly, and presently

he was telling me about his children. As he left, he advised me that

he would consider my problem further and give me his decision in a

few days.

"He called at my office three days later and informed me that he had

decided to leave the tax return exactly as it was filed."

This tax inspector was demonstrating one of the most common of

human frailties. He wanted a feeling of importance; and as long as

Mr. Parsons argued with him, he got his feeling of importance by

loudly asserting his authority. But as soon as his importance was

admitted and the argument stopped and he was permitted to expand

his ego, he became a sympathetic and kindly human being.

Buddha said: "Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love," and a

misunderstanding is never ended by an argument but by tact,

diplomacy, conciliation and a sympathetic desire to see the other

person's viewpoint.

Lincoln once reprimanded a young army officer for indulging in a

violent controversy with an associate. "No man who is resolved to

make the most of himself," said Lincoln, "can spare time for personal

contention. Still less can he afford to take the consequences,

including the vitiation of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield

larger things to which you show no more than equal rights; and yield

lesser ones though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog

than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog

would not cure the bite."

In an article in Bits and Pieces,* some suggestions are made on how

to keep a disagreement from becoming an argument:

Welcome the disagreement. Remember the slogan, "When two

partners always agree, one of them is not necessary." If there is

some point you haven't thought about, be thankful if it is brought to

your attention. Perhaps this disagreement is your opportunity to be

corrected before you make a serious mistake.

Distrust your first instinctive impression. Our first natural reaction in

a disagreeable situation is to be defensive. Be careful. Keep calm and

watch out for your first reaction. It may be you at your worst, not

your best.

Control your temper. Remember, you can measure the size of a

person by what makes him or her angry.

Listen first. Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them finish. Do

not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers. Try to build

bridges of understanding. Don't build higher barriers of

misunderstanding.

Look for areas of agreement. When you have heard your opponents

out, dwell first on the points and areas on which you agree.

Be honest, Look for areas where you can admit error and say so.

Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your opponents and

reduce defensiveness.

Promise to think over your opponents' ideas and study them

carefully. And mean it. Your opponents may be right. It is a lot easier

at this stage to agree to think about their points than to move rapidly

ahead and find yourself in a position where your opponents can say:

"We tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen."

Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest. Anyone who takes

the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you

are. Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you

may turn your opponents into friends.

Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the

problem. Suggest that a new meeting be held later that day or the

next day, when all the facts may be brought to bear. In preparation

for this meeting, ask yourself some hard questions:

Could my opponents be right? Partly right? Is there truth or merit in

their position or argument? Is my reaction one that will relieve the

problem, or will it just relieve any frustration? Will my reaction drive

my opponents further away or draw them closer to me? Will my

reaction elevate the estimation good people have of me? Will I win

or lose? What price will I have to pay if I win? If I am quiet about it,

will the disagreement blow over? Is this difficult situation an

opportunity for me?

* Bits and Pieces, published by The Economics Press, Fairfield, N.J.

Opera tenor Jan Peerce, after he was married nearly fifty years, once

said: "My wife and I made a pact a long time ago, and we've kept it

no matter how angry we've grown with each other. When one yells,

the other should listen-because when two people yell, there is no

communication, just noise and bad vibrations."

• Principle 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid

it.

~~~~~~~

2 - A Sure Way Of Making Enemies -And How To Avoid It

When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, he confessed

that if he could be right 75 percent of the time, he would reach the

highest measure of his expectation.

If that was the highest rating that one of the most distinguished men

of the twentieth century could hope to obtain, what about you and

me?

If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can

go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can't

be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you

tell other people they are wrong?

You can tell people they are wrong by a look or an intonation or a

gesture just as eloquently as you can in words - and if you tell them

they are wrong, do you make them want to agree with you? Never!

For you have struck a direct blow at their intelligence, judgment,

pride and self-respect. That will make them want to strike back. But

it will never make them want to change their minds. You may then

hurl at them all the logic of a Plato or an Immanuel Kant, but you will

not alter their opinions, for you have hurt their feelings.

Never begin by announcing "I am going to prove so-and-so to you."

That's bad. That's tantamount to saying: "I'm smarter than you are,

I'm going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your

mind."

That is a challenge. It arouses opposition and makes the listener

want to battle with you before you even start.

It is difficult, under even the most benign conditions, to change

people's minds. So why make it harder? Why handicap yourself?

If you are going to prove anything, don't let anybody know it. Do it

so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel that you are doing it. This

was expressed succinctly by Alexander Pope:

Men must be taught as if you taught them not And things unknown

proposed as things forgot.

Over three hundred years ago Galileo said:

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it

within himself.

As Lord Chesterfield said to his son:

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Socrates said repeatedly to his followers in Athens:

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

Well, I can't hope to be any smarter than Socrates, so I have quit

telling people they are wrong. And I find that it pays.

If a person makes a statement that you think is wrong - yes, even

that you know is wrong - isn't it better to begin by saying: "Well,

now, look, I thought otherwise, but I may be wrong. I frequently

am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let's examine the

facts."

There's magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: "I may be wrong.

I frequently am. Let's examine the facts."

Nobody in the heavens above or on earth beneath or in the waters

under the earth will ever object to your saying: "I may be wrong.

Let's examine the facts."

One of our class members who used this approach in dealing with

customers was Harold Reinke, a Dodge dealer in Billings, Montana.

He reported that because of the pressures of the automobile

business, he was often hard-boiled and callous when dealing with

customers' complaints. This caused flared tempers, loss of business

and general unpleasantness.

He told his class: "Recognizing that this was getting me nowhere

fast, I tried a new tack. I would say something like this: 'Our

dealership has made so many mistakes that I am frequently

ashamed. We may have erred in your case. Tell me about it.'

"This approach becomes quite disarming, and by the time the

customer releases his feelings, he is usually much more reasonable

when it comes to settling the matter. In fact, several customers have

thanked me for having such an understanding attitude. And two of

them have even brought in friends to buy new cars. In this highly

competitive market, we need more of this type of customer, and I

believe that showing respect for all customers' opinions and treating

them diplomatically and courteously will help beat the competition."

You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong.

That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just as

fair and open and broad-minded as you are. It will make him want to

admit that he, too, may be wrong.

If you know positively that a person is wrong, and you bluntly tell

him or her so, what happens? Let me illustrate. Mr. S---- a young

New York attorney, once argued a rather important case before the

United States Supreme Court (Lustgarten v. Fleet Corporation 280

U.S. 320). The case involved a considerable sum of money and an

important question of law. During the argument, one of the Supreme

Court justices said to him: "The statute of limitations in admiralty law

is six years, is it not?"

Mr. S---- stopped, stared at the Justice for a moment, and then said

bluntly: "Your Honor, there is no statute of limitations in admiralty."

"A hush fell on the court," said Mr. S---- as he related his experience

to one of the author's classes, "and the temperature in the room

seemed to drop to zero. I was right. Justice - was wrong. And I had

told him so. But did that make him friendly? No. I still believe that I

had the law on my side. And I know that I spoke better than I ever

spoke before. But I didn't persuade. I made the enormous blunder of

telling a very learned and famous man that he was wrong."

Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased. Most of

us are blighted with preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion,

fear, envy and pride. And most citizens don't want to change their

minds about their religion or their haircut or communism or their

favorite movie star. So, if you are inclined to tell people they are

wrong, please read the following paragraph every morning before

breakfast. It is from James Harvey Robinson's enlightening book The

Mind in the Making.

We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any

resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong, we

resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly

heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with

an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their

companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear

to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened. ... The little word

"my" is the most important one in human affairs, and properly to

reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the same force

whether it is "my" dinner, "my" dog, and "my" house, or "my" father,

"my" country, and "my" God. We not only resent the imputation that

our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of

the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus," of the

medicinal value of salicin, or of the date of Sargon I is subject to

revision. We like to continue to believe what we have been

accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when

doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every

manner of excuse for clinging to it. The result is that most of our socalled

reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing

as we already do.

Carl Rogers, the eminent psychologist, wrote in his book On

Becoming a Person:

I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to

understand the other person. The way in which I have worded this

statement may seem strange to you, Is it necessary to permit

oneself to understand another? I think it is. Our first reaction to most

of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an

evaluation or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When

someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is

almost immediately to feel "that's right," or "that's stupid," "that's

abnormal," "that's unreasonable," "that's incorrect," "that's not nice."

Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the

meaning of the statement is to the other person. (*)

----

[*] Adapted from Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 18ff.

----

I once employed an interior decorator to make some draperies for

my home. When the bill arrived, I was dismayed.

A few days later, a friend dropped in and looked at the draperies.

The price was mentioned, and she exclaimed with a note of triumph:

"What? That's awful. I am afraid he put one over on you."

True? Yes, she had told the truth, but few people like to listen to

truths that reflect on their judgment. So, being human, I tried to

defend myself. I pointed out that the best is eventually the cheapest,

that one can't expect to get quality and artistic taste at bargainbasement

prices, and so on and on.

The next day another friend dropped in, admired the draperies,

bubbled over with enthusiasm, and expressed a wish that she could

afford such exquisite creations for her home. My reaction was totally

different. "Well, to tell the truth," I said, "I can't afford them myself.

I paid too much. I'm sorry I ordered them,"

When we are wrong, we may admit it to ourselves. And if we are

handled gently and tactfully, we may admit it to others and even

take pride in our frankness and broad-mindedness. But not if

someone else is trying to ram the unpalatable fact down our

esophagus.

Horace Greeley, the most famous editor in America during the time

of the Civil War, disagreed violently with Lincoln's policies. He

believed that he could drive Lincoln into agreeing with him by a

campaign of argument, ridicule and abuse. He waged this bitter

campaign month after month, year after year. In fact, he wrote a

brutal, bitter, sarcastic and personal attack on President Lincoln the

night Booth shot him.

But did all this bitterness make Lincoln agree with Greeley? Not at

all. Ridicule and abuse never do. If you want some excellent

suggestions about dealing with people and managing yourself and

improving your personality, read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography -

one of the most fascinating life stories ever written, one of the

classics of American literature. Ben Franklin tells how he conquered

the iniquitous habit of argument and transformed himself into one of

the most able, suave and diplomatic men in American history.

One day, when Ben Franklin was a blundering youth, an old Quaker

friend took him aside and lashed him with a few stinging truths,

something like this:

Ben, you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for

everyone who differs with you. They have become so offensive that

nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves

better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can

tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would

lead only to discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to

know any more than you do now, which is very little.

One of the finest things I know about Ben Franklin is the way he

accepted that smarting rebuke. He was big enough and wise enough

to realize that it was true, to sense that he was headed for failure

and social disaster. So he made a right-about-face. He began

immediately to change his insolent, opinionated ways.

"I made it a rule," said Franklin, "to forbear all direct contradiction to

the sentiment of others, and all positive assertion of my own, I even

forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language

that imported a fix'd opinion, such as 'certainly,' 'undoubtedly,' etc.,

and I adopted, instead of them, 'I conceive,' 'I apprehend, ' or 'I

imagine' a thing to be so or so, or 'it so appears to me at present.'

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd

myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing

immediately some absurdity in his proposition: and in answering I

began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion

would be right, but in the present case there appear'd or seem'd to

me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change

in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more

pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd

them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less

mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily

prevaile'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me

when I happened to be in the right.

"And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural

inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that

perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a

dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my

character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had earned so

much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new

institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public

councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker,

never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words,

hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points."

How do Ben Franklin's methods work in business? Let's take two

examples.

Katherine A, Allred of Kings Mountain, North Carolina, is an industrial

engineering supervisor for a yarn-processing plant. She told one of

our classes how she handled a sensitive problem before and after

taking our training:

"Part of my responsibility," she reported, "deals with setting up and

maintaining incentive systems and standards for our operators so

they can make more money by producing more yarn. The system we

were using had worked fine when we had only two or three different

types of yarn, but recently we had expanded our inventory and

capabilities to enable us to run more than twelve different varieties.

The present system was no longer adequate to pay the operators

fairly for the work being performed and give them an incentive to

increase production. I had worked up a new system which would

enable us to pay the operator by the class of yam she was running at

any one particular time. With my new system in hand, I entered the

meeting determined to prove to the management that my system

was the right approach. I told them in detail how they were wrong

and showed where they were being unfair and how I had all the

answers they needed. To say the least, I failed miserably! I had

become so busy defending my position on the new system that I had

left them no opening to graciously admit their problems on the old

one. The issue was dead.

"After several sessions of this course, I realized all too well where I

had made my mistakes. I called another meeting and this time I

asked where they felt their problems were. We discussed each point,

and I asked them their opinions on which was the best way to

proceed. With a few low-keyed suggestions, at proper intervals, I let

them develop my system themselves. At the end of the meeting

when I actually presented my system, they enthusiastically accepted

it.

"I am convinced now that nothing good is accomplished and a lot of

damage can be done if you tell a person straight out that he or she is

wrong. You only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and

making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion."

Let's take another example - and remember these cases I am citing

are typical of the experiences of thousands of other people. R. V.

Crowley was a salesman for a lumber company in New York. Crowley

admitted that he had been telling hard-boiled lumber inspectors for

years that they were wrong. And he had won the arguments too. But

it hadn't done any good. "For these lumber inspectors," said Mr.

Crowley, "are like baseball umpires. Once they make a decision, they

never change it,"

Mr. Crowley saw that his firm was losing thousands of dollars

through the arguments he won. So while taking my course, he

resolved to change tactics and abandon arguments. With what

results? Here is the story as he told it to the fellow members of his

class:

"One morning the phone rang in my office. A hot and bothered

person at the other end proceeded to inform me that a car of lumber

we had shipped into his plant was entirely unsatisfactory. His firm

had stopped unloading and requested that we make immediate

arrangements to remove the stock from their yard. After about onefourth

of the car had been unloaded, their lumber inspector reported

that the lumber was running 55 percent below grade. Under the

circumstances, they refused to accept it.

"I immediately started for his plant and on the way turned over in

my mind the best way to handle the situation. Ordinarily, under such

circumstances, I should have quoted grading rules and tried, as a

result of my own experience and knowledge as a lumber inspector,

to convince the other inspector that the lumber was actually up to

grade, and that he was misinterpreting the rules in his inspection.

However, I thought I would apply the principles learned in this

training.

"When I arrived at the plant, I found the purchasing agent and the

lumber inspector in a wicked humor, both set for an argument and a

fight. We walked out to the car that was being unloaded, and I

requested that they continue to unload so that I could see how

things were going. I asked the inspector to go right ahead and lay

out the rejects, as he had been doing, and to put the good pieces in

another pile.

"After watching him for a while it began to dawn on me that his

inspection actually was much too strict and that he was

misinterpreting the rules. This particular lumber was white pine, and

I knew the inspector was

thoroughly schooled in hard woods but not a competent,

experienced inspector on white pine. White pine happened to be my

own strong suit, but did I offer any objection to the way he was

grading the lumber? None whatever. I kept on watching and

gradually began to ask questions as to why certain pieces were not

satisfactory. I didn't for one instant insinuate that the inspector was

wrong. I emphasized that my only reason for asking was in order

that we could give his firm exactly what they wanted in future

shipments. wanted in future shipments.

"By asking questions in a very friendly, cooperative spirit, and

insisting continually that they were right in laying out boards not

satisfactory to their purpose, I got him warmed up, and the strained

relations between us began to thaw and melt away. An occasional

carefully put remark on my part gave birth to the idea in his mind

that possibly some of these rejected pieces were actually within the

grade that they had bought, and that their requirements demanded

a more expensive grade. I was very careful, however, not to let him

think I was making an issue of this point.

"Gradually his whole attitude changed. He finally admitted to me that

he was not experienced on white pine and began to ask me

questions about each piece as it came out of the car, I would explain

why such a piece came within the grade specified, but kept on

insisting that we did not want him to take it if it was unsuitable for

their purpose. He finally got to the point where he felt guilty every

time he put a piece in the rejected pile. And at last he saw that the

mistake was on their part for not having specified as good a grade as

they needed.

"The ultimate outcome was that he went through the entire carload

again after I left, accepted the whole lot, and we received a check in

full.

"In that one instance alone, a little tact, and the determination to

refrain from telling the other man he was wrong, saved my company

a substantial amount of cash, and it would be hard to place a money

value on the good will that was saved."

Martin Luther King was asked how, as a pacifist, he could be an

admirer of Air Force General Daniel "Chappie" James, then the

nation's highest-ranking black officer. Dr. King replied, "I judge

people by their own principles - not by my own."

In a similar way, General Robert E. Lee once spoke to the president

of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, in the most glowing terms about

a certain officer under his command. Another officer in attendance

was astonished. "General," he said, " do you not know that the man

of whom you speak so highly is one of your bitterest enemies who

misses no opportunity to malign you?" "Yes," replied General Lee,

"but the president asked my opinion of him; he did not ask for his

opinion of me."

By the way, I am not revealing anything new in this chapter. Two

thousand years ago, Jesus said: "Agree with thine adversary

quickly."

And 2,200 years before Christ was born, King Akhtoi of Egypt gave

his son some shrewd advice - advice that is sorely needed today. "Be

diplomatic," counseled the King. "It will help you gain your point."

In other words, don't argue with your customer or your spouse or

your adversary. Don't tell them they are wrong, don't get them

stirred up. Use a little diplomacy.

• Principle 2 - Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never

say, "You're wrong."

~~~~~~~

3 - If You're Wrong, Admit It

Within a minute's walk of my house there was a wild stretch of virgin

timber, where the blackberry thickets foamed white in the

springtime, where the squirrels nested and reared their young, and

the horseweeds grew as tall as a horse's head. This unspoiled

woodland was called Forest Park - and it was a forest, probably not

much different in appearance from what it was when Columbus

discovered America. I frequently walked in this park with Rex, my

little Boston bulldog. He was a friendly, harmless little hound; and

since we rarely met anyone in the park, I took Rex along without a

leash or a muzzle.

One day we encountered a mounted policeman in the park, a

policeman itching to show his authority.

"'What do you mean by letting that dog run loose in the park without

a muzzle and leash?" he reprimanded me. "Don't you know it's

against the law?"

"Yes, I know it is," I replied softy, "but I didn't think he would do any

harm out here."

"You didn't think! You didn't think! The law doesn't give a tinker's

damn about what you think. That dog might kill a squirrel or bite a

child. Now, I'm going to let you off this time; but if I catch this dog

out here again without a muzzle and a leash, you'll have to tell it to

the judge ."

I meekly promised to obey.

And I did obey - for a few times. But Rex didn't like the muzzle, and

neither did I; so we decided to take a chance. Everything was lovely

for a while, and then we struck a snag. Rex and I raced over the

brow of a hill one afternoon and there, suddenly - to my dismay - I

saw the majesty of the law, astride a bay horse. Rex was out in

front, heading straight for the officer.

I was in for it. I knew it. So I didn't wait until the policeman started

talking. I beat him to it. I said: "Officer, you've caught me redhanded.

I'm guilty. I have no alibis, no excuses. You warned me last

week that if I brought the dog out here again without a muzzle you

would fine me."

"Well, now," the policeman responded in a soft tone. "I know it's a

temptation to let a little dog like that have a run out here when

nobody is around."

"Sure it's a temptation," I replied, "but it is against the law."

"Well, a little dog like that isn't going to harm anybody," the

policeman remonstrated.

"No, but he may kill squirrels," I said.

"Well now, I think you are taking this a bit too seriously," he told me.

"I'll tell you what you do. You just let him run over the hill there

where I can't see him - and we'll forget all about it."

That policeman, being human, wanted a feeling of importance; so

when I began to condemn myself, the only way he could nourish his

self-esteem was to take the magnanimous attitude of showing

mercy.

But suppose I had tried to defend myself - well, did you ever argue

with a policeman?

But instead of breaking lances with him, I admitted that he was

absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong; I admitted it quickly,

openly, and with enthusiasm. The affair terminated graciously in my

taking his side and his taking my side. Lord Chesterfield himself

could hardly have been more gracious than this mounted policeman,

who, only a week previously, had threatened to have the law on me.

If we know we are going to be rebuked anyhow, isn't it far better to

beat the other person to it and do it ourselves? Isn't it much easier

to listen to self-criticism than to bear condemnation from alien lips?

Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other

person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say - and say them

before that person has a chance to say them. The chances are a

hundred to one that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and

your mistakes will be minimized just as the mounted policeman did

with me and Rex.

Ferdinand E. Warren, a commercial artist, used this technique to win

the good will of a petulant, scolding buyer of art.

"It is important, in making drawings for advertising and publishing

purposes, to be precise and very exact," Mr. Warren said as he told

the story.

"Some art editors demand that their commissions be executed

immediately; and in these cases, some slight error is liable to occur. I

knew one art director in particular who was always delighted to find

fault with some little thing. I have often left his office in disgust, not

because of the criticism, but because of his method of attack.

Recently I delivered a rush job to this editor, and he phoned me to

call at his office immediately. He said something was wrong. When I

arrived, I found just what I had anticipated - and dreaded. He was

hostile, gloating over his chance to criticize. He demanded with heat

why I had done so and so. My opportunity had come to apply the

self-criticism I had been studying about. So I said: ''Mr. So-and-so, if

what you say is true, I am at fault and there is absolutely no excuse

for my blunder. I have been doing drawings for you long enough to

know bet-ter. I'm ashamed of myself.'

"Immediately he started to defend me. 'Yes, you're right, but after

all, this isn't a serious mistake. It is only -'

"I interrupted him. 'Any mistake,' I said, 'may be costly and they are

all irritating.'

"He started to break in, but I wouldn't let him. I was having a grand

time. For the first time in my life, I was criticizing myself - and I

loved it.

" 'I should have been more careful,' I continued. 'You give me a lot

of work, and you deserve the best; so I'm going to do this drawing

all over.'

" 'No! No!' he protested. 'I wouldn't think of putting you to all that

trouble.' He praised my work, assured me that he wanted only a

minor change and that my slight error hadn't cost his firm any

money; and, after all, it was a mere detail - not worth worrying

about.

"My eagerness to criticize myself took all the fight out of him. He

ended up by taking me to lunch; and before we parted, he gave me

a check and another commission"

There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to

admit one's errors. It not only clears the air of guilt and

defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the

error.

Bruce Harvey of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had incorrectly

authorized payment of full wages to an employee on sick leave.

When he discovered his error, he brought it to the attention of the

employee and explained that to correct the mistake he would have to

reduce his next paycheck by the entire amount of the overpayment.

The employee pleaded that as that would cause him a serious

financial problem, could the money be repaid over a period of time?

In order to do this, Harvey explained, he would have to obtain his

supervisor's approval. "And this I knew," reported Harvey, "would

result in a boss-type explosion, While trying to decide how to handle

this situation better, I realized that the whole mess was my fault and

I would have to admit I it to my boss.

"I walked into his office, told him that I had made a mistake and

then informed him of the complete facts. He replied in an explosive

manner that it was the fault of the personnel department. I repeated

that it was my fault. He exploded again about carelessness in the

accounting department. Again I explained it was my fault. He blamed

two other people in the office. But each time I reiterated it was my

fault. Finally, he looked at me and said, 'Okay, it was your fault. Now

straighten it out.' The error was corrected and nobody got into

trouble. I felt great because I was able to handle a tense situation

and had the courage not to seek alibis. My boss has had more

respect for me ever since."

Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes - and most fools do -

but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility

and exultation to admit one's mistakes. For example, one of the most

beautiful things that history records about Robert E. Lee is the way

he blamed himself and only himself for the failure of Pickett's charge

at Gettysburg.

Pickett's charge was undoubtedly the most brilliant and picturesque

attack that ever occurred in the Western world. General George E.

Pickett himself was picturesque. He wore his hair so long that his

auburn locks almost touched his shoulders; and, like Napoleon in his

Italian campaigns, he wrote ardent love-letters almost daily while on

the battlefield. His devoted troops cheered him that tragic July

afternoon as he rode off jauntily toward the Union lines, his cap set

at a rakish angle over his right ear. They cheered and they followed

him, man touching man, rank pressing rank, with banners flying and

bayonets gleaming in the sun. It was a gallant sight. Daring.

Magnificent. A murmur of admiration ran through the Union lines as

they beheld it.

Pickett's troops swept forward at any easy trot, through orchard and

cornfield, across a meadow and over a ravine. All the time, the

enemy's cannon was tearing ghastly holes in their ranks, But on they

pressed, grim, irresistible.

Suddenly the Union infantry rose from behind the stone wall on

Cemetery Ridge where they had been hiding and fired volley after

volley into Pickett's onrushing troops. The crest of the hill was a

sheet of flame, a slaughterhouse, a blazing volcano. In a few

minutes, all of Pickett's brigade commanders except one were down,

and four-fifths of his five thousand men had fallen.

General Lewis A. Armistead, leading the troops in the final plunge,

ran forward, vaulted over the stone wall, and, waving his cap on the

top of his sword, shouted: "Give 'em the steel, boys!"

They did. They leaped over the wall, bayoneted their enemies,

smashed skulls with clubbed muskets, and planted the battleflags of

the South on Cemetery Ridge. The banners waved there only for a

moment. But that moment, brief as it was, recorded the high-water

mark of the Confederacy.

Pickett's charge - brilliant, heroic - was nevertheless the beginning of

the end. Lee had failed. He could not penetrate the North. And he

knew it.

The South was doomed.

Lee was so saddened, so shocked, that he sent in his resignation and

asked Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, to appoint

"a younger and abler man." If Lee had wanted to blame the

disastrous failure of Pickett's charge on someone else, he could have

found a score of alibis. Some of his division commanders had failed

him. The cavalry hadn't arrived in time to support the infantry attack.

This had gone wrong and that had gone awry.

But Lee was far too noble to blame others. As Pickett's beaten and

bloody troops struggled back to the Confederate lines, Robert E. Lee

rode out to meet them all alone and greeted them with a selfcondemnation

that was little short of sublime. "All this has been my

fault," he confessed. "I and I alone have lost this battle."

Few generals in all history have had the courage and character to

admit that.

Michael Cheung, who teaches our course in Hong Kong, told of how

the Chinese culture presents some special problems and how

sometimes it is necessary to recognize that the benefit of applying a

principle may be more advantageous than maintaining an old

tradition. He had one middle-aged class member who had been

estranged from his son for many years. The father had been an

opium addict, but was now cured. In Chinese tradition an older

person cannot take the first step. The father felt that it was up to his

son to take the initiative toward a reconciliation. In an early session,

he told the class about the grandchildren he had never seen and how

much he desired to be reunited with his son. His classmates, all

Chinese, understood his conflict between his desire and longestablished

tradition. The father felt that young people should have

respect for their elders and that he was right in not giving in to his

desire, but to wait for his son to come to him.

Toward the end of the course the father again addressed his class. "I

have pondered this problem," he said. "Dale Carnegie says, 'If you

are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.' It is too late for me to

admit it quickly, but I can admit it emphatically. I wronged my son.

He was right in not wanting to see me and to expel me from his life.

I may lose face by asking a younger person's forgiveness, but I was

at fault and it is my responsibility to admit this." The class applauded

and gave him their full support. At the next class he told how he

went to his son's house, asked for and received forgiveness and was

now embarked on a new relationship with his son, his daughter-inlaw

and the grandchildren he had at last met.

Elbert Hubbard was one of the most original authors who ever stirred

up a nation, and his stinging sentences often aroused fierce

resentment. But Hubbard with his rare skill for handling people

frequently turned his enemies into friends.

For example, when some irritated reader wrote in to say that he

didn't agree with such and such an article and ended by calling

Hubbard this and that, Elbert Hubbard would answer like this:

Come to think it over, I don't entirely agree with it myself. Not

everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am glad to learn

what you think on the subject. The next time you are in the

neighborhood you must visit us and we'll get this subject threshed

out for all time. So here is a handclasp over the miles, and I am,

Yours sincerely,

What could you say to a man who treated you like that?

When we are right, let's try to win people gently and tactfully to our

way of thinking, and when we are wrong - and that will be

surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves - let's admit our

mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm. 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.

Remember the old proverb: "By fighting you never get enough, but

by yielding you get more than you expected."

• Principle 3 - If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

~~~~~~~

4 - A Drop Of Honey

If your temper is aroused and you tell 'em a thing or two, you will

have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other

person? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your

hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with you?

"If you come at me with your fists doubled," said Woodrow Wilson,

"I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but

if you come to me and say, 'Let us sit down and take counsel

together, and, if we differ from each other, understand why it is that

we differ, just what the points at issue are,' we will presently find

that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we

differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that

if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get

together, we will get together."

Nobody appreciated the truth of Woodrow Wilson's statement more

than John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Back in 1915, Rockefeller was the most

fiercely despised man in Colorado, One of the bloodiest strikes in the

history of American industry had been shocking the state for two

terrible years. Irate, belligerent miners were demanding higher

wages from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; Rockefeller

controlled that company. Property had been destroyed, troops had

been called out. Blood had been shed. Strikers had been shot, their

bodies riddled with bullets.

At a time like that, with the air seething with hatred, Rockefeller

wanted to win the strikers to his way of thinking. And he did it. How?

Here's the story. After weeks spent in making friends, Rockefeller

addressed the representatives of the strikers. This speech, in its

entirety, is a masterpiece. It produced astonishing results. It calmed

the tempestuous waves of hate that threatened to engulf

Rockefeller. It won him a host of admirers. It presented facts in such

a friendly manner that the strikers went back to work without saying

another word about the increase in wages for which they had fought

so violently.

The opening of that remarkable speech follows. Note how it fairly

glows with friendliness. Rockefeller, remember, was talking to men

who, a few days previously, had wanted to hang him by the neck to

a sour apple tree; yet he couldn't have been more gracious, more

friendly if he had addressed a group of medical missionaries. His

speech was radiant with such phrases as I am proud to be here,

having visited in your homes, met many of your wives and children,

we meet here not as strangers, but as friends ... spirit of mutual

friendship, our common interests, it is only by your courtesy that I

am here.

"This is a red-letter day in my life," Rockefeller began. "It is the first

time I have ever had the good fortune to meet the representatives of

the employees of this great company, its officers and

superintendents, together, and I can assure you that I am proud to

be here, and that I shall remember this gathering as long as I live.

Had this meeting been held two weeks ago, I should have stood here

a stranger to most of you, recognizing a few faces. Having had the

opportunity last week of visiting all the camps in the southern coal

field and of talking individually with practically all of the

representatives, except those who were away; having visited in your

homes, met many of your wives and children, we meet here not as

strangers, but as friends, and it is in that spirit of mutual friendship

that I am glad to have this opportunity to discuss with you our

common interests.

"Since this is a meeting of the officers of the company and the

representatives of the employees, it is only by your courtesy that I

am here, for I am not so fortunate as to be either one or the other;

and yet I feel that I am intimately associated with you men, for, in a

sense, I represent both the stockholders and the directors."

Isn't that a superb example of the fine art of making friends out of

enemies?

Suppose Rockefeller had taken a different tack. Suppose he had

argued with those miners and hurled devastating facts in their faces.

Suppose he had told them by his tones and insinuations that they

were wrong Suppose that, by all the rules of logic, he had proved

that they were wrong. What would have happened? More anger

would have been stirred up, more hatred, more revolt.

If a man's heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you,

you can't win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in

Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and

husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don't want

to change their minds. They can't he forced or driven to agree with

you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and

friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.

Lincoln said that, in effect, over a hundred years ago. Here are his

words:

It is an old and true maxim that "a drop of honey catches more flies

than a gallon of gall." So with men, if you would win a man to you

cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a

drop of honey that catches his heart; which, say what you will, is the

great high road to his reason.

Business executives have learned that it pays to be friendly to

strikers. For example, when 2,500 employees in the White Motor

Company's plant struck for higher wages and a union shop, Robert F.

Black, then president of the company, didn't lose his temper and

condemn and threaten and talk of tryanny and Communists. He

actually praised the strikers. He published an advertisement in the

Cleveland papers, complimenting them on "the peaceful way in

which they laid down their tools." Finding the strike pickets idle, he

bought them a couple of dozen baseball bats and gloves and invited

them to play ball on vacant lots. For those who preferred bowling, he

rented a bowling alley.

This friendliness on Mr. Black's part did what friendliness always

does: it begot friendliness. So the strikers borrowed brooms, shovels,

and rubbish carts, and began picking up matches, papers, cigarette

stubs, and cigar butts around the factory. Imagine it! Imagine

strikers tidying up the factory grounds while battling for higher

wages and recognition of the union. Such an event had never been

heard of before in the long, tempestuous history of American labor

wars. That strike ended with a compromise settlement within a

week-ended without any ill feeling or rancor.

Daniel Webster, who looked like a god and talked like Jehovah, was

one of the most successful advocates who ever pleaded a case; yet

he ushered in his most powerful arguments with such friendly

remarks as: "It will be for the jury to consider," "This may perhaps

be worth thinking of," " Here are some facts that I trust you will not

lose sight of," or "You, with your knowledge of human nature, will

easily see the significance of these facts." No bulldozing. No highpressure

methods. No attempt to force his opinions on others.

Webster used the soft-spoken, quiet, friendly approach, and it helped

to make him famous.

You may never be called upon to settle a strike or address a jury, but

you may want to get your rent reduced. Will the friendly approach

help you then? Let's see.

0. L. Straub, an engineer, wanted to get his rent reduced. And he

knew his landlord was hard-boiled. "I wrote him," Mr. Straub said in

a speech before the class, "notifying him that I was vacating my

apartment as soon as my lease expired. The truth was, I didn't want

to move. I wanted to stay if I could get my rent reduced. But the

situation seemed hopeless. Other tenants had tried - and failed.

Everyone told me that the landlord was extremely difficult to deal

with. But I said to myself, 'I am studying a course in how to deal

with people, so I'll try it on him - and see how it works.'

"He and his secretary came to see me as soon as he got my letter. I

met him at the door with a friendly greeting. I fairly bubbled with

good will and enthusiasm. I didn't begin talking about how high the

rent was. I began talking about how much I liked his apartment

house. Believe me, I was 'hearty in my approbation and lavish in my

praise.' I complimented him on the way he ran the building and told

him I should like so much to stay for another year but I couldn't

afford it.

"He had evidently never had such a reception from a tenant. He

hardly knew what to make of it.

"Then he started to tell me his troubles. Complaining tenants. One

had written him fourteen letters, some of them positively insulting.

Another threatened to break his lease unless the landlord kept the

man on the floor above from snoring. 'What a relief it is,' he said, 'to

have a satisfied tenant like you.' And then, without my even asking

him to do it, he offered to reduce my rent a little. I wanted more, so

I named the figure I could afford to pay, and he accepted without a

word.

"As he was leaving, he turned to me and asked, 'What decorating

can I do for you?'

"If I had tried to get the rent reduced by the methods the other

tenants were using, I am positive I should have met with the same

failure they encountered. It was the friendly, sympathetic,

appreciative approach that won."

Dean Woodcock of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the superintendent of

a department of the local electric company. His staff was called upon

to repair some equipment on top of a pole. This type of work had

formerly been performed by a different department and had only

recently been transferred to Woodcock's section Although his people

had been trained in the work, this was the first time they had ever

actually been called upon to do it. Everybody in the organization was

interested in seeing if and how they could handle it. Mr. Woodcock,

several of his subordinate managers, and members of other

departments of the utility went to see the operation. Many cars and

trucks were there, and a number of people were standing around

watching the two lone men on top of the pole.

Glancing around, Woodcock noticed a man up the street getting out

of his car with a camera. He began taking pictures of the scene.

Utility people are extremely conscious of public relations, and

suddenly Woodcock realized what this setup looked like to the man

with the camera - overkill, dozens of people being called out to do a

two-person job. He strolled up the street to the photographer.

"I see you're interested in our operation."

"Yes, and my mother will be more than interested. She owns stock in

your company. This will be an eye-opener for her. She may even

decide her investment was unwise. I've been telling her for years

there's a lot of waste motion in companies like yours. This proves it.

The newspapers might like these pictures, too."

"It does look like it, doesn't it? I'd think the same thing in your

position. But this is a unique situation, . . ." and Dean Woodcock

went on to explain how this was the first job of this type for his

department and how everybody from executives down was

interested. He assured the man that under normal conditions two

people could handle the job. The photographer put away his camera,

shook Woodcock's hand, and thanked him for taking the time to

explain the situation to him.

Dean Woodcock's friendly approach saved his company much

embarrassment and bad publicity.

Another member of one of our classes, Gerald H. Winn of Littleton,

New Hampshire, reported how by using a friendly approach, he

obtained a very satisfactory settlement on a damage claim.

"Early in the spring," he reported, "before the ground had thawed

from the winter freezing, there was an unusually heavy rainstorm

and the water, which normally would have run off to nearby ditches

and storm drains along the road, took a new course onto a building

lot where I had just built a new home.

"Not being able to run off, the water pressure built up around the

foundation of the house. The water forced itself under the concrete

basement floor, causing it to explode, and the basement filled with

water. This ruined the furnace and the hot-water heater. The cost to

repair this damage was in excess of two thousand dollars. I had no

insurance to cover this type of damage.

"However, I soon found out that the owner of the subdivision had

neglected to put in a storm drain near the house which could have

prevented this problem I made an appointment to see him. During

the twenty-five-mile trip to his office, I carefully reviewed the

situation and, remembering the principles I learned in this course, I

decided that showing my anger would not serve any worthwhile

purpose, When I arrived, I kept very calm and started by talking

about his recent vacation to the West Indies; then, when I felt the

timing was right, I mentioned the 'little' problem of water damage.

He quickly agreed to do his share in helping to correct the problem.

"A few days later he called and said he would pay for the damage

and also put in a storm drain to prevent the same thing from

happening in the future.

"Even though it was the fault of the owner of the subdivision, if I had

not begun in a friendly way, there would have been a great deal of

difficulty in getting him to agree to the total liability."

Years ago, when I was a barefoot boy walking through the woods to

a country school out in northwest Missouri, I read a fable about the

sun and the wind. They quarreled about which was the stronger, and

the wind said, "I'll prove I am. See the old man down there with a

coat? I bet I can get his coat off him quicker than you can."

So the sun went behind a cloud, and the wind blew until it was

almost a tornado, but the harder it blew, the tighter the old man

clutched his coat to him.

Finally, the wind calmed down and gave up, and then the sun came

out from behind the clouds and smiled kindly on the old man.

Presently, he mopped his brow and pulled off his coat. The sun then

told the wind that gentleness and friendliness were always stronger

than fury and force.

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. F. Gale Connor of Lutherville, Maryland, proved

this when he had to take his four-month-old car to the service

department of the car dealer for the third time. He told our class: "It

was apparent that talking to, reasoning with or shouting at the

service manager was not going to lead to a satisfactory resolution of

my problems.

"I walked over to the showroom and asked to see the agency owner,

Mr. White. After a short wait, I was ushered into Mr. White's office. I

introduced myself and explained to him that I had bought my car

from his dealership because of the recommendations of friends who

had had previous dealings with him. I was told that his prices were

very competitive and his service was outstanding. He smiled with

satisfaction as he listened to me. I then explained the problem I was

having with the service department. 'I thought you might want to be

aware of any situation that might tarnish your fine reputation,' I

added. He thanked me for calling this to his attention and assured

me that my problem would be taken care of. Not only did he

personal get involved, but he also lent me his car to use while mine

was being repaired."

Aesop was a Greek slave who lived at the court of Croesus and spun

immortal fables six hundred years before Christ. Yet the truths he

taught about human nature are just as true in Boston and

Birmingham now as they were twenty-six centuries ago in Athens.

The sun can make you take off your coat more quickly than the

wind; and kindliness, the friendly approach and appreciation can

make people change their minds more readily than all the bluster

and storming in the world.

Remember what Lincoln said: "A drop of honey catches more flies

than a gallon of gall."

• Principle 4 - Begin in a friendly way.

~~~~~~~

5 - The Secret Of Socrates

In talking with people, don't begin by discussing the things on which

you differ. Begin by emphasizing - and keep on emphasizing - the

things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you

are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is

one of method and not of purpose.

Get the other person saying "Yes, yes" at the outset. Keep your

opponent, if possible, from saying "No." A "No" response, according

to Professor Overstreet, (*) is a most difficult handicap to overcome.

When you have said "No," all your pride of personality demands that

you remain consistent with yourself. You may later feel that the "No"

was ill-advised; nevertheless, there is your precious pride to

consider! Once having said a thing, you feel you must stick to it.

Hence it is of the very greatest importance that a person be started

in the affirmative direction.

----

[*] Harry A. Overstreet, lnfluencing Humun Behavior (New York:

Norton, 1925).

----

The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of "Yes" responses.

This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the

affirmative direction. It is like the movement of a billiard ball. Propel

in one direction, and it takes some force to deflect it; far more force

to send it back in the opposite direction.

The psychological patterns here are quite clear. When a person says

"No" and really means it, he or she is doing far more than saying a

word of two letters. The entire organism - glandular, nervous,

muscular -gathers itself together into a condition of rejection. There

is, usually in minute but sometimes in observable degree, a physical

withdrawal or readiness for withdrawal. The whole neuromuscular

system, in short, sets itself on guard against acceptance. When, to

the contrary, a person says "Yes," none of the withdrawal activities

takes place. The organism is in a forward - moving, accepting, open

attitude. Hence the more "Yeses" we can, at the very outset, induce,

the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our

ultimate proposal.

It is a very simple technique - this yes response. And yet, how much

it is neglected! It often seems as if people get a sense of their own

importance by antagonizing others at the outset.

Get a student to say "No" at the beginning, or a customer, child,

husband, or wife, and it takes the wisdom and the patience of angels

to transform that bristling negative into an affirmative.

The use of this "yes, yes" technique enabled James Eberson, who

was a teller in the Greenwich Savings Bank, in New York City, to

secure a prospective customer who might otherwise have been lost.

"This man came in to open an account," said Mr. Eberson, "and I

gave him our usual form to fill out. Some of the questions he

answered willingly, but there were others he flatly refused to answer.

"Before I began the study of human relations, I would have told this

prospective depositor that if he refused to give the bank this

information, we should have to refuse to accept this account. I am

ashamed that I have been guilty of doing that very thing in the past.

Naturally, an ultimatum like that made me feel good. I had shown

who was boss, that the bank's rules and regulations couldn't be

flouted. But that sort of attitude certainly didn't give a feeling of

welcome and importance to the man who had walked in to give us

his patronage.

"I resolved this morning to use a little horse sense. I resolved not to

talk about what the bank wanted but about what the customer

wanted. And above all else, I was determined to get him saying 'yes,

yes' from the very start. So I agreed with him. I told him the

information he refused to give was not absolutely necessary.

" 'However,' I said, 'suppose you have money in this bank at your

death. Wouldn't you like to have the bank transfer it to your next of

kin, who is entitled to it according to law?'

" 'Yes, of course,' he replied.

" 'Don't you think,' I continued, 'that it would be a good idea to give

us the name of your next of kin so that, in the event of your death,

we could carry out your wishes without error or delay?'

"Again he said, 'Yes.'

"The young man's attitude softened and changed when he realized

that we weren't asking for this information for our sake but for his

sake. Before leaving the bank, this young man not only gave me

complete information about himself but he opened, at my

suggestion, a trust account, naming his mother as the beneficiary for

his account, and he had gladly answered all the questions concerning

his mother also.

"I found that by getting him to say 'yes, yes' from the outset, he

forgot the issue at stake and was happy to do all the things I

suggested."

Joseph Allison, a sales representative for Westinghouse Electric

Company, had this story to tell: "There was a man in my territory

that our company was most eager to sell to. My predecessor had

called on him for ten years without selling anything When I took over

the territory, I called steadily for three years without getting an

order. Finally, after thirteen years of calls and sales talk, we sold him

a few motors. If these proved to be all right, an order for several

hundred more would follow. Such was my expectation,

"Right? I knew they would be all right. So when I called three weeks

later, I was in high spirits.

"The chief engineer greeted me with this shocking announcement:

'Allison, I can't buy the remainder of the motors from you.'

" 'Why?' I asked in amazement. 'Why?'

" 'Because your motors are too hot. I can't put my hand on them,'

"I knew it wouldn't do any good to argue. I had tried that sort of

thing too long. So I thought of getting the 'yes, yes' response.

" 'Well, now look, Mr. Smith,' I said. 'I agree with you a hundred

percent; if those motors are running too hot, you ought not to buy

any more of them. You must have motors that won't run any hotter

than standards set by the National Electrical Manufacturers

Association. Isn't that so?'

"He agreed it was. I had gotten my first 'yes.'

" 'The Electrical Manufacturers Association regulations say that a

properly designed motor may have a temperature of 72 degrees

Fahrenheit above room temperature. Is that correct?'

" 'Yes,' he agreed. 'That's quite correct. But your motors are much

hotter.'

"I didn't argue with him. I merely asked: 'How hot is the mill room?'

" 'Oh,' he said, 'about 75 degrees Fahrenheit.'

" 'Well,' I replied, 'if the mill room is 75 degrees and you add 72 to

that, that makes a total of 147 degrees Fahrenheit. Wouldn't you

scald your hand if you held it under a spigot of hot water at a

temperature of 147 degrees Fahrenheit?'

"Again he had to say 'yes.'

" 'Well,' I suggested, 'wouldn't it he a good idea to keep your hands

off those motors?'

" 'Well, I guess you're right,' he admitted. We continued to chat for a

while. Then he called his secretary and lined up approximately

$35,000 worth of business for the ensuing month.

"It took me years and cost me countless thousands of dollars in lost

business before I finally learned that it doesn't pay to argue, that it is

much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things

from the other person's viewpoint and try to get that person saying

'yes, yes.' "

Eddie Snow, who sponsors our courses in Oakland, California, tells

how he became a good customer of a shop because the proprietor

got him to say "yes, yes." Eddie had become interested in bow

hunting and had spent considerable money in purchasing equipment

and supplies from a local bow store. When his brother was visiting

him he wanted to rent a bow for him from this store. The sales clerk

told him they didn't rent bows, so Eddie phoned another bow store.

Eddie described what happened:

"A very pleasant gentleman answered the phone. His response to my

question for a rental was completely different from the other place.

He said he was sorry but they no longer rented bows because they

couldn't afford to do so. He then asked me if I had rented before. I

replied, 'Yes, several years ago.' He reminded me that I probably

paid $25 to $30 for the rental. I said 'yes' again. He then asked if I

was the kind of person who liked to save money. Naturally, I

answered 'yes.' He went on to explain that they had bow sets with all

the necessary equipment on sale for $34.95. I could buy a complete

set for only $4.95 more than I could rent one. He explained that is

why they had discontinued renting them. Did I think that was

reasonable? My 'yes' response led to a purchase of the set, and

when I picked it up I purchased several more items at this shop and

have since become a regular customer."

Socrates, "the gadfly of Athens," was one of the greatest

philosophers the world has ever known. He did something that only a

handful of men in all history have been able to do: he sharply

changed the whole course of human thought; and now, twenty-four

centuries after his death, he is honored as one of the wisest

persuaders who ever influenced this wrangling world.

His method? Did he tell people they were wrong? Oh, no, not

Socrates. He was far too adroit for that. His whole technique, now

called the "Socratic method," was based upon getting a "yes, yes"

response. He asked questions with which his opponent would have

to agree. He kept on winning one admission after another until he

had an armful of yeses. He kept on asking questions until finally,

almost without realizing it, his opponents found themselves

embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly denied a few

minutes previously.

The next time we are tempted to tell someone he or she is wrong,

let's remember old Socrates and ask a gentle question - a question

that will get the "yes, yes" response.

The Chinese have a proverb pregnant with the age-old wisdom of

the Orient: "He who treads softly goes far."

They have spent five thousand years studying human nature, those

cultured Chinese, and they have garnered a lot of perspicacity: "He

who treads softly goes far."

• Principle 5 - Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.

~~~~~~~

6 - The Safety Valve In Handling Complaints

Must people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too

much talking themselves. Let the other people talk themselves out.

They know more about their business and problems than you do. So

ask them questions. Let them tell you a few things.

If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But

don't. It is dangerous. They won't pay attention to you while they

still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen

patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage

them to express their ideas fully.

Does this policy pay in business? Let's see. Here is the story of a

sales representative who was forced to try it.

One of the largest automobile manufacturers in the United States

was negotiating for a year's requirements of upholstery fabrics.

Three important manufacturers had worked up fabrics in sample

bodies. These had all been inspected by the executives of the motor

company, and notice had been sent to each manufacturer saying

that, on a certain day, a representative from each supplier would be

given an opportunity to make a final plea for the contract.

G.B.R., a representative of one manufacturer, arrived in town with a

severe attack of laryngitis. "When it came my turn to meet the

executives in conference," Mr. R---- said as he related the story

before one of my classes, "I had lost my voice. I could hardly

whisper. I was ushered into a room and found myself face to face

with the textile engineer, the purchasing agent, the director of sales

and the president of the company. I stood up and made a valiant

effort to speak, but I couldn't do anything more than squeak.

"They were all seated around a table, so I wrote on a pad of paper:

'Gentlemen, I have lost my voice. I am speechless.'

" 'I'll do the talking for you,' the president said. He did. He exhibited

my samples and praised their good points. A lively discussion arose

about the merits of my goods. And the president, since he was

talking for me, took the position I would have had during the

discussion My sole participation consisted of smiles, nods and a few

gestures.

"As a result of this unique conference, I was awarded the contract,

which called for over half a million yards of upholstery fabrics at an

aggregate value of $1,600,000 -the biggest order I had ever

received.

"I know I would have lost the contract if I hadn't lost my voice,

because I had the wrong idea about the whole proposition. I

discovered, quite by accident, how richly it sometimes pays to let the

other person do the talking.'

Letting the other person do the talking helps in family situations as

well as in business. Barbara Wilson's relationship with her daughter,

Laurie, was deteriorating rapidly. Laurie, who had been a quiet,

complacent child, had grown into an uncooperative, sometimes

belligerent teenager. Mrs. Wilson lectured her, threatened her and

punished her, but all to no avail.

"One day," Mrs. Wilson told one of our classes, "I just gave up.

Laurie had disobeyed me and had left the house to visit her girl

friend before she had completed her chores. When she returned I

was about to scream at her for the ten-thousandth time, but I just

didn't have the strength to do it. I just looked at her and said sadly,

'Why, Laurie, Why?'

"Laurie noted my condition and in a calm voice asked, 'Do you really

want to know?' I nodded and Laurie told me, first hesitantly, and

then it all flowed out. I had never listened to her. I was always

telling her to do this or that. When she wanted to tell me her

thoughts, feelings, ideas, I interrupted with more orders. I began to

realize that she needed me - not as a bossy mother, but as a

confidante, an outlet for all her confusion about growing up. And all I

had been doing was talking when I should have been listening. I

never heard her.

"From that time on I let her do all the talking she wanted. She tells

me what is on her mind, and our relationship has improved

immeasurably. She is again a cooperative person."

A large advertisement appeared on the financial page of a New York

newspaper calling for a person with unusual ability and experience.

Charles T. Cubellis answered the advertisement, sending his reply to

a box number. A few days later, he was invited by letter to call for an

interview. Before he called, he spent hours in Wall Street finding out

everything possible about the person who had founded the business.

During the interview, he remarked: "I should be mighty proud to be

associated with an organization with a record like yours. I

understand you started twenty-eight years ago with nothing but desk

room and one stenographer. Is that true?"

Almost every successful person likes to reminisce about his early

struggles. This man was no exception. He talked for a long time

about how he had started with $450 in cash and an original idea. He

told how he had fought against discouragement and battled against

ridicule, working Sundays and holidays, twelve to sixteen hours a

day; how he had finally won against all odds until now the most

important executives on Wall Street were coming to him for

information and guidance. He was proud of such a record. He had a

right to be, and he had a splendid time telling about it. Finally, he

questioned Mr. Cubellis briefly about his experience, then called in

one of his vice presidents and said: "I think this is the person we are

looking for."

Mr. Cubellis had taken the trouble to find out about the

accomplishments of his prospective employer. He showed an interest

in the other person and his problems. He encouraged the other

person to do most of the talking - and made a favorable impression.

Roy G. Bradley of Sacramento, California, had the opposite problem.

He listened as a good prospect for a sales position talked himself into

a job with Bradley's firm, Roy reported:

"Being a small brokerage firm, we had no fringe benefits, such as

hospitalization, medical insurance and pensions. Every representative

is an independent agent. We don't even provide leads for prospects,

as we cannot advertise for them as our larger competitors do.

"Richard Pryor had the type of experience we wanted for this

position, and he was interviewed first by my assistant, who told him

about all the negatives related to this job. He seemed slightly

discouraged when he came into my office. I mentioned the one

benefit of being associated with my firm, that of being an

independent contractor and therefore virtually being self-employed.

"As he talked about these advantages to me, he talked himself out of

each negative thought he had when he came in for the interview.

Several times it seemed as though he was half talking to himself as

he was thinking through each thought. At times I was tempted to

add to his thoughts; however, as the interview came to a close I felt

he had convinced himself, very much on his own, that he would like

to work for my firm.

"Because I had been a good listener and let Dick do most of the

talking, he was able to weigh both sides fairly in his mind, and he

came to the positive conclusion, which was a challenge he created

for himself. We hired him and he has been an outstanding

representative for our firm,"

Even our friends would much rather talk to us about their

achievements than listen to us boast about ours. La Rochefoucauld,

the French philosopher, said: "If you want enemies, excel your

friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you."

Why is that true? Because 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.

By far the best-liked placement counselor in the Mid-town Personnel

Agency in New York City was Henrietta G ---- It hadn't always been

that way. During the first few months of her association with the

agency, Henrietta didn't have a single friend among her colleagues.

Why? Because every day she would brag about the placements she

had made, the new accounts she had opened, and anything else she

had accomplished.

"I was good at my work and proud of it," Henrietta told one of our

classes. " But instead of my colleagues sharing my triumphs, they

seemed to resent them. I wanted to be liked by these people. I really

wanted them to be my friends. After listening to some of the

suggestions made in this course, I started to talk about myself less

and listen more to my associates. They also had things to boast

about and were more excited about telling me about their

accomplishments than about listening to my boasting. Now, when we

have some time to chat, I ask them to share their joys with me, and

I only mention my achievements when they ask."

• Principle 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

~~~~~~~

7 - How To Get Cooperation

Don't you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for

yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If

so, isn't it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the

throats of other people? Isn't it wiser to make suggestions - and let

the other person think out the conclusion?

Adolph Seltz of Philadelphia, sales manager in an automobile

showroom and a student in one of my courses, suddenly found

himself confronted with the necessity of injecting enthusiasm into a

discouraged and disorganized group of automobile salespeople.

Calling a sales meeting, he urged his people to tell him exactly what

they expected from him. As they talked, he wrote their ideas on the

blackboard. He then said: "I'll give you all these qualities you expect

from me. Now I want you to tell me what I have a right to expect

from you." The replies came quick and fast: loyalty, honesty,

initiative, optimism, teamwork, eight hours a day of enthusiastic

work, The meeting ended with a new courage, a new inspiration -

one salesperson volunteered to work fourteen hours a day - and Mr.

Seltz reported to me that the increase of sales was phenomenal.

"The people had made a sort of moral bargain with me, " said Mr.

Seltz, "and as long as I lived up to my part in it, they were

determined to live up to theirs. Consulting them about their wishes

and desires was just the shot in the arm they needed."

No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold some-thing or told to

do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own

accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our

wishes, our wants, our thoughts.

Take the case of Eugene Wesson. He lost countless thousands of

dollars in commissions before he learned this truth. Mr. Wesson sold

sketches for a studio that created designs for stylists and textile

manufacturers. Mr. Wesson had called on one of the leading stylists

in New York once a week, every week for three years. "He never

refused to see me," said Mr. Wesson, "but he never bought. He

always looked over my sketches very carefully and then said: 'No,

Wesson, I guess we don't get together today.' "

After 150 failures, Wesson realized he must be in a mental rut, so he

resolved to devote one evening a week to the study of influencing

human behavior, to help him develop new ideas and generate new

enthusiasm.

He decided on this new approach. With half a dozen unfinished

artists' sketches under his arm, he rushed over to the buyer's office.

"I want you to do me a little favor, if you will," he said. "'Here are

some uncompleted sketches. Won't you please tell me how we could

finish them up in such a way that you could use them?"

The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without uttering a word.

Finally he said: "Leave these with me for a few days, Wesson, and

then come back and see me."

Wesson returned three davs later, got his suggestions, took the

sketches back to the studio and had them finished according to the

buyer's ideas. The result? All accepted.

After that, this buyer ordered scores of other sketches from Wesson,

all drawn according to the buyer's ideas. "I realized why I had failed

for years to sell him," said Mr. Wesson. " I had urged him to buy

what I thought he ought to have. Then I changed my approach

completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel

that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn't have to sell

him. He bought."

Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or hers not only

works in business and politics, it works in family life as well. Paul M.

Davis of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told his class how he applied this

principle:

"My family and I enjoyed one of the most interesting sightseeing

vacation trips we have ever taken. I had long dreamed of visiting

such historic sites as the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg,

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and our nation's capital. Valley

Forge, James-town and the restored colonial village of Williamsburg

were high on the list of things I wanted to see.

"In March my wife, Nancy, mentioned that she had ideas for our

summer vacation which included a tour of the western states, visiting

points of interest in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. She

had wanted to make this trip for several years. But we couldn't

obviously make both trips.

"Our daughter, Anne, had just completed a course in U.S. history in

junior high school and had become very interested in the events that

had shaped our country's growth. I asked her how she would like to

visit the places she had learned about on our next vacation. She said

she would love to.

"Two evenings later as we sat around the dinner table, Nancy

announced that if we all agreed, the summer's vacation would be to

the eastern states, that it would he a great trip for Anne and thrilling

for all of us. We all concurred."

This same psychology was used by an X-ray manufacturer to sell his

equipment to one of the largest hospitals in Brooklyn This hospital

was building an addition and preparing to equip it with the finest Xray

department in America. Dr. L----, who was in charge of the X-ray

department, was overwhelmed with sales representatives, each

caroling the praises of his own company's equipment.

One manufacturer, however, was more skillful. He knew far more

about handling human nature than the others did. He wrote a letter

something like this:

Our factory has recently completed a new line of X-ray equipment.

The first shipment of these machines has just arrived at our office.

They are not perfect. We know that, and we want to improve them.

So we should be deeply obligated to you if you could find time to

look them over and give us your ideas about how they can be made

more serviceable to your profession. Knowing how occupied you are,

I shall be glad to send my car for you at any hour you specify.

"I was surprised to get that letter," Dr. L ---- said as he related the

incident before the class. "I was both surprised and complimented. I

had never had an X-ray manufacturer seeking my advice before. It

made me feel important. I was busy every night that week, but I

canceled a dinner appointment in order to look over the equipment.

The more I studied it, the more I discovered for myself how much I

liked it.

"Nobody had tried to sell it to me. I felt that the idea of buying that

equipment for the hospital was my own. I sold myself on its superior

qualities and ordered it installed."

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "Self-Reliance" stated: "In every

work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come

back to us with a certain alienated majesty."

Colonel Edward M. House wielded an enormous influence in national

and international affairs while Woodrow Wilson occupied the White

House. Wilson leaned upon Colonel House for secret counsel and

advice more than he did upon even members of his own cabinet.

What method did the Colonel use in influencing the President?

Fortunately, we know, for House himself revealed it to Arthur D.

Howden Smith, and Smith quoted House in an article in The

Saturday Evening Post.

" 'After I got to know the President,' House said, 'I learned the best

way to convert him to an idea was to plant it in his mind casually,

but so as to interest him in it - so as to get him thinking about it on

his own account. The first time this worked it was an accident. I had

been visiting him at the White House and urged a policy on him

which he appeared to disapprove. But several days later, at the

dinner table, I was amazed to hear him trot out my suggestion as his

own.' "

Did House interrupt him and say, "That's not your idea. That's mine"

? Oh, no. Not House. He was too adroit for that. He didn't care about

credit. He wanted results. So he let Wilson continue to feel that the

idea was his. House did even more than that. He gave Wilson public

credit for these ideas.

Let's remember that everyone we come in contact with is just as

human as Woodrow Wilson. So let's use Colonel House's technique.

A man up in the beautiful Canadian province of New Brunswick used

this technique on me and won my patronage. I was planning at the

time to do some fishing and canoeing in New Brunswick. So I wrote

the tourist bureau for information. Evidently my name and address

were put on a mailing list, for I was immediately overwhelmed with

scores of letters and booklets and printed testimonials from camps

and guides. I was bewildered. I didn't know which to choose. Then

one camp owner did a clever thing. He sent me the names and

telephone numbers of several New York people who had stayed at

his camp and he invited me to telephone them and discover for

myself what he had to offer.

I found to my surprise that I knew one of the men on his list. I

telephoned him, found out what his experience had been, and then

wired the camp the date of my arrival.

The others had been trying to sell me on their service, but one let

me sell myself. That organization won. Twenty-five centuries ago,

Lao-tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that readers of this book

might use today:

" The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred

mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able

to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be

above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them,

he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above

men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them,

they do not count it an injury."

• Principle 7 - Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

~~~~~~~

8 - A Formula That Will Work Wonders For You

Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don't

think so. Don't condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to

understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to

do that.

There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does.

Ferret out that reason - and you have the key to his actions, perhaps

to his personality. Try honestly to put yourself in his place.

If you say to yourself, "How would I feel, how would I react if I were

in his shoes?" you will save yourself time and irritation, for "by

becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the

effect." And, in addition, you will sharply increase your skill in human

relationships.

"Stop a minute," says Kenneth M. Goode in his book How to Turn

People Into Gold, "stop a minute to contrast your keen interest in

your own affairs with your mild concern about anything else. Realize

then, that everybody else in the world feels exactly the same way!

Then, along with Lincoln and Roosevelt, you will have grasped the

only solid foundation for interpersonal relationships; namely, that

success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of

the other persons' viewpoint."

Sam Douglas of Hempstead, New York, used to tell his wife that she

spent too much time working on their lawn, pulling weeds, fertilizing,

cutting the grass twice a week when the lawn didn't look any better

than it had when they moved into their home four years earlier.

Naturally, she was distressed by his remarks, and each time he made

such remarks the balance of the evening was ruined.

After taking our course, Mr. Douglas realized how foolish he had

been all those years. It never occurred to him that she enjoyed doing

that work and she might really appreciate a compliment on her

diligence.

One evening after dinner, his wife said she wanted to pull some

weeds and invited him to keep her company. He first declined, but

then thought better of it and went out after her and began to help

her pull weeds. She was visibly pleased, and together they spent an

hour in hard work and pleasant conversation.

After that he often helped her with the gardening and complimented

her on how fine the lawn looked, what a fantastic job she was doing

with a yard where the soil was like concrete. Result: a happier life for

both because he had learned to look at things from her point of view

- even if the subject was only weeds.

In his book Getting Through to People, Dr. Gerald S. Nirenberg

commented: "Cooperativeeness in conversation is achieved when

you show that you consider the other person's ideas and feelings as

important as your own. Starting your conversation by giving the

other person the purpose or direction of your conversation,

governing what you say by what you would want to hear if you were

the listener, and accepting his or her viewpoint will encourage the

listener to have an open mind to your ideas." (*)

----

[*] Dr Gerald S. Nirenberg, Getting Through to People (Englewood

Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 31.

----

I have always enjoyed walking and riding in a park near my home.

Like the Druids of ancient Gaul, I all but worship an oak tree, so I

was distressed season after season to see the young trees and

shrubs killed off by needless fires. These fires weren't caused by

careless smokers. They were almost all caused by youngsters who

went out to the park to go native and cook a frankfurter or an egg

under the trees. Sometimes, these fires raged so fiercely that the fire

department had to be called out to fight the conflagration.

There was a sign on the edge of the park saying that anyone who

started a fire was liable to fine and imprisonment, but the sign stood

in an unfrequented part of the park, and few of the culprits ever saw

it. A mounted policeman was supposed to look after the park; but he

didn't take his duties too seriously, and the fires continued to spread

season after season. On one occasion, I rushed up to a policeman

and told him about a fire spreading rapidly through the park and

wanted him to notify the fire department, and he nonchalantly

replied that it was none of his business because it wasn't in his

precinct! I was desperate, so after that when I went riding, I acted

as a self-appointed committee of one to protect the public domain.

In the beginning, I am afraid I didn't even attempt to see the other

people's point of view. When I saw a fire blazing under the trees, I

was so unhappy about it, so eager to do the right thing, that I did

the wrong thing. I would ride up to the boys, warn them that they

could be jailed for starting a fire, order with a tone of authority that

it be put out; and, if they refused, I would threaten to have them

arrested. I was merely unloading my feelings without thinking of

their point of view.

The result? They obeyed - obeyed sullenly and with resentment.

After I rode on over the hill, they probably rebuilt the fire and longed

to burn up the whole park.

With the passing of the years, I acquired a trifle more knowledge of

human relations, a little more tact, a somewhat greater tendency to

see things from the other person's standpoint. Then, instead of

giving orders, I would ride up to a blazing fire and begin something

like this:

"Having a good time, boys? What are you going to cook for supper?

... I loved to build fires myself when I was a boy - and I still love to.

But you know they are very dangerous here in the park. I know you

boys don't mean to do any harm, but other boys aren't so careful.

They come along and see that you have built a fire; so they build

one and don't put it out when they go home and it spreads among

the dry leaves and kills the trees. We won't have any trees here at all

if we aren't more careful, You could be put in jail for building this

fire. But I don't want to be bossy and interfere with your pleasure. I

like to see you enjoy yourselves; but won't you please rake all the

leaves away from the fire right now - and you'll be careful to cover it

with dirt, a lot of dirt, before you leave, won't you? And the next

time you want to have some fun, won't you please build your fire

over the hill there in the sandpit? It can't do any harm there.. . .

Thanks so much, boys. Have a good time."

What a difference that kind of talk made! It made the boys want to

cooperate. No sullenness, no resentment. They hadn't been forced to

obey orders. They had saved their faces. They felt better and I felt

better because I had handled the situation with consideration for

their point of view.

Seeing things through another person's eyes may ease tensions

when personal problems become overwhelming. Elizabeth Novak of

New South Wales, Australia, was six weeks late with her car

payment. "On a Friday," she reported, "I received a nasty phone call

from the man who was handling my account informing me if I did

not come up with $122 by Monday morning I could anticipate further

action from the company. I had no way of raising the money over

the weekend, so when I received his phone call first thing on Monday

morning I expected the worst. Instead of becoming upset I looked at

the situation from his point of view. I apologized most sincerely for

causing him so much inconvenience and remarked that I must be his

most troublesome customer as this was not the first time I was

behind in my payments. His tone of voice changed immediately, and

he reassured me that I was far from being one of his really

troublesome customers. He went on to tell me several examples of

how rude his customers sometimes were, how they lied to him and

often tried to avoid talking to him at all. I said nothing. I listened and

let him pour out his troubles to me. Then, without any suggestion

from me, he said it did not matter if I couldn't pay all the money

immediately. It would be all right if I paid him $20 by the end of the

month and made up the balance whenever it was convenient for me

to do so."

Tomorrow, before asking anyone to put out a fire or buy your

product or contribute to your favorite charity, why not pause and

close your eyes and try to think the whole thing through from

another person's point of view? Ask yourself: "Why should he or she

want to do it?" True, this will take time, but it will avoid making

enemies and will get better results - and with less friction and less

shoe leather.

"I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person's office for two

hours before an interview," said Dean Donham of the Harvard

business school, "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."

That is so important that I am going to repeat it in italics for the sake

of emphasis.

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 persob

- from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives - was likely

to answer.

If, as a result of reading this book, you get only one thing - an

increased tendency to think always in terms of the other person's

point of view, and see things from that person's angle as well as

your own - if you get only that one thing from this book, it may

easily prove to be one of the stepping - stones of your career.

• Principle 8 - Try honestly to see things from the other person's

point of view.

~~~~~~~

9 - What Everybody Wants

Wouldn't you like to have a magic phrase that would stop

arguments, eliminate ill feeling, create good will, and make the other

person listen attentively?

Yes? All right. Here it is: "I don't blame you one iota for feeling as

you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do."

An answer like that will soften the most cantankerous old cuss alive.

And you can say that and be 100 percent sincere, because if you

were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does.

Take Al Capone, for example. Suppose you had inherited the same

body and temperament and mind that Al Capone had. Suppose you

had had his environment and experiences. You would then be

precisely what he was - and where he was. For it is those things -

and only those things - that made him what he was. The only

reason, for example, that you are not a rattlesnake is that your

mother and father weren't rattlesnakes.

You deserve very little credit for being what you are - and

remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted,

unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.

Feel sorry for the poor devils. Pity them. Sympathize with them. Say

to yourself: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and

thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.

I once gave a broadcast about the author of Little Women, Louisa

May Alcott. Naturally, I knew she had lived and written her immortal

books in Concord, Massachusetts. But, without thinking what I was

saying, I spoke of visiting her old home in Concord. New Hampshire.

If I had said New Hampshire only once, it might have been forgiven.

But, alas and alack! I said it twice, I was deluged with letters and

telegrams, stinging messages that swirled around my defenseless

head like a swarm of hornets. Many were indignant. A few insulting.

One Colonial Dame, who had been reared in Concord,

Massachusetts, and who was then living in Philadelphia, vented her

scorching wrath upon me. She couldn't have been much more bitter

if I had accused Miss Alcott of being a cannibal from New Guinea. As

I read the letter, I said to myself, "Thank God, I am not married to

that woman." I felt like writing and telling her that although I had

made a mistake in geography, she had made a far greater mistake in

common courtesy. That was to be just my opening sentence. Then I

was going to roll up my sleeves and tell her what I really thought.

But I didn't. I controlled myself. I realized that any hotheaded fool

could do that - and that most fools would do just that.

I wanted to be above fools. So I resolved to try to turn her hostility

into friendliness. It would be a challenge, a sort of game I could

play. I said to myself, "After all, if I were she, I would probably feel

just as she does." So, I determined to sympathize with her

viewpoint. The next time I was in Philadelphia, I called her on the

telephone. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Mrs. So-and-So, you wrote me a letter a few weeks ago, and I

want to thank you for it.

SHE: (in incisive, cultured, well-bred tones): To whom have I the

honor of speaking?

ME: I am a stranger to you. My name is Dale Carnegie. You listened

to a broadcast I gave about Louisa May Alcott a few Sundays ago,

and I made the unforgivable blunder of saying that she had lived in

Concord, New Hampshire. It was a stupid blunder, and I want to

apologize for it. It was so nice of you to take the time to write me.

SHE : I am sorry, Mr. Carnegie, that I wrote as I did. I lost my

temper. I must apologize.

ME: No! No! You are not the one to apologize; I am. Any school child

would have known better than to have said what I said. I apologized

over the air the following Sunday, and I want to apologize to you

personally now.

SHE : I was born in Concord, Massachusetts. My family has been

prominent in Massachusetts affairs for two centuries, and I am very

proud of my native state. I was really quite distressed to hear you

say that Miss Alcott had lived in New Hampshire. But I am really

ashamed of that letter.

ME: I assure you that you were not one-tenth as distressed as I am.

My error didn't hurt Massachusetts, but it did hurt me. It is so

seldom that people of your standing and culture take the time to

write people who speak on the radio, and I do hope you will write

me again if you detect an error in my talks.

SHE: You know, I really like very much the way you have accepted

my criticism. You must be a very nice person. I should like to know

you better.

So, because I had apologized and sympathized with her point of

view, she began apologizing and sympathizing with my point of view,

I had the satisfaction of controlling my temper, the satisfaction of

returning kindness for an insult. I got infinitely more real fun out of

making her like me than I could ever have gotten out of telling her to

go and take a jump in the Schuylkill River,

Every man who occupies the White House is faced almost daily with

thorny problems in human relations. President Taft was no

exception, and he learned from experience the enormous chemical

value of sympathy in neutralizing the acid of hard feelings. In his

book Ethics in Service, Taft gives rather an amusing illustration of

how he softened the ire of a disappointed and ambitious mother.

"A lady in Washington," wrote Taft, "whose husband had some

political influence, came and labored with me for six weeks or more

to appoint her son to a position. She secured the aid of Senators and

Congressmen in formidable number and came with them to see that

they spoke with emphasis. The place was one requiring technical

qualification, and following the recommendation of the head of the

Bureau, I appointed somebody else. I then received a letter from the

mother, saying that I was most ungrateful, since I declined to make

her a happy woman as I could have done by a turn of my hand. She

complained further that she had labored with her state delegation

and got all the votes for an administration bill in which I was

especially interested and this was the way I had rewarded her.

"When you get a letter like that, the first thing you do is to think how

you can be severe with a person who has committed an impropriety,

or even been a little impertinent. Then you may compose an answer.

Then if you are wise, you will put the letter in a drawer and lock the

drawer. Take it out in the course of two days - such communications

will always bear two days' delay in answering - and when you take it

out after that interval, you will not send it. That is just the course I

took. After that, I sat down and wrote her just as polite a letter as I

could, telling her I realized a mother's disappointment under such

circumstances, but that really the appointment was not left to my

mere personal preference, that I had to select a man with technical

qualifications, and had, therefore, to follow the recommendations of

the head of the Bureau. I expressed the hope that her son would go

on to accomplish what she had hoped for him in the position which

he then had. That mollified her and she wrote me a note saying she

was sorry she had written as she had.

"But the appointment I sent in was not confirmed at once, and after

an interval I received a letter which purported to come from her

husband, though it was in the the same handwriting as all the

others. I was therein advised that, due to the nervous prostration

that had followed her disappointment in this case, she had to take to

her bed and had developed a most serious case of cancer of the

stomach. Would I not restore her to health by withdrawing the first

name and replacing it by her son's? I had to write another letter, this

one to the husband, to say that I hoped the diagnosis would prove

to be inaccurate, that I sympathized with him in the sorrow he must

have in the serious illness of his wife, but that it was impossible to

withdraw the name sent in. The man whom I appointed was

confirmed, and within two days after I received that letter, we gave

a musicale at the White House. The first two people to greet Mrs.

Taft and me were this husband and wife, though the wife had so

recently been in articulo mortis."

Jay Mangum represented an elevator-escalator main-tenance

company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which had the maintenance contract

for the escalators in one of Tulsa's leading hotels. The hotel manager

did not want to shut down the escalator for more than two hours at

a time because he did not want to inconvenience the hotel's guests.

The repair that had to be made would take at least eight hours, and

his company did not always have a specially qualified mechanic

available at the convenience of the hotel.

When Mr. Mangum was able to schedule a top-flight mechanic for

this job, he telephoned the hotel manager and instead of arguing

with him to give him the necessary time, he said:

"Rick, I know your hotel is quite busy and you would like to keep the

escalator shutdown time to a minimum. I understand your concern

about this, and we want to do everything possible to accommodate

you. However, our diagnosis of the situation shows that if we do not

do a complete job now, your escalator may suffer more serious

damage and that would cause a much longer shutdown. I know you

would not want to inconvenience your guests for several days."

The manager had to agree that an eight-hour shut down was more

desirable than several days'. By sympathizing with the manager's

desire to keep his patrons happy, Mr. Mangum was able to win the

hotel manager to his way of thinking easily and without rancor.

Joyce Norris, a piano teacher in St, Louis, Missouri, told of how she

had handled a problem piano teachers often have with teenage girls.

Babette had exceptionally long fingernails. This is a serious handicap

to anyone who wants to develop proper piano-playing habits.

Mrs. Norris reported: "I knew her long fingernails would be a barrier

for her in her desire to play well. During our discussions prior to her

starting her lessons with me, I did not mention anything to her about

her nails. I didn't want to discourage her from taking lessons, and I

also knew she would not want to lose that which she took so much

pride in and such great care to make attractive.

"After her first lesson, when I felt the time was right, I said:

'Babette, you have attractive hands and beautiful fingernails. If you

want to play the piano as well as you are capable of and as well as

you would like to, you would be surprised how much quicker and

easier it would be for you, if you would trim your nails shorter. Just

think about it, Okay?' She made a face which was definitely negative.

I also talked to her mother about this situation, again mentioning

how lovely her nails were. Another negative reaction. It was obvious

that Babette's beautifully manicured nails were important to her.

"The following week Babette returned for her second lesson. Much to

my surprise, the fingernails had been trimmed. I complimented her

and praised her for making such a sacrifice. I also thanked her

mother for influencing Babette to cut her nails. Her reply was 'Oh, I

had nothing to do with it. Babette decided to do it on her own, and

this is the first time she has ever trimmed her nails for anyone.' "

Did Mrs. Norris threaten Babette? Did she say she would refuse to

teach a student with long fingernails? No, she did not. She let

Babette know that her finger-nails were a thing of beauty and it

would be a sacrifice to cut them. She implied, "I sympathize with you

- I know it won't be easy, but it will pay off in your better musical

development."

Sol Hurok was probably America's number one impresario. For

almost half a century he handled artists - such world-famous artists

as Chaliapin, Isadora Duncan, and Pavlova. Mr. Hurok told me that

one of the first lessons he had learned in dealing with his

temperamental stars was the' necessity for sympathy, sympathy and

more sympathy with their idiosyncrasies.

For three years, he was impresario for Feodor Chaliapin -one of the

greatest bassos who ever thrilled the ritzy boxholders at the

Metropolitan, Yet Chaliapin was a constant problem. He carried on

like a spoiled child. To put it in Mr. Hurok's own inimitable phrase:

"He was a hell of a fellow in every way."

For example, Chaliapin would call up Mr. Hurok about noun of the

day he was going to sing and say, "Sol, I feel terrible. My throat is

like raw hamburger. It is impossible for me to sing tonight." Did Mr.

Hurok argue with him? Oh, no. He knew that an entrepreneur

couldn't handle artists that way. So he would rush over to Chaliapin's

hotel, dripping with sympathy. "What a pity, " he would mourn.

"What a pity! My poor fellow. Of course, you cannot sing. I will

cancel the engagement at once. It will only cost you a couple of

thousand dollars, but that is nothing in comparison to your

reputation."

Then Chaliapin would sigh and say, "Perhaps you had better come

over later in the day. Come at five and see how I feel then."

At five o'clock, Mr. Hurok would again rush to his hotel, dripping with

sympathy. Again he would insist on canceling the engagement and

again Chaliapin would sigh and say, "Well, maybe you had better

come to see me later. I may be better then."

At seven-thirty the great basso would consent to sing, only with the

understanding that Mr. Hurok would walk out on the stage of the

Metropolitan and announce that Chaliapin had a very bad cold and

was not in good voice. Mr. Hurok would lie and say he would do it,

for he knew that was the only way to get the basso out on the stage.

Dr. Arthur I. Gates said in his splendid book Educational Psychology:

"Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly

displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap

abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults ... show their

bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical

operations. 'Self-pity' for misfortunes real or imaginary is in some

measure, practically a universal practice."

So, if you want to win people to your way of thinking, put in practice

...

• Principle 9 - Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and

desires.

~~~~~~~

10 - An Appeal That Everybody Likes

I was reared on the edge of the Jesse James country out in Missouri,

and I visited the James farm at Kearney, Missouri, where the son of

Jesse James was then living.

His wife told me stories of how Jesse robbed trains and held up

banks and then gave money to the neighboring farmers to pay off

their mortgages.

Jesse James probably regarded himself as an idealist at heart, just as

Dutch Schultz, "Two Gun" Crowley, Al Capone and many other

organized crime "godfathers" did generations later. The fact is that

all people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be

fine and unselfish in their own estimation.

J. Pierpont Morgan observed, in one of his analytical interludes, that

a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds

good and a real one.

The person himself will think of the real reason. You don't need to

emphasize that. But all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of

motives that sound good. So, in order to change people, appeal to

the nobler motives.

Is that too idealistic to work in business? Let's see. Let's take the

case of Hamilton J. Farrell of the Farrell-Mitchell Company of

Glenolden, Pennsylvania. Mr. Farrell had a disgruntled tenant who

threatened to move. The tenant's lease still had four months to run;

nevertheless, he served notice that he was vacating immediately,

regardless of lease.

"These people had lived in my house all winter - the most expensive

part of the year," Mr. Farrell said as he told the story to the class,

"and I knew it would be difficult to rent the apartment again before

fall. I could see all that rent income going over the hill and believe

me, I saw red.

"Now, ordinarily, I would have waded into that tenant and advised

him to read his lease again. I would have pointed out that if he

moved, the full balance of his rent would fall due at once - and that I

could, and would, move to collect.

"However, instead of flying off the handle and making a scene, I

decided to try other tactics. So I started like this: 'Mr. Doe,' I said, 'I

have listened to your story, and I still don't believe you intend to

move. Years in the renting business have taught me something

about human nature, and I sized you up in the first place as being a

man of your word. In fact, I'm so sure of it that I'm willing to take a

gamble.

" 'Now, here's my proposition. Lav your decision on the table for a

few days and think it over. If you come back to me between now

and the first of the month, when your rent is due, and tell me you

still intend to move, I give you my word I will accept your decision as

final. I will privilege you to move and admit to myself I've been

wrong in my judgment. But I still believe you're a man of your word

and will live up to your contract. For after all, we are either men or

monkeys - and the choice usually lies with ourselves!'

"Well, when the new month came around, this gentleman came to

see me and paid his rent in person. He and his wife had talked it

over, he said - and decided to stay. They had concluded that the

only honorable thing to do was to live up to their lease."

When the late Lord Northcliffe found a newspaper using a picture of

him which he didn't want published, he wrote the editor a letter. But

did he say, "Please do not publish that picture of me any more; I

don't like it"? No, he appealed to a nobler motive. He appealed to the

respect and love that all of us have for motherhood. He wrote,

"Please do not publish that picture of me any more. My mother

doesn't like it."

When John D. Rockefeller, Jr., wished to stop newspaper

photographers from snapping pictures of his children, he too

appealed to the nobler motives. He didn't, say: "I don't want their

pictures published." No, he appealed to the desire, deep in all of us,

to refrain from harming children. He said: "You know how it is, boys.

You've got children yourselves, some of you. And you know it's not

good for youngsters to get too much publicity."

When Cyrus H. K. Curtis, the poor boy from Maine, was starting on

his meteoric career, which was destined to make him millions as

owner of The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal,

he couldn't afford to pay his contributors the prices that other

magazines paid. He couldn't afford to hire first-class authors to write

for money alone. So he appealed to their nobler motives. For

example, he persuaded even Louisa May Alcott, the immortal author

of Little Women, to write for him when she was at the flood tide of

her fame; and he did it by offering to send a check for a hundred

dollars, not to her, but to her favorite charity.

Right here the skeptic may say: "Oh, that stuff is all right for

Northcliffe and Rockefeller or a sentimental novelist. But, I'd like to

see you make it work with the tough babies I have to collect bills

from!"

You may be right. Nothing will work in all cases - and nothing will

work with all people. If you are satisfied with the results you are now

getting, why change? If you are not satisfied, why not experiment?

At any rate, I think you will enjoy reading this true story told by

James L. Thomas, a former student of mine:

Six customers of a certain automobile company refused to pay their

bills for servicing. None of the customers protested the entire bill,

but each claimed that some one charge was wrong. In each case,

the customer had signed for the work done, so the company knew it

was right - and said so. That was the first mistake.

Here are the steps the men in the credit department took to collect

these overdue bills. Do you suppose they succeeded?

• 1. They called on each customer and told him bluntly that they had

come to collect a bill that was long past due.

• 2. They made it very plain that the company was absolutely and

unconditionally right; therefore he, the customer, was absolutely and

unconditionally wrong.

• 3. They intimated that they, the company, knew more about

automobiles than he could ever hope to know. So what was the

argument about?

• 4. Result: They argued.

Did any of these methods reconcile the customer and settle the

account? You can answer that one yourself.

At this stage of affairs, the credit manager was about to open fire

with a battery of legal talent, when fortunately the matter came to

the attention of the general manager. The manager investigated

these defaulting clients and discovered that they all had the

reputation of paying their bills promptly, Something was wrong here

- something was drastically wrong about the method of collection. So

he called in James L. Thomas and told him to collect these

"uncollectible" accounts.

Here, in his words, are the steps Mr. Thrrmas took:

1. My visit to each customer was likewise to collect a bill long past

due - a bill that we knew was absolutely right. But I didn't say a

word about that. I explained I had called to find out what it was the

company had done, or failed to do.

2. I made it clear that, until I had heard the customer's story, I had

no opinion to offer. I told him the company made no claims to being

infallible.

3. I told him I was interested only in his car, and that he knew more

about his car than anyone else in the world; that he was the

authority on the subject.

4. I let him talk, and I listened to him with all the interest and

sympathy that he wanted - and had expected.

5. Finally, when the customer was in a reasonable mood, I put the

whole thing up to his sense of fair play. I appealed to the nobler

motives. "First," I said, "I want you to know I also feel this matter

has been badly mishandled. You've been inconvenienced and

annoyed and irritated by one of our representatives. That should

never have happened. I'm sorry and, as a representative of the

company, I apologize. As I sat here and listened to your side of the

story, I could not help being impressed by your fairness and

patience. And now, because you are fair - minded and patient, I am

going to ask you to do something for me. It's something that you

can do better than anyone else, something you know more about

than anyone else. Here is your bill; I know it is safe for me to ask

you to adjust it, just as you would do if you were the president of my

company. I am going to leave it all up to you. Whatever you say

goes."

Did he adjust the bill? He certainly did, and got quite a kick out of it,

The bills ranged from $150 to $400 - but did the customer give

himself the best of it? Yes, one of them did! One of them refused to

pay a penny of the disputed charge; but the other five all gave the

company the best of it! And here's the cream of the whole thing: we

delivered new cars to all six of these customers within the next two

years!

"Experience has taught me," says Mr. Thomas, "that when no

information can be secured about the customer, the only sound basis

on which to proceed is to assume that he or she is sincere, honest,

truthful and willing and anxious to pay the charges, once convinced

they are correct. To put it differently and perhaps mare clearly,

people are honest and want to discharge their obligations. The

exceptions to that rule are comparatively few, and I am convinced

that the individuals who are inclined to chisel will in most cases react

favorably if you make them feel that you consider them honest,

upright and fair."

• Principle 10 - Appeal to the nobler motives.

~~~~~~~

11 - The Movies Do It. Tv Does It. Why Don't You Do It?

Many years ago, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin was being

maligned by a dangerous whispering campaign. A malicious rumor

was being circulated. Advertisers were being told that the newspaper

was no longer attractive to readers because it carried too much

advertising and too little news. Immediate action was necessary. The

gossip had to be squelched.

But how?

This is the way it was done.

The Bulletin clipped from its regular edition all reading matter of all

kinds on one average day, classified it, and published it as a book.

The book was called One Day. It contained 307 pages - as many as a

hard-covered book; yet the Bulletin had printed all this news and

feature material on one day and sold it, not for several dollars, but

for a few cents.

The printing of that book dramatized the fact that the Bulletin carried

an enormous amount of interesting reading matter. It conveyed the

facts more vividly, more interestingly, more impressively, than pages

of figures and mere talk could have done.

This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn't enough.

The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to

use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will

have to do it if you want attention.

Experts in window display know the power of dramazation. For

example, the manufacturers of a new rat poison gave dealers a

window display that included two live rats. The week the rats were

shown, sales zoomed to five times their normal rate.

Television commercials abound with examples of the use of dramatic

techniques in selling products. Sit down one evening in front of your

television set and analyze what the advertisers do in each of their

presentations. You will note how an antacid medicine changes the

color of the acid in a test tube while its competitor doesn't, how one

brand of soap or detergent gets a greasy shirt clean when the other

brand leaves it gray. You'll see a car maneuver around a series of

turns and curves - far better than just being told about it. Happy

faces will show contentment with a variety of products. All of these

dramatize for the viewer the advantages offered by whatever is

being sold - and they do get people to buy them.

You can dramatize your ideas in business or in any other aspect of

your life. It's easy. Jim Yeamans, who sells for the NCR company

(National Cash Register) in Richmond, Virginia, told how he made a

sale by dramatic demonstration.

"Last week I called on a neighborhood grocer and saw that the cash

registers he was using at his checkout counters were very oldfashioned.

I approached the owner and told him: 'You are literally

throwing away pennies every time a customer goes through your

line.' With that I threw a handful of pennies on the floor. He quickly

became more attentive. The mere words should have been of

interest to him, but the sound of Pennies hitting the floor really

stopped him. I was able to get an order from him to replace all of his

old machines."

It works in home life as well. When the old-time lover Proposed to

his sweetheart, did he just use words of love? No! He went down on

his knees. That really showed he meant what he said. We don't

propose on our knees any more, but many suitors still set up a

romantic atmosphere before they pop the question.

Dramatizing what you want works with children as well. Joe B. Fant,

Jr., of Birmingham, Alabama, was having difficulty getting his fiveyear-

old boy and three-year-old daughter to pick up their toys, so he

invented a "train." Joey was the engineer (Captain Casey Jones) on

his tricycle. Janet's wagon was attached, and in the evening she

loaded all the "coal" on the caboose (her wagon) and then jumped in

while her brother drove her around the room. In this way the room

was cleaned up - without lectures, arguments or threats.

Mary Catherine Wolf of Mishawaka, Indiana, was having some

problems at work and decided that she had to discuss them with the

boss. On Monday morning she requested an appointment with him

but was told he was very busy and she should arrange with his

secretary for an appointment later in the week. The secretary

indicated that his schedule was very tight, but she would try to fit

her in.

Ms. Wolf described what happened:

"I did not get a reply from her all week long. Whenever I questioned

her, she would give me a reason why the boss could not see me.

Friday morning came and I had heard nothing definite. I really

wanted to see him and discuss my problems before the weekend, so

I asked myself how I could get him to see me.

"What I finally did was this. I wrote him a formal letter. I indicated in

the letter that I fully understood how extremely busy he was all

week, but it was important that I speak with him. I enclosed a form

letter and a self-addressed envelope and asked him to please fill it

out or ask his secretary to do it and return it to me. The form letter

read as follows:

Ms. Wolf - I will be able to see you on __________ a t

__________A.M/P.M. I will give you _____minutes of my time.

"I put this letter in his in-basket at 11 A.M. At 2 P.M. I checked my

mailbox. There was my self-addressed envelope. He had answered

my form letter himself and indicated he could see me that afternoon

and could give me ten minutes of his time. I met with him, and we

talked for over an hour and resolved my problems.

"If I had not dramatized to him the fact that I really wanted to see

him, I would probably be still waiting for an appointment."

James B. Boynton had to present a lengthy market report. His firm

had just finished an exhaustive study for a leading brand of cold

cream. Data were needed immediately about the competition in this

market; the prospective customer was one of the biggest - and most

formidable - men in the advertising business.

And his first approach failed almost before he began.

"The first time I went in," Mr. Boynton explains, "I found myself

sidetracked into a futile discussion of the methods used in the

investigation. He argued and I argued. He told me I was wrong, and

I tried to prove that I was right.

"I finally won my point, to my own satisfaction - but my time was up,

the interview was over, and I still hadn't produced results.

"The second time, I didn't bother with tabulations of figures and

data, I went to see this man, I dramatized my facts I.

"As I entered his office, he was busy on the phone. While he finished

his conversation, I opened a suitcase and dumped thirty-two jars of

cold cream on top of his desk - all products he knew - all competitors

of his cream.

"On each jar, I had a tag itemizing the results of the trade

investigation, And each tag told its story briefly, dramatically.

"What happened?

"There was no longer an argument. Here was something new,

something different. He picked up first one and then another of the

jars of cold cream and read the information on the tag. A friendly

conversation developed. He asked additional questions. He was

intensely interested. He had originally given me only ten minutes to

present my facts, but ten minutes passed, twenty minutes, forty

minutes, and at the end of an hour we were still talking.

"I was presenting the same facts this time that I had presented

previously. But this time I was using dramatization, showmanship -

and what a difference it made."

• Principle 11 - Dramatize your ideas.

~~~~~~~

12 - When Nothing Else Works, Try This

Charles Schwab had a mill manager whose people weren't producing

their quota of work.

"How is it," Schwab asked him, "that a manager as capable as you

can't make this mill turn out what it should?"

"I don't know," the manager replied. "I've coaxed the men, I've

pushed them, I've sworn and cussed, I've threatened them with

damnation and being fired. But nothing works. They just won't

produce."

This conversation took place at the end of the day, just before the

night shift came on. Schwab asked the manager for a piece of chalk,

then, turning to the nearest man, asked: "How many heats did your

shift make today?"

"Six."

Without another word, Schwab chalked a big figure six on the floor,

and walked away.

When the night shift came in, they saw the "6" and asked what it

meant.

"The big boss was in here today," the day people said. "He asked us

how many heats we made, and we told him six. He chalked it down

on the floor."

The next morning Schwab walked through the mill again. The night

shift had rubbed out "6" and replaced it with a big "7."

When the day shift reported for work the next morning, they saw a

big "7" chalked on the floor. So the night shift thought they were

better than the day shift did they? Well, they would show the night

shift a thing or two. The crew pitched in with enthusiasm, and when

they quit that night, they left behind them an enormous, swaggering

"10." Things were stepping up.

Shortly this mill, which had been lagging way behind in production,

was turning out more work than any other mill in the plant.

The principle?

Let Charles Schwab say it in his own words: "The way to get things

done," say Schwab, "is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a

sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel."

The desire to excel! The challenge! Throwing down the gauntlet! An

infallible way of appealing to people of spirit.

Without a challenge, Theodore Roosevelt would never have been

President of the United States. The Rough Rider, just back from

Cuba, was picked for governor of New York State. The opposition

discovered he was no longer a legal resident of the state, and

Roosevelt, frightened, wished to withdraw. Then Thomas Collier

Platt, then U.S. Senator from New York, threw down the challenge.

Turning suddenly on Theodore Roosevelt, he cried in a ringing voice:

"Is the hero of San Juan Hill a coward?"

Roosevelt stayed in the fight - and the rest is history. A challenge not

only changed his life; it had a real effect upon the future of his

nation.

"All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go

forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory" was the motto

of the King's Guard in ancient Greece. What greater challenge can be

offered than the opportunity to overcome those fears?

When Al Smith was governor of New York, he was up against it. Sing

Sing, at the time the most notorious pen-itentiary west of Devil's

Island, was without a warden. Scandals had been sweeping through

the pristin walls, scandals and ugly rumors. Smith needed a strong

man to rule Sing Sing - an iron man. But who? He sent for Lewis E.

Lawes of New Hampton.

"How about going up to take charge of Sing Sing?" he said jovially

when Lawes stood before him. "They need a man up there with

experience."

Lawes was flabbergasted. He knew the dangers of Sing Sing. It was

a political appointment, subject to the vagaries of political whims.

Wardens had come and gone - one had lasted only three weeks. He

had a career to consider. Was it worth the risk?

Then Smith, who saw his hesitation, leaned back in his chair and

smiled. "Young fellow," he said, "I don't blame you for being scared.

It's a tough spot. It'll take a big person to go up there and stay."

So Smith was throwing down a challenge, was he? Lawes liked the

idea of attempting a job that called for someone "big."

So he went. And he stayed. He stayed, to become the most famous

warden of his time. His book 20,000 Years in Sing Sing sold into the

hundred of thousands of copies. His broadcasts on the air and his

stories of prison life have inspired dozens of movies. His

"humanizing" of criminals wrought miracles in the way of prison

reform.

"I have never found," said Harvey S. Firestone, founder of the great

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, "that pay and pay alone would

either bring together or hold good people. I think it was the game

itself."

Frederic Herzberg, one of the great behavorial scientists, concurred.

He studied in depth the work attitudes of thousands of people

ranging from factory workers to senior executives. What do you think

he found to be the most motivating factor - the one facet of the jobs

that was most stimulating? Money? Good working conditions? Fringe

benefits? No - not any of those. The one major factor that motivated

people was the work itself. If the work was exciting and interesting,

the worker looked forward to doing it and was motivated to do a

good job.

That is what every successful person loves: the game. The chance

for self-expression. The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to

win. That is what makes foot-races and hog-calling and pie-eating

contests. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance.

• Principle 12 - Throw down a challenge.

In A Nutshell - Win People To Your Way Of Thinking

• Principle 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid

it.

• Principle 2 Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say,

"You're wrong."

• Principle 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

• Principle 4 Begin in a friendly way.

• Principle 5 Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.

• Principle 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

• Principle 7 Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

• Principle 8 Try honestly to see things from the other person's point

of view.

• Principle 9 Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and

desires.

• Principle 10 Appeal to the nobler motives.

• Principle 11 Dramatize your ideas.

• Principle 12 Throw down a challenge.

-----------------------

Part Four - Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving

Offense or Arousing Resentment

1 - If You Must Find Fault, This Is The Way To Begin

A friend of mine was a guest at the White House for a weekend

during the administration of Calvin Coolidge. Drifting into the

President's private office, he heard Coolidge say to one of his

secretaries, "That's a pretty dress you are wearing this morning, and

you are a very attractive young woman."

That was probably the most effusive praise Silent Cal had ever

bestowed upon a secretary in his life. It was so unusual, so

unexpected, that the secretary blushed in confusion. Then Coolidge

said, "Now, don't get stuck up. I just said that to make you feel

good. From now on, I wish you would be a little bit more careful with

your Punctuation."

His method was probably a bit obvious, but the psychology was

superb. It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we

have heard some praise of our good points.

A barber lathers a man before he shaves him; and that is precisely

what McKinley did back in 1896, when he was running for President.

One of the prominent Republicans of that day had written a

campaign speech that he felt was just a trifle better than Cicero and

Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster all rolled into one. With great glee,

this chap read his immortal speech aloud to McKinley. The speech

had its fine points, but it just wouldn't do. It would have raised a

tornado of criticism. McKinley didn't want to hurt the man's feelings.

He must not kill the man's splendid enthusiasm, and yet he had to

say "no." Note how adroitly he did it.

"My friend, that is a splendid speech, a magnificent speech,"

McKinley said. "No one could have prepared a better one. There are

many occasions on which it would be precisely the right thing to say,

but is it quite suitable to this particular occasion? Sound and sober as

it is from your standpoint, I must consider its effect from the party's

standpoint. Now you go home and write a speech along the lines I

indicate, and send me a copy of it."

He did just that. McKinley blue-penciled and helped him rewrite his

second speech, and he became one of the effective speakers of the

campaign.

Here is the second most famous letter that Abraham Lincoln ever

wrote. (His most famous one was written to Mrs. Bixby, expressing

his sorrow for the death of the five sons she had lost in battle.)

Lincoln probably dashed this letter off in five minutes; yet it sold at

public auction in 1926 for twelve thousand dollars, and that, by the

way, was more money than Lincoln was able to save during half a

century of hard work. The letter was written to General Joseph

Hooker on April 26, 1863, during the darkest period of the Civil War.

For eighteen months, Lincoln's generals had been leading the Union

Army from one tragic defeat to another. Nothing but futile, stupid

human butchery. The nation was appalled. Thousands of soldiers

had deserted from the army, and en the Republican members of the

Senate had revolted and wanted to force Lincoln out of the White

House. "We are now on the brink of destruction," Lincoln said. It

appears to me that even the Almighty is against us. I can hardly see

a ray of hope." Such was the black sorrow and chaos out of which

this letter came.

I am printing the letter here because it shows how Lincoln tried to

change an obstreperous general when the very fate of the nation

could have depended upon the general's action.

This is perhaps the sharpest letter Abe Lincoln wrote after he

became President; yet you will note that he praised General Hooker

before he spoke of his grave faults.

Yes, they were grave faults, but Lincoln didn't call them that. Lincoln

was more conservative, more diplomatic. Lincoln wrote: "There are

some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you."

Talk about tact! And diplomacy!

Here is the letter addressed to General Hooker:

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of

course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient

reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some

things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.

I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of course, I

like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in

which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a

valuable if not an indispensable quality.

You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good

rather than harm, But I think that during General Burnside's

command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and

thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong

to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother

officer.

I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying

that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of

course, it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you

command.

Only those generals who gain successes can set up as dictators.

What I now ask of you is military success and I will risk the

dictatorship.

The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is

neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all

commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to

infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and withholding

confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you, as

far as I can, to put it down.

Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good

out of an army while such spirit prevails in it, and now beware of

rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless

vigilance go forward and give us victories.

You are not a Coolidge, a McKinley or a Lincoln. You want to know

whether this philosophy will operate for you in everyday business

contacts. Will it? Let's see. Let's take the case of W. P. Gaw of the

Wark Company, Philadelphia.

The Wark Company had contracted to build and complete a large

office building in Philadelphia by a certain specified date. Everything

was going along well; the building was almost finished, when

suddenly the sub-contractor making the ornamental bronze work to

go on the exterior of this building declared that he couldn't make

delivery on schedule. What! An entire building held up! Heavy

penalties! Distressing losses! All because of one man!

Long-distance telephone calls. Arguments! Heated conversations! All

in vain. Then Mr. Gaw was sent to New York to beard the bronze lion

in his den.

"Do you know you are the only person in Brooklyn with your name,?"

Mr Gaw asked the president of the subcontracting firm shortly after

they were introduced. The president was surprised. "No, I didn't

know that."

"Well," said Mr. Gaw, "when I got off the train this morning, I looked

in the telephone book to get your address, and you're the only

person in the Brooklyn phone book with your name."

"I never knew that," the subcontractor said. He checked the phone

book with interest. "Well, it's an unusual name," he said proudly. "My

family came from Holland and settled in New York almost two

hundred years ago. " He continued to talk about his family and his

ancestors for several minutes. When he finished that, Mr. Gaw

complimented him on how large a plant he had and compared it

favorably with a number of similar plants he had visited. "It is one of

the cleanest and neatest bronze factories I ever saw," said Gaw.

"I've spent a lifetime building up this business," the subcontractor

said, "and I am rather proud of it. Would you like to take a look

around the factory?"

During this tour of inspection, Mr. Gaw complimented the other man

on his system of fabrication and told him how and why it seemed

superior to those of some of his competitors. Gaw commented on

some unusual machines, and the subcontractor announced that he

himself had invented those machines. He spent considerable time

showing Gaw how they operated and the superior work they turned

out. He insisted on taking his visitor to lunch. So far, mind you, not a

word had been said about the real purpose of Gaw's visit.

After lunch, the subcontractor said, "Now, to get down to business.

Naturally, I know why you're here. I didn't expect that our meeting

would be so enjoyable. You can go back to Philadelphia with my

promise that your material will be fabricated and shipped, even if

other orders have to be delayed."

Mr. Gaw got everything that he wanted without even asking for it.

The material arrived on time, and the building was completed on the

day the completion contract specified.

Would this have happened had Mr. Gaw used the hammer-anddynamite

method generally employed on such occasions?

Dorothy Wrublewski, a branch manager of the Fort Monmouth, New

Jersey, Federal Credit Union, reported to one of our classes how she

was able to help one of her employees become more productive.

"We recently hired a young lady as a teller trainee. Her contact with

our customers was very good. She was accurate and efficient in

handling individual transactions. The problem developed at the end

of the day when it was time to balance out.

"The head teller came to me and strongly suggested that I fire this

woman. 'She is holding up everyone else because she is so slow in

balancing out. I've shown her over and over, but she can't get it.

She's got to go.'

"The next day I observed her working quickly and accurately when

handling the normal everyday transactions, and she was very

pleasant with our customers.

"It didn't take long to discover why she had trouble balancing out.

After the office closed, I went over to talk with her. She was

obviously nervous and upset. I praised her for being so friendly and

outgoing with the customers and complimented her for the accuracy

and speed used in that work. I then suggested we review the

procedure we use in balancing the cash drawer. Once she realized I

had confidence in her, she easily followed my suggestions and soon

mastered this function. We have had no problems with her since

then."

Beginning with praise is like the dentist who begins his work with

Novocain. The patient still gets a drilling, but the Novocain is painkilling.

A leader will use ...

• Principle 1 - Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

~~~~~~~

2 - How To Criticize-And Not Be Hated For It

Charles Schwab was passing through one of his steel mills one day at

noon when he came across some of his employees smoking.

Immediately above their heads was a sign that said "No Smoking."

Did Schwab point to the sign and say, "Can't you read.? Oh, no not

Schwab. He walked over to the men, handed each one a cigar, and

said, "I'll appreciate it, boys, if you will smoke these on the outside."

They knew that he knew that they had broken a rule - and they

admired him because he said nothing about it and gave them a little

present and made them feel important. Couldn't keep from loving a

man like that, could you?

John Wanamaker used the same technique. Wanamaker used to

make a tour of his great store in Philadelphia every day. Once he

saw a customer waiting at a counter. No one was paying the

slightest attention to her. The salespeople? Oh, they were in a

huddle at the far end of the counter laughing and talking among

themselves. Wanamaker didn't say a word. Quietly slipping behind

the counter, he waited on the woman himself and then handed the

purchase to the salespeople to be wrapped as he went on his way.

Public officials are often criticized for not being accessible to their

constituents. They are busy people, and the fault sometimes lies in

overprotective assistants who don't want to overburden their bosses

with too many visitors. Carl Langford, who has been mayor of

Orlando,

Florida, the home of Disney World, for many years, frequently

admonished his staff to allow people to see him. clamed he had an

"open-door" policy; yet the citizens of his community were blocked

by secretaries and administrators when they called.

Finally the mayor found the solution. He removed the door from his

office! His aides got the message, and the mayor has had a truly

open administration since the day his door was symbolically thrown

away.

Simply changing one three-letter word can often spell the difference

between failure and success in changing people without giving

offense or arousing resentment.

Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the

word "but" and ending with a critical statement. For example, in

trying to change a child's careless attitude toward studies, we might

say, "We're really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this

term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results

would have been better."

In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word

"but." He might then question the sincerity of the original praise. To

him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical

inference of failure. Credibility would be strained, and we probably

would not achieve our objectives of changing Johnnie's attitude

toward his studies.

This could be easily overcome by changing the word "but" to "and."

"We're really proud of you, Johnnie, for raiseing your grades this

term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term,

your algebra grade can be up with all the others."

Now, Johnnie would accept the praise because there was no followup

of an inference of failure. We have called his attention to the

behavior we wished to change indirectly and the chances are he will

try to live up to our expectations.

Calling attention to one's mistakes indirectly works wonders with

sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism. Marge

Jacob of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, told one of our classes how she

convinced some sloppy construction workers to clean up after

themselves when they were building additions to her house.

For the first few days of the work, when Mrs. Jacob returned from

her job, she noticed that the yard was strewn with the cut ends of

lumber. She didn't want to antagonize the builders, because they did

excellent work. So after the workers had gone home, she and her

children picked up and neatly piled all the lumber debris in a corner.

The following morning she called the foreman to one side and said,

"I'm really pleased with the way the front lawn was left last night; it

is nice and clean and does not offend the neighbors." From that day

forward the workers picked up and piled the debris to one side, and

the foreman came in each day seeking approval of the condition the

lawn was left in after a day's work.

One of the major areas of controversy between members of the

army reserves and their regular army trainers is haircuts. The

reservists consider themselves civilians (which they are most of the

time) and resent having to cut their hair short.

Master Sergeant Harley Kaiser of the 542nd USAR School addressed

himself to this problem when he was working with a group of reserve

noncommissioned officers. As an old-time regular-army master

sergeant, he might have been expected to yell at his troops and

threaten them. Instead he chose to make his point indirectly.

"Gentlemen," he started, "you are leaders. You will be most effective

when you lead by example. You must be the example for your men

to follow. You know what the army regulations say about haircuts. I

am going to get my hair cut today, although it is still much shorter

than some of yours. You look at yourself in the mirror, and if you feel

you need a haircut to be a good example, we'll arrange time for you

to visit the post barbership."

The result was predictable. Several of the candidates did look in the

mirror and went to the barbershop that afternoon and received

"regulation" haircuts. Sergeant Kaiser commented the next morning

that he already could see the development of leadership qualities in

some of the members of the squad.

On March 8, 1887, the eloquent Henry Ward Beecher died. The

following Sunday, Lyman Abbott was invited to speak in the pulpit

left silent by Beecher's passing. Eager to do his best, he wrote,

rewrote and polished his sermon with the meticulous care of a

Flaubert. Then he read it to his wife. It was poor - as most written

speeches are. She might have said, if she had had less judgment,

"Lyman, that is terrible. That'll never do. You'll put people to sleep. It

reads like an encyclopedia. You ought to know better than that after

all the years you have been preaching. For heaven's sake, why don't

you talk like a human being? Why don't you act natural? You'll

disgrace yourself if you ever read that stuff."

That's what she might have said. And, if she had, you know what

would have happened. And she knew too. So, she merely remarked

that it would make an excellent article for the North American

Review. In other words, she praised it and at the same time subtly

suggested that it wouldn't do as a speech. Lyman Abbott saw the

point, tore up his carefully prepared manuscript and preached

without even using notes.

An effective way to correct others' mistakes is ...

• Principle 2 - Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.

~~~~~~~

3 - Talk About Your Own Mistakes First

My niece, Josephine Carnegie, had come to New York to be my

secretary. She was nineteen, had graduated from high school three

years previously, and her business experience was a trifle more than

zero. She became one of the most proficient secretaries west of

Suez, but in the beginning, she was - well, susceptible to

improvement. One day when I started to criticize her, I said to

myself: "Just a minute, Dale Carnegie; just a minute. You are twice

as old as Josephine. You have had ten thousand times as much

business experience. How can you possibly expect her to have your

viewpoint, your judgment, your initiative - mediocre though they

may be? And just a minute, Dale, what were you doing at nineteen?

Remember the asinine mistakes and blunders you made? Remember

the time you did this ... and that ... ?"

After thinking the matter over, honestly and impartially, I concluded

that Josephine's batting average at nineteen was better than mine

had been - and that, I'm sorry to confess, isn't paying Josephine

much of a compliment.

So after that, when I wanted to call Josephine's attention to a

mistake, I used to begin by saying, "You have made a mistake,

Josephine, but the Lord knows, it's no worse than many I have

made. You were not born with judgment. That comes only with

experience, and you are better than I was at your age. I have been

guilty of so many stupid, silly things myself, I have very little incliion

to criticize you or anyone. But don't you think it would have been

wiser if you had done so and so?"

It isn't nearly so difficult to listen to a recital of your faults if the

person criticizing begins by humbly admitting that he, too, is far from

impeccable.

E.G. Dillistone, an engineer in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, was

having problems with his new secretary. Letters he dictated were

coming to his desk for signature with two or three spelling mistakes

per page. Mr. Dillistone reported how he handled this:

"Like many engineers, I have not been noted for my excellent

English or spelling. For years I have kept a little black thumb - index

book for words I had trouble spelling. When it became apparent that

merely pointing out the errors was not going to cause my secretary

to do more proofreading and dictionary work, I resolved to take

another approach. When the next letter came to my attention that

had errors in it, I sat down with the typist and said:

" 'Somehow this word doesn't look right. It's one of the words I

always have had trouble with. That's the reason I started this

spelling book of mine. [I opened the book to the appropriate page.]

Yes, here it is. I'm very conscious of my spelling now because people

do judge us by our letters and misspellings make us look less

professional.

"I don't know whether she copied my system or not, but since that

conversation, her frequency of spelling errors has been significantly

reduced."

The polished Prince Bernhard von B

of doing this back in 1909. Von B

Chancellor of Germany, and on the throne sat Wilhelm II-Wilhelm,

the haughty; Wilhelm the arrogant; Wilhelm, the last of the German

Kaisers, building an army and navy that he boasted could whip their

weight in wildcats

Then an astonishing thing happened. The Kaiser said things,

incredible things, things that rocked the continent and started a

series of explosions heard around the world. To make matters

infinitely worse, the Kaiser made silly, egotistical, absurd

announcements in public, he made them while he was a guest in

England, and he gave his royal permission to have them printed in

the Daily Telegraph. For example, he declared that he was the only

German who felt friendly toward the English; that he was

constructing a navy against the menace of Japan; that he, and he

alone, had saved England from being humbled in the dust by Russia

and France; that it had been his campaign plan that enabled

England's Lord Roberts to defeat the Boers in South Africa; and so

on and on.

No other such amazing words had ever fallen from the lips of a

European king in peacetime within a hundred years. The entire

continent buzzed with the fury of a hornet's nest. England was

incensed. German statesmen were aghast. And in the midst of all

this consternation, the Kaiser became panicky and suggested to

Prince von B

Yes, he wanted von B

responsibility, that he had advised his monarch to say these

incredible things.

"But Your Majesty," von B

impossible that anybody either in Germany or England could suppose

me capable of having advised Your Majesty to say any such thing."

The moment those words were out of von B

realized he had made a grave mistake. The Kaiser blew up.

"You consider me a donkey," he shouted, "capable of blunders you

yourself could never have committed!"

Von B

condemned; but since that was too late, he did the next best thing.

He praised after he had criticized. And it worked a miracle.

"I'm far from suggesting that," he answered respectfully. "Your

Majesty surpasses me in manv respects; not only of course, in naval

and military knowledge but above all, in natural science. I have often

listened in admiration when Your Majesty explained the barometer,

or wireless telegraphy, or the Roentgen rays. I am shamefully

ignorant of all branches of natural science, have no notion of

chemistry or physics, and am quite incapable of explaining the

simplest of natural phenomena. But," von B

compensation, I possess some historical knowledge and perhaps

certain qualities useful in politics, especially in diplomacy."

The Kaiser beamed. Von Bulow had praised him. Von B

exalted him and humbled himself. The Kaiser could forgive anything

after that. "Haven't I always told you," he exclaimed with

enthusiasm, "that we complete one another famously? We should

stick together, and we will!"

He shook hands with von B

later in the day he waxed so enthusiastic that he exclaimed with

doubled fists, "If anyone says anything to me against Prince von

B

Von B

he nevertheless had made one error: he should have begun by

talking about his own shortcomings and Wilhelm's superiority - not

by intimating that the Kaiser was a half-wit in need of a guardian.

If a few sentences humbling oneself and praising the other party can

turn a haughty, insulted Kaiser into a staunch friend, imagine what

humility and praise can do for you and me in our daily contacts.

Rightfully used, they will work veritable miracles in human relations.

Admitting one's own mistakes - even when one hasn't corrected

them - can help convince somebody to change his behavior. This

was illustrated more recently by Clarence Zerhusen of Timonium,

Maryland, when he discovered his fifteen-year-old son was

experimenting with cigarettes.

"Naturally, I didn't want David to smoke," Mr. Zerhusen told us, "but

his mother and I smoked cigarettes; we were giving him a bad

example all the time. I explained to Dave how I started smoking at

about his age and how the nicotine had gotten the best of me and

now it was nearly impossible for me to stop. I reminded him how

irritating my cough was and how he had been after me to give up

cigarettes not many years before.

"I didn't exhort him to stop or make threats or warn him about their

dangers. All I did was point out how I was hooked on cigarettes and

what it had meant to me.

"He thought about it for a while and decided he wouldn't smoke until

he had graduated from high school. As the years went by David

never did start smoking and has no intention of ever doing so.

"As a result of that conversation I made the decision to stop smoking

cigarettes myself, and with the support of my family, I have

succeeded."

A good leader follows this principle:

• Principle 3 - Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the

other person.

~~~~~~~

4 - No One Likes To Take Orders

I once had the pleasure of dining with Miss Ida Tarbell, the dean of

American biographers. When I told her I was writing this book, we

began discussing this all-important subject of getting along with

people, and she told me that while she was writing her biography of

Owen D. Young, she interviewed a man who had sat for three years

in the same office with Mr. Young. This man declared that during all

that time he had never heard Owen D. Young give a direct order to

anyone. He always gave suggestions, not orders. Owen D. Young

never said, for example, "Do this or do that," or "Don't do this or

don't do that." He would say, "You might consider this," or "Do you

think that would work?" Frequently he would say, after he had

dictated a letter, "What do you think of this?" In looking over a letter

of one of his assistants, he would say, "Maybe if we were to phrase it

this way it would be better." He always gave people the opportunity

to do things themselves; he never told his assistants to do things; he

let them do them, let them learn from their mistakes.

A technique like that makes it easy for a person to correct errors. A

technique like that saves a person's pride and gives him or her a

feeling of importance. It encourages cooperation instead of rebellion.

Resentment caused by a brash order may last a long time -even if

the order was given to correct an obviously bad situation. Dan

Santarelli, a teacher at a vocational school in Wyoming,

Pennsylvania, told one of our classes how one of his students had

blocked the entrance way to one of the school's shops by illegally

parking his car in it. One of the other instructors stormed into the

classroom and asked in an arrogant tone, "Whose car is blocking the

driveway?" When the student who owned the car responded, the

instructor screamed: "Move that car and move it right now, or I'll

wrap a chain around it and drag it out of there."

Now that student was wrong. The car should not have been parked

there. But from that day on, not only did that student resent the

instructor's action, but all the students in the class did everything

they could to give the instructor a hard time and make his job

unpleasant.

How could he have handled it differently? If he had asked in a

friendly way, "Whose car is in the driveway?" and then suggested

that if it were moved, other cars could get in and out, the student

would have gladly moved it and neither he nor his classmates would

have been upset and resentful.

Asking questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often

stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask. People are

more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision

that caused the order to be issued.

When Ian Macdonald of Johannesburg, South Africa, the general

manager of a small manufacturing plant specializing in precision

machine parts, had the opportunity to accept a very large order, he

was convinced that he would not meet the promised delivery date.

The work already scheduled in the shop and the short completion

time needed for this order made it seem impossible for him to accept

the order.

Instead of pushing his people to accelerate their work and rush the

order through, he called everybody together, explained the situation

to them, and told them how much it would mean to the company

and to them if they could make it possible to produce the order on

time. Then he started asking questions:

"Is there anything we can do to handle this order?"

"Can anyone think of different ways to process it through the shop

that will make it possible to take the order?"

"Is there any way to adjust our hours or personnel assignments that

would help?"

The employees came up with many ideas and insisted that he take

the order. They approached it with a "We can do it" attitude, and the

order was accepted, produced and delivered on time.

An effective leader will use ...

• Principle 4 - Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

~~~~~~~

5 - Let The Other Person Save Face

Years ago the General Electric Company was faced with the delicate

task of removing Charles Steinmetz from the head of a department.

Steinmetz, a genius of the first magnitude when it came to

electricity, was a failure as the head of the calculating department.

Yet the company didn't dare offend the man. He was indispensable -

and highly sensitive. So they gave him a new title. They made him

Consulting Engineer of the General Electric Company - a new title for

work he was already doing -and let someone else head up the

department.

Steinmetz was happy.

So were the officers of G.E. They had gently maneuvered their most

temperamental star, and they had done it without a storm - by

letting him save face.

Letting one save face! How important, how vitally important that is!

And how few of us ever stop to think of it! We ride roughshod over

the feelings of others, getting our own way, finding fault, issuing

threats, criticizing a child or an employee in front of others, without

even considering the hurt to the other person's pride. Whereas a few

minutes' thought, a considerate word or two, a genuine

understanding of the other person's attitude, would go so far toward

alleviating the sting!

Let's remember that the next time we are faced with the distasteful

necessity of discharging or reprimanding an employee.

"Firing employees is not much fun. Getting fired is even less fun."

(I'm quoting now from a letter written me by Marshall A. Granger, a

certified public accountant.) "Our business is mostly seasonal.

Therefore we have to let a lot of people go after the income tax rush

is over.

It's a byword in our profession that no one enjoys wielding the ax.

Consequently, the custom has developed of getting it over as soon

as possible, and usually in the following way: 'Sit down, Mr. Smith.

The season's over, and we don't seem to see any more assignments

for you. Of course, you understood you were only employed for the

busy season anyhow, etc., etc.'

"The effect on these people is one of disappointment and a feeling of

being 'let down.' Most of them are in the accounting field for life, and

they retain no particular love for the firm that drops them so

casually.

"I recently decided to let our seasonal personnel go with a little more

tact and consideration. So I call each one in only after carefully

thinking over his or her work during the winter. And I've said

something like this: 'Mr. Smith, you've done a fine job (if he has).

That time we sent you to Newark, you had a tough assignment. You

were on the spot, but you came through with flying colors, and we

want you to know the firm is proud of you. You've got the stuff -

you're going a long way, wherever you're working. This firm believes

in you, and is rooting for you, and we don't want you to forget it.'

"Effect? The people go away feeling a lot better about being fired.

They don't feel 'let down.' They know if we had work for them, we'd

keep them on. And when we need them again, they come to us with

a keen personal affection."

At one session of our course, two class members discussed the

negative effects of faultfinding versus the positive effects of letting

the other person save face.

Fred Clark of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told of an incident that

occurred in his company: "At one of our production meetings, a vice

president was asking very pointed questions of one of our production

supervisors regarding a production process. His tone of voice was

aggressive and aimed at pointing out faulty performance on the part

of the supervisor. Not wanting to be embarrassed in front of his

peers, the supervisor was evasive in his responses. This caused the

vice president to lose his temper, berate the supervisor and accuse

him of lying.

"Any working relationship that might have existed prior to this

encounter was destroyed in a few brief moments. This supervisor,

who was basically a good worker, was useless to our company from

that time on. A few months later he left our firm and went to work

for a competitor, where I understand he is doing a fine job."

Another class member, Anna Mazzone, related how a similar incident

had occurred at her job - but what a difference in approach and

results! Ms. Mazzone, a marketing specialist for a food packer, was

given her first major assignment - the test-marketing of a new

product. She told the class: "When the results of the test came in, I

was devastated. I had made a serious error in my planning, and the

entire test had to be done all over again. To make this worse, I had

no time to discuss it with my boss before the meeting in which I was

to make my report on the project.

"When I was called on to give the report, I was shaking with fright. I

had all I could do to keep from breaking down, but I resolved I

would not cry and have all those men make remarks about women

not being able to handle a management job because they are too

emotional. I made my report briefly and stated that due to an error I

would repeat the study before the next meeting. I sat down,

expecting my boss to blow up.

"Instead, he thanked me for my work and remarked that it was not

unusual for a person to make an error on a new project and that he

had confidence that the repeat survey would be accurate and

meaningful to the company. He Assured me, in front of all my

colleagues, that he had faith in me and I knew I had done my best,

and that my lack of experience, not my lack of ability, was the

reason for the failure.

I left that meeting with my head in the air and with the

determination that I would never let that boss of mine down again."

Even if we are right and the other person is definitely wrong, we only

destroy ego by causing someone to lose face. The legendary French

aviation pioneer and author Antoine de Saint-Exup

no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes.

What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of

himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime."

A real leader will always follow ...

• Principle 5 - Let the other person save face.

~~~~~~~

6 - How To Spur People On To Success

Pete Barlow was an old friend of mine. He had a dog-and-pony act

and spent his life traveling with circuses and vaudeville shows. I

loved to watch Pete train new dogs for his act. I noticed that the

moment a dog showed the slightest improvement, Pete patted and

praised him and gave him meat and made a great to-do about it.

That's nothing new. Animal trainers have been using that same

technique for centuries.

Why, I wonder, don't we use the same common sense when trying

to change people that we use when trying to change dogs? Why

don't we use meat instead of a whip? Why don't we use praise

instead of condemnation? Let us praise even the slightest

improvement. That inspires the other person to keep on improving.

In his book I Ain't Much, Baby-But I'm All I Got, the psychologist Jess

Lair comments: "Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we

cannot flower and grow without it. And yet, while most of us are only

too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are

somehow reluctant to give our fellow the warm sunshine of praise."

(*)

----

[*] Jess Lair, I Ain't Much, Baby - But I'm All I Got (Greenwich,

Conn.: Fawcett, 1976), p.248.

----

I can look back at my own life and see where a few words of praise

have sharply changed my entire future. Can't you say the same thing

about your life? History is replete with striking illustrations of the

sheer witchery raise.

For example, many years ago a boy of ten was working in a factory

in Naples, He longed to be a singer, but his first teacher discouraged

him. "You can't sing," he said. "You haven't any voice at all. It

sounds like the wind in the shutters."

But his mother, a poor peasant woman, put her arms about him and

praised him and told him she knew he could sing, she could already

see an improvement, and she went barefoot in order to save money

to pay for his music lessons. That peasant mother's praise and

encouragement changed that boy's life. His name was Enrico Caruso,

and he became the greatest and most famous opera singer of his

age.

In the early nineteenth century, a young man in London aspired to

be a writer. But everything seemed to be against him. He had never

been able to attend school more than four years. His father had been

flung in jail because he couldn't pay his debts, and this young man

often knew the pangs of hunger. Finally, he got a job pasting labels

on bottles of blacking in a rat-infested warehouse, and he slept at

night in a dismal attic room with two other boys - guttersnipes from

the slums of London. He had so little confidence in his ability to write

that he sneaked out and mailed his first manuscript in the dead of

night so nobody would laugh at him. Story after story was refused.

Finally the great day came when one was accepted. True, he wasn't

paid a shilling for it, but one editor had praised him. One editor had

given him recognition. He was so thrilled that he wandered aimlessly

around the streets with tears rolling down his cheeks.

The praise, the recognition, that he received through getting one

story in print, changed his whole life, for if it hadn't been for that

encouragement, he might have spent his entire life working in ratinfested

factories. You may have heard of that boy. His name was

Charles Dickens.

Another boy in London made his living as a clerk in a dry-goods

store. He had to get up at five o'clock, sweep out the store, and

slave for fourteen hours a day. It was sheer drudgery and he

despised it. After two years, he could stand it no longer, so he got up

one morning and, without waiting for breakfast, tramped fifteen

miles to talk to his mother, who was working as a housekeeper.

He was frantic. He pleaded with her. He wept. He swore he would

kill himself if he had to remain in the shop any longer. Then he wrote

a long, pathetic letter to his old schoolmaster, declaring that he was

heartbroken, that he no longer wanted to live. His old schoolmaster

gave him a little praise and assured him that he really was very

intelligent and fitted for finer things and offered him a job as a

teacher.

That praise changed the future of that boy and made a lasting

impression on the history of English literature. For that boy went on

to write innumerable best-selling books and made over a million

dollars with his pen. You've probably heard of him. His name: H. G.

Wells.

Use of praise instead of criticism is the basic concept of B.F.

Skinner's teachings. This great contemporary psychologist has shown

by experiments with animals and with humans that when criticism is

minimized and praise emphasized, the good things people do will be

reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention.

John Ringelspaugh of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, used this in

dealing with his children. It seemed that, as in so many families,

mother and dad's chief form of communication with the children was

yelling at them. And, as in so many cases, the children became a

little worse rather than better after each such session - and so did

the parents. There seemed to be no end in sight for this problem.

Mr. Ringelspaugh determined to use some of the principles he was

learning in our course to solve this situation. He reported: "We

decided to try praise instead of harping on their faults. It wasn't easy

when all we could see were the negative things they were doing; it

was really tough to find things to praise. We managed to find

something, and within the first day or two some of the really

upsetting things they were doing quit happening. Then some of their

other faults began to disappear. They began capitalizing on the

praise we were giving them. They even began going out of their way

to do things right. Neither of us could believe it. Of course, it didn't

last forever, but the norm reached after things leveled off was so

much better. It was no longer necessary to react the way we used

to. The children were doing far more right things than wrong ones."

All of this was a result of praising the slightest improvement in the

children rather than condemning everything they did wrong.

This works on the job too. Keith Roper of Woodland Hills, California,

applied this principle to a situation in his company. Some material

came to him in his print shop which was of exceptionally high

quality. The printer who had done this job was a new employee who

had been having difficulty adjusting to the job. His supervisor was

upset about what he considered a negative attitude and was

seriously thinking of terminating his services.

When Mr. Roper was informed of this situation, he personally went

over to the print shop and had a talk with the young man. He told

him how pleased he was with the work he had just received and

pointed out it was the best work he had seen produced in that shop

for some time. He pointed out exactly why it was superior and how

important the young man's contribution was to the company,

Do you think this affected that young printer's attitude toward the

company? Within days there was a complete turnabout. He told

several of his co-workers about the conversation and how someone

in the company really appreciated good work. And from that day on,

he was a loyal and dedicated worker.

What Mr. Roper did was not just flatter the young printer and say

"You're good." He specifically pointed out how his work was superior.

Because he had singled out a specific accomplishment, rather than

just making general flattering remarks, his praise became much

more meaningful to the person to whom it was given. Everybody

likes to be praised, but when praise is specific, it comes across as

sincere - not something the other person may be saying just to make

one feel good.

Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do

almost anything to get it. But nobody wants insincerity. Nobody

wants flattery.

Let me repeat: The principles taught in this book will work only when

they come from the heart. I am not advocating a bag of tricks. I am

talking about a new way of life.

Talk about changing people. If you and I will inspire the people with

whom we come in contact to a realization of the hidden treasures

they possess, we can do far more than change people. We can

literally transform them.

Exaggeration? Then listen to these sage words from William James,

one of the most distinguished psychologists and philosophers

America has ever produced:

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.

Yes, you who are reading these lines possess powers of various sorts

which you habitually fail to use; and one of these powers you are

probably not using to the fullest extent is your magic ability to praise

people and inspire them with a realization of their latent possibilities.

Abilities wither under criticism; they blossom under encouragement.

To become a more effective leader of people, apply ...

• Principle 6 - Praise the slightest improvement and praise every

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

praise."

~~~~~~~

7 - Give A Dog A Good Name

What do you do when a person who has been a good worker begins

to turn in shoddy work? You can fire him or her, but that really

doesn't solve anything. You can berate the worker, but this usually

causes resentment. Henry Henke, a service manager for a large

truck dealership in Lowell, Indiana, had a mechanic whose work had

become less than satisfactory. Instead of bawling him out or

threatening him, Mr. Henke called him into his office and had a

heart-to-heart talk with him.

"Bill," he said, "you are a fine mechanic. You have been in this line of

work for a good number of years. You have repaired many vehicles

to the customers' satisfaction. In fact, we've had a number of

compliments about the good work you have done. Yet, of late, the

time you take to complete each job has been increasing and your

work has not been up to your own old standards. Because you have

been such an outstanding mechanic in the past, I felt sure you would

want to know that I am not happy with this situation, and perhaps

jointly we could find some way to correct the problem."

Bill responded that he hadn't realized he had been falling down in his

duties and assured his boss that the work he was getting was not

out of his range of expertise and he would try to improve in the

future.

Did he do it? You can be sure he did. He once again became a fast

and thorough mechanic. With that reputation Mr. Henke had given

him to live up to, how could he do anything else but turn out work

comparable to that which he had done in the past.

"The average person," said Samuel Vauclain, then president of the

Baldwin Locomotive Works, "can be led readily if you have his or her

respect and if you show that you respect that person for some kind

of ability."

In short, if you want to improve a person in a certain spect, act as

though that particular trait were already one of his or her

outstanding characteristics. Shakespeare said "Assume a virtue, if

you have it not." And it might be well to assume and state openly

that other people have the virtue you want them to develop. Give

them a fine reputation to live up to, and they will make prodigious

efforts rather than see you disillusioned.

Georgette Leblanc, in her book Souvenirs, My Life with Maeterlinck,

describes the startling transformation of a humble Belgian Cinderella.

"A servant girl from a neighboring hotel brought my meals," she

wrote. "She was called 'Marie the Dish washer' because she had

started her career as a scullery assistant. She was a kind of monster,

cross-eyed, bandylegged, poor in flesh and spirit.

"One day, while she was holding my plate of macaroni in her red

hand, I said to her point-blank, 'Marie, you do not know what

treasures are within you.'

"Accustomed to holding back her emotion, Marie waited a few

moments, not daring to risk the slightest gesture for fear of a

castastrophe. Then she put the dish on the table, sighed and said

ingenuously, 'Madame, I would never have believed it.' She did not

doubt, she did not ask a question. She simply went back to the

kitchen and repeated what I had said, and such is the force of faith

that no one made fun of her. From that day on, she was even given

a certain consideration. But the most curious change of all occurred

in the humble Marie herself. Believing she was the tabernacle of

unseen marvels, she began taking care of her face and body so

carefully that her starved youth seemed to bloom and modestly hide

her plainness.

"Two months later, she announced her coming marriage with the

nephew of the chef. 'I'm going to be a lady,' she said, and thanked

me. A small phrase had changed her entire life."

Georgette Leblanc had given "Marie the Dishwasher" a reputation to

live up to - and that reputation had transformed her.

Bill Parker, a sales representative for a food company in Daytona

Beach, Florida, was very excited about the new line of products his

company was introducing and was upset when the manager of a

large independent food market turned down the opportunity to carry

it in his store. Bill brooded all day over this rejection and decided to

return to the store before he went home that evening and try again.

"Jack," he said, "since I left this morning I realized I hadn't given you

the entire picture of our new line, and I would appreciate some of

your time to tell you about the points I omitted. I have respected the

fact that you are always willing to listen and are big enough to

change your mind when the facts warrant a change."

Could Jack refuse to give him another hearing? Not with that

reputation to live up to.

One morning Dr. Martin Fitzhugh, a dentist in Dublin, Ireland, was

shocked when one of his patients pointed out to him that the metal

cup holder which she was using to rinse her mouth was not very

clean. True, the patient drank from the paper cup, not the holder,

but it certainly was not professional to use tarnished equipment.

When the patient left, Dr. Fitzhugh retreated to his private office to

write a note to Bridgit, the charwoman, who came twice a week to

clean his office. He wrote:

My dear Bridgit,

I see you so seldom, I thought I'd take the time to thank you for the

fine job of cleaning you've been doing. By the way, I thought I'd

mention that since two hours, twice a week, is a very limited amount

of time, please feel free to work an extra half hour from time to time

if you feel you need to do those "once-in-a-while" things like

polishing the cup holders and the like. I, of course, will pay you for

the extra time.

"The next day, when I walked into my office," Dr. Fitzhugh reported,

"My desk had been polished to a mirror-like finish, as had my chair,

which I nearly slid out of. When I went into the treatment room I

found the shiniest, cleanest chrome-plated cup holder I had ever

seen nestled in its receptacle. I had given my char-woman a fine

reputation to live up to, and because of this small gesture she

outperformed all her past efforts. How much additional time did she

spend on this? That's right-none at all ."

There is an old saying: "Give a dog a bad name and you may as well

hang him." But give him a good name - and see what happens!

When Mrs. Ruth Hopkins, a fourth-grade teacher in Brooklyn, New

York, looked at her class roster the first day of school, her

excitement and joy of starting a new term was tinged with anxiety.

In her class this year she would have Tommy T., the school's most

notorious "bad boy." His third-grade teacher had constantly

complained about Tommy to colleagues, the principal and anyone

else who would listen. He was not just mischievous; he caused

serious discipline problems in the class, picked fights with the boys,

teased the girls, was fresh to the teacher, and seemed to get worse

as he grew older. His only redeeming feature was his ability to learn

rapidly and master the-school work easily.

Mrs. Hopkins decided to face the "Tommy problem" immediately.

When she greeted her new students, she made little comments to

each of them: "Rose, that's a pretty dress you are wearing," "Alicia, I

hear you draw beautifully." When she came to Tommy, she looked

him straight in the eyes and said, "Tommy, I understand you are a

natural leader. I'm going to depend on you to help me make this

class the best class in the fourth grade this year." She reinforced this

over the first few days by complimenting Tommy on everything he

did and commenting on how this showed what a good student he

was. With that reputation to live up to, even a nine-year-old couldn't

let her down - and he didn't.

If you want to excel in that difficult leadership role of changing the

attitude or behavior of others, use ...

• Principle 7 - Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

~~~~~~~

8 - Make The Fault Seem Easy To Correct

A bachelor friend of mine, about forty years old, became engaged,

and his fianc

"The Lord knows I needed dancing lessons," he confessed as he told

me the story, "for I danced just as I did when I first started twenty

years ago. The first teacher I engaged probably told me the truth.

She said I was all wrong; I would just have to forget everything and

begin all over again. But that took the heart out of me. I had no

incentive to go on. So I quit her.

"The next teacher may have been lying, but I liked it. She said

nonchalantly that my dancing was a bit old-fashioned perhaps, but

the fundamentals were all right, and she assured me I wouldn't have

any trouble learning a few new steps. The first teacher had

discouraged me by emphasizing my mistakes. This new teacher did

the opposite. She kept praising the things I did right and minimizing

my errors. 'You have a natural sense of rhythm,' she assured me.

'You really are a natural-born dancer.' Now my common sense tells

me that I always have been and always will be a fourth-rate dancer;

yet, deep in my heart, I still like to think that maybe she meant it. To

be sure, I was paying her to say it; but why bring that up?

"At any rate, I know I am a better dancer than I would have been if

she hadn't told me I had a natural sense of rhythm. That encouraged

me. That gave me hope. That made me want to improve."

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. But use the opposite technique - be liberal with your

encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other

person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an

undeveloped flair for it - and he will practice until the dawn comes in

the window in order to excel.

Lowell Thomas, a superb artist in human relations, used this

technique, He gave you confidence, inspired you with courage and

faith. For example, I spent a weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas;

and on Saturday night, I was asked to sit in on a friendly bridge

game before a roaring fire. Bridge? Oh, no! No! No! Not me. I knew

nothing about it. The game had always been a black mystery to me,

No! No! Impossible!

"Why, Dale, it is no trick at all," Lowell replied. "There is nothing to

bridge except memory and judgment. You've written articles on

memory. Bridge will be a cinch for you. It's right up your alley."

And presto, almost before I realized what I was doing, I found

myself for the first time at a bridge table. All because I was told I

had a natural flair for it and the game was made to seem easy.

Speaking of bridge reminds me of Ely Culbertson, whose books on

bridge have been translated into a dozen languages and have sold

more than a million copies. Yet he told me he never would have

made a profession out of the game if a certain young woman hadn't

assured him he had a flair for it.

When he came to America in 1922, he tried to get a job teaching in

philosophy and sociology, but he couldn't. Then he tried selling coal,

and he failed at that

Then he tried selling coffee, and he failed at that, too.

He had played some bridge, but it had never occurred to him in

those days that someday he would teach it. He was not only a poor

card player, but he was also very stubborn. He asked so many

questions and held so many post-mortem examinations that no one

wanted to play with him.

Then he met a pretty bridge teacher, Josephine Dillon, fell in love

and married her. She noticed how carefully he analyzed his cards

and persuaded him that he was a potential genius at the card table.

It was that encouragement and that alone, Culbertson told me, that

caused him to make a profession of bridge.

Clarence M. Jones, one of the instructors of our course in Cincinnati,

Ohio, told how encouragement and making faults seem easy to

correct completely changed the life of his son.

"In 1970 my son David, who was then fifteen years old, came to live

with me in Cincinnati. He had led a rough life. In 1958 his head was

cut open in a car accident, leaving a very bad scar on his forehead.

In 1960 his mother and I were divorced and he moved to Dallas,

Texas, with his mother. Until he was fifteen he had spent most of his

school years in special classes for slow learners in the Dallas school

system. Possibly because of the scar, school administrators had

decided he was brain-injured and could not function at a normal

level. He was two years behind his age group, so he was only in the

seventh grade. Yet he did not know his multiplication tables, added

on his fingers and could barely read.

"There was one positive point. He loved to work on radio and TV

sets. He wanted to become a TV technician. I encouraged this and

pointed out that he needed math to qualify for the training. I decided

to help him become proficient in this subject. We obtained four sets

of flash cards: multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. As

we went through the cards, we put the correct answers in a discard

stack. When David missed one, I gave him the correct answer and

then put the card in the repeat stack until there were no cards left. I

made a big deal out of each card he got right, particularly if he had

missed it previously. Each night we would go through the repeat

stack until there were no cards left.

Each night we timed the exercise with a stop watch. I promised him

that when he could get all the cards correct in eight minutes with no

incorrect answers, we would quit doing it every night. This seemed

an impossible goal to David. The first night it took 52 minutes, the

second night, 48, then 45, 44, 41 then under 40 minutes. We

celebrated each reduction. I'd call in my wife, and we would both

hug him and we'd all dance a jig. At the end of the month he was

doing all the cards perfectly in less than eight minutes. When he

made a small improvement he would ask to do it again. He had

made the fantastic discovery that learning was easy and fun.

"Naturally his grades in algebra took a jump. It is amazing how much

easier algebra is when you can multiply. He astonished himself by

bringing home a B in math. That had never happened before. Other

changes came with almost unbelievable rapidity. His reading

improved rapidly, and he began to use his natural talents in drawing.

Later in the school year his science teacher assigned him to develop

an exhibit. He chose to develop a highly complex series of models to

demonstrate the effect of levers. It required skill not only in drawing

and model making but in applied mathematics. The exhibit took first

prize in his school's science fair and was entered in the city

competition and won third prize for the entire city of Cincinnati.

"That did it. Here was a kid who had flunked two grades, who had

been told he was 'brain-damaged,' who had been called

'Frankenstein' by his classmates and told his brains must have leaked

out of the cut on his head. Suddenly he discovered he could really

learn and accomplish things. The result? From the last quarter of the

eighth grade all the way through high school, he never failed to

make the honor roll; in high school he was elected to the national

honor society. Once he found learning was easy, his whole life

changed."

If you want to help others to improve, remember ...

• Principle 8 - Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to

correct.

~~~~~~~

9 - 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-aperson-

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 na

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.

---------------------------

Part 5 - Letters That Produced Miraculous Results

I'll Bet I know what you are thinking now. You are probably saying to

yourself something like this: " 'Letters that produced miraculous

results!' Absurd! Smacks of patent-medicine advertising!"

It you are thinking that, I don't blame you. I would probably have

thought that myself if I had picked up a book like this fifteen years

ago. Sceptical? Well, I like sceptical people. I spent the first twenty

years of my life in Missouri—and I like people who have to be shown.

Almost all the progress ever made in human thought has been made

by the Doubting Thomases, the questioners, the challengers, the

show-me crowd.

Let's be honest. Is the title, "Letters That Produced Miraculous

Results," accurate? No, to be frank with you, it isn't. The truth is, it is

a deliberate understatement of fact. Some of the letters reproduced

in this chapter harvested results that were rated twice as good as

miracles. Rated by whom? By Ken R. Dyke, one of the best-known

sales promotion men in America, formerly sales promotion manager

for Johns-Manville, and now advertising manager for Colgate-

Palmolive Peet Company and Chairman of the Board of the

Association of National Advertisers.

Mr Dykes says that letters he used to send out, asking for

information from dealers, seldom brought more than a return of 5 to

8 per cent. He said he would have regarded a 15 per cent response

as most extraordinary, and told me that, if his replies had ever

soared to 20 per cent, he would have regarded it as nothing short of

a miracle.

But one of Mr Dyke's letters, printed in this chapter, brought 42 1/2

per cent; in other words, that letter was twice as good as a miracle.

You can't laugh that off. And this letter wasn't a sport, a fluke, an

accident. Similar results were obtained from scores of other letters.

How did he do it? Here is the explanation in Ken Dyke's own words:

"This astonishing increase in the effectiveness of letters occurred

immediately after I attended Mr Carnegie's course in 'Effective

Speaking and Human Relations.' I saw that the approach I had

formerly used was all wrong. I tried to apply the principles taught in

this book—and they resulted in an increase of from 500 to 800 per

cent in the effectiveness of my letters asking for information."

Here is the letter. It pleases the other man by asking him to do the

writer a small favour—a favour that makes him feel important. My

own comments on the letter appear in parentheses. Mr John Blank,

Blankville, Indiana. Dear Mr Blank:

I wonder if you would mind helping me out of a little difficulty?

(Let's get the picture clear. Imagine a lumber dealer in Indiana

receiving a letter from an executive of the Johns-Manville Company;

and in the first line of the letter, this high-priced executive in New

York asks the other fellow to help him out of a difficulty. I can

imagine the dealer in Indiana saying to himself something like this:

"Well, if this chap in New York is in trouble, he has certainly come to

the right person. I always try to be generous and help people. Let's

see what's wrong with him!")

Last year, I succeeded in convincing our company that what our

dealers needed most to help increase their re-roofing sales was a

year 'round direct-mail campaign paid for entirely by Johns-Manville.

(The dealer out in Indiana probably says, "Naturally, they ought to

pay for it. They're hogging most of the profit as it is. They're making

millions while I'm having hard scratchin' to pay the rent. ... Now

what is this fellow in trouble about?")

Recently I mailed a questionnaire to the 1,600 dealers who had used

the plan and certainly was very much pleased with the hundreds of

replies which showed that they appreciated this form of co-operation

and found it most helpful.

On the strength of this, we have just released our new direct-mail

plan which I know you'll like still better.

But this morning our president discussed with me my report of last

year's plan and, as presidents will, asked me how much business I

could trace to it. Naturally, I must come to you to help me answer

him.

(That's a good phrase: "I must come to you to help me answer him."

The big shot in New York is telling the truth, and he is giving the

Johns-Manville dealer in Indiana honest, sincere recognition. Note

that Ken Dyke doesn't waste any time talking about how important

his company is. Instead, he immediately shows the other fellow how

much he has to lean on him. Ken Dyke admits that he can't even

make a report to the president of Johns-Manville without the dealer's

help. Naturally, the dealer out in Indiana, being human, likes that

kind of talk.)

What I'd like you to do is (1) to tell me, on the enclosed postcard,

how many roofing and re-roofing jobs you feel last year's direct-mail

plan helped you secure, and (2) give me, as nearly as you can, their

total estimated value in dollars and cents (based on the total cost of

the jobs applied).

If you'll do this, I'll surely appreciate it and thank you for your

kindness in giving me this information.

Sincerely, KEN R. DYKE, Sales Promotion Manager

(Note how, in the last paragraph, he whispers "I" and shouts "You."

Note how generous he is in his praise: "Surely appreciate," "thank

you," "your kindness.")

Simple letter, isn't it? But it produced "miracles" by asking the other

person to do a small favour—the performing of which gave him a

feeling of importance.

That psychology will work, regardless of whether you are selling

asbestos roofs or touring Europe in a Ford.

To illustrate. Homer Croy and I once lost our way while motoring

through the interior of France. Halting our old Model T, we asked a

group of peasants how we could get to the next big town.

The effect of the question was electrical. These peasants, wearing

wooden shoes, regarded all Americans as rich. And automobiles were

rare in those regions, extremely rare. Americans touring through

France in a car! Surely we must be millionaires. Maybe cousins of

Henry Ford. But they knew something we didn't know. We had more

money than they had; but we had to come to them hat in hand to

find out how to get to the next town. And that gave them a feeling

of importance. They all started talking at once. One chap, thrilled at

this rare opportunity, commanded the others to keep quiet. He

wanted to enjoy all alone the thrill of directing us.

Try this yourself. The next time you are in a strange city, stop

someone who is below you in the economic and social scale and say:

"I wonder if you would mind helping me out of a little difficulty.

Won't you please tell me how to get to such and such a place?"

Benjamin Franklin used this technique to turn a caustic enemy into a

lifelong friend. Franklin, a young man at the time, had all his savings

invested in a small printing business. He managed to get himself

elected clerk of the General Assembly in Philadelphia. That position

gave him the job of doing the official printing. There was good profit

in this job, and Ben was eager to keep it. But a menace loomed

ahead. One of the richest and ablest men in the Assembly disliked

Franklin bitterly. He not only disliked Franklin, but he denounced him

in a public talk.

That was dangerous, very dangerous. So Franklin resolved to make

the man like him. But how? That was a problem. By doing a favour

for his enemy? No, that would have aroused his suspicions, maybe

his contempt. Franklin was too wise, too adroit to be caught in such

a trap. So he did the very opposite. He asked his enemy to do him a

favour.

Franklin didn't ask for a loan of ten dollars. No! No! Franklin asked a

favour that pleased the other man—a favour that touched his vanity,

a favour that gave him recognition, a favour that subtly expressed

Franklin's admiration for his knowledge and achievements. Here is

the balance of the story in Franklin's own words:

Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and

curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of

perusing that book and requesting that he would do me the favour of

lending it to me for a few days.

He sent it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with

another note expressing strongly my sense of the favour.

When next we met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had

never done before) and with great civility and he ever afterward

manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we

became great friends and our friendship continued to his death.

Ben Franklin has been dead now for a hundred and fifty years, but

the psychology that he used, the psychology of asking the other man

to do you a favour, goes marching right on.

For example, it was used with remarkable success by one of my

students, Albert B. Amsel. For years, Mr Amsel, a salesman of

plumbing and heating materials, had been trying to get the trade of

a certain plumber in Brooklyn. This plumber's business was

exceptionally large and his credit unusually good. But Amsel was

licked from the beginning. The plumber was one of those

disconcerting individuals who pride themselves on being rough,

tough, and nasty. Sitting behind his desk with a big cigar tilted in the

corner of his mouth, he snarled at Amsel every time he opened the

door, "Don't need a thing today! Don't waste my time and yours!

Keep moving!"

Then one day Mr Amsel tried a new technique, a technique that split

the account wide open, made a friend, and brought many fine

orders. Amsel's firm was negotiating for the purchase of a new

branch store in Queens Village on Long Island. It was a

neighbourhood the plumber knew well, and one where he did a great

deal of business. So this time, when Mr Amsel called, he said: "Mr

C——, I'm not here to sell you anything today. I've got to ask you to

do me a favour, if you will. Can you spare me just a minute of your

time?"

"H'm—well," said the plumber, shifting his cigar. "What's on your

mind? Shoot."

"My firm is thinking of. opening up a branch store over in Queens

Village," Mr Amsel said. "Now, you know that locality as well as

anyone living. So I've come to you to ask what you think about it. Is

it a wise move—or not?"

Here was a new situation! For years this plumber had been getting

his feeling of importance out of snarling at salesmen and ordering

them to keep moving. But here was a salesman begging him for

advice; yes, a salesman from a big concern wanting his opinion as to

what they should do.

"Sit down," he said, pulling forward a chair. And for the next hour,

he expatiated on the peculiar advantages and virtues of the

plumbing market in Queens Village. He not only approved the

location of the store, but he focused his intellect on outlining a

complete course of action for the purchase of the property, the

stocking of supplies, and the opening of trade. He got a feeling of

importance by telling a wholesale plumbing concern how to run its

business. From there, he expanded into personal grounds. He

became friendly, and told Mr Amsel of his intimate domestic

difficulties and household wars.

"By the time I left that evening," Mr Amsel says, "I not only had in

my pocket a large initial order for equipment, but I had laid the

foundations of a solid business friendship. I am playing golf now with

this chap who formerly barked and snarled at me. This change in his

attitude was brought about by my asking him to do me a little favour

that made him feel important."

Let's examine another of Ken Dyke's letters, and again note how

skilfully he applies this "do-me-a-favour" psychology.

A few years ago, Mr Dyke was distressed at his inability to get

business men, contractors, and architects to answer his letters

asking for information.

In those days, he seldom got more than 1 per cent return from his

letters to architects and engineers. He would have regarded 2 per

cent as very good, and 3 per cent as excellent. And 10 per cent?

Why, 10 per cent would have been hailed as a miracle. But the letter

that follows pulled almost 50 per cent. ... Five times as good as a

miracle. And what replies! Letters of two and three pages! Letters

glowing with friendly advice and co-operation.

Here is the letter. You will observe that in the psychology used—

even in the phraseology in some places—the letter is almost identical

with that quoted on pages 188-89. As you peruse this letter, read

between the lines, try to analyze the feeling of the man who got it.

Find out why it produced results five times as good as a miracle.

Johns-Manville

22 EAST 40th STREET

NEW YORK CITY

Mr John Doe,

617 Doe Street,

Doeville, N.J.

Dear Mr Doe:

I wonder if you'll help me out of a little difficulty?

About a year ago I persuaded our company that one of the things

architects most needed was a catalogue which would give them the

whole story of all J-M building materials and their part in repairing

and remodelling homes.

The attached catalogue resulted—the first of its kind. But now our

stock is getting low, and when I mentioned it to our president he

said (as presidents will) that he would have no objection to another

edition provided / furnished satisfactory evidence that the catalogue

had done the job for which it was designed.

Naturally, I must come to you for help, and 7 am therefore taking

the liberty of asking you and forty-nine other architects in various

parts of the country to be the jury.

To make it quite easy for you, I have written a few simple questions

on the back of this letter. And I'll certainly regard it as a personal

favour if you'll check the answers, add any comments that you may

wish to make, and then slip this letter into the enclosed stamped

envelope.

Needless to say, this won't obligate you in any way, and I now leave

it to you to say whether the catalogue shall be discontinued or

reprinted with improvements based on your experience and advice.

In any event, rest assured that I shall appreciate your co-operation

very much. Thank you!

Sincerely yours, KEN R. DYKE, Sales Promotion Manager.

Another word of warning. I know from experience that some men,

reading this letter, will try to use the same psychology mechanically.

They will try to boost the other man's ego, not through genuine, real

appreciation, but through flattery and insincerity. And their technique

won't work.

Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do

almost anything to get it. But nobody wants insincerity. Nobody

wants flattery.

Let me repeat: the principles taught in this book will work only when

they come from the heart. I am not advocating a bag of tricks. I am

talking about a new way of life.

-------------------------------

Part VI: Seven Rules for Making Your Home Life Happier

1 - How To Dig Your Marital Grave In The Quickest Possible Way

Seventy-Five years ago, Napoleon III of France, nephew of Napoleon

Bonaparte, fell in love with Marie Eugenic Ignace Augustine de

Montijo, Countess of Teba, the most beautiful woman in the world—

and married her. His advisors pointed out that she was only the

daughter of an insignificant Spanish count. But Napoleon retorted:

"What of it?" Her grace, her youth, her charm, her beauty filled him

with divine felicity. In a speech hurled from the throne, he defied an

entire nation: "I have preferred a woman I love and respect," he

proclaimed, "to a woman unknown to me."

Napoleon and his bride had health, wealth, power, fame, beauty,

love, adoration—all the requirements for a perfect romance. Never

did the sacred fire of marriage glow with a brighter incandescence.

But, alas, the holy flame soon flickered and the incandescence

cooled—and turned to embers. Napoleon could make Eugenic an

empress; but nothing in all la belle France, neither the power of his

love nor the might of his throne, could keep her from nagging.

Bedeviled by jealousy, devoured by suspicion, she flouted his orders,

she denied him even a show of privacy. She broke into his office

while he was engaged in affairs of state. She interrupted his most

important discussions. She refused to leave him alone, always

fearing that he might be consorting with another woman.

Often she ran to her sister, complaining of her husband,

complaining, weeping, nagging, and threatening. Forcing her way

into his study, she stormed at him and abused him. Napoleon,

master of a dozen sumptuous palaces, Emperor of France, could not

find a cupboard in which he could call his soul his own.

And what did Eugenic accomplish by all this? Here is the answer. I

am quoting now from E.A. Rheinhardt's engrossing book, Napoleon

and Eugenic: The Tragicomedy of an Empire: "So it came about that

Napoleon frequently would steal out by a little side door at night,

with a soft hat pulled over his eyes, and, accompanied by one of his

intimates, really betake himself to some fair lady who was expecting

him, or else stroll about the great city as of old, passing through

streets of the kind which an Emperor hardly sees outside a fairy tale,

and breathing the atmosphere of might-have-beens."

That is what nagging accomplished for Eugenic. True, she sat on the

throne of France. True, she was the most beautiful woman in the

world. But neither royalty nor beauty can keep love alive amidst the

poisonous fumes of nagging. Eugenic could have raised her voice like

Job of old and have wailed: "The thing which I greatly feared is

come upon me." Come upon her? She brought it upon herself, poor

woman, by her jealousy and her nagging. Of all the sure-fire, infernal

devices ever invented by all the devils in hell for destroying love,

nagging is the deadliest. It never fails. Like the bite of the king

cobra, it always destroys, always kills.

The wife of Count Leo Tolstoi discovered that—after it was too late.

Before she passed away, she confessed to her daughters: "I was the

cause of your father's death." Her daughters didn't reply. They were

both crying. They knew their mother was telling the truth. They

knew she had killed him with her constant complaining, her eternal

criticisms, and her eternal nagging. Yet Count Tolstoi and his wife

ought, by all odds, to have been happy. He was one of the most

famous novelists of all time. Two of his masterpieces, War and Peace

and Anna Karenina will forever shine brightly among the literary

glories of earth.

Tolstoi was so famous that his admirers followed him around day

and night and took down in shorthand every word he uttered. Even if

he merely said, "I guess I'll go to bed"; even trivial words like that,

everything was written down; and now the Russian Government is

printing every sentence that he ever wrote; and his combined

writings will fill one hundred volumes.

In addition to fame, Tolstoi and his wife had wealth, social position,

children. No marriage ever blossomed under softer skies. In the

beginning, their happiness seemed too perfect, too intense, to

endure. So kneeling together, they prayed to Almighty God to

continue the ecstasy that was theirs. Then an astonishing thing

happened. Tolstoi gradually changed. He became a totally different

person. He became ashamed of the great books that he had written,

and from that time on he devoted his life to writing pamphlets

preaching peace and the abolition of war and poverty.

This man who had once confessed that in his youth he had

committed every sin imaginable—even murder—tried to follow

literally the teachings of Jesus. He gave all his lands away and lived a

life of poverty. He worked in the fields, chopping wood and pitching

hay. He made his own shoes, swept his own room, ate out of a

wooden bowl, and tried to love his enemies.

Leo Tolstoi's life was a tragedy, and the cause of his tragedy was his

marriage. His wife loved luxury, but he despised it. She craved fame

and the plaudits of society, but these frivolous things meant nothing

whatever to him. She longed for money and riches, but he believed

that wealth and private property were a sin. For years, she nagged

and scolded and screamed because he insisted on giving away the

right to publish his books freely without paying him any royalties

whatever. She wanted the money those books would produce. When

he opposed her, she threw herself into fits of hysteria, rolling on the

floor with a bottle of opium at her lips, swearing that she was going

to kill herself and threatening to jump down the well.

There is one event in their lives that to me is one of the most

pathetic scenes in history. As I have already, said, they were

gloriously happy when they were first married; but now, forty-eight

years later, he could hardly bear the sight of her. Sometimes of an

evening, this old and heartbroken wife, starving for affection, came

and knelt at his knees and begged him to read aloud to her the

exquisite love passages that he had written about her in his diary

fifty years previously. And as he read of those beautiful, happy days

that were now gone forever, both of them wept. How different, how

sharply different, the realities of life were from the romantic dreams

they had once dreamed in the long ago.

Finally, when he was eighty-two years old, Tolstoi was unable to

endure the tragic unhappiness of his home any longer so he fled

from his wife on a snowy October night in 1910—fled into the cold

and darkness, not knowing where he was going.

Eleven days later, he died of pneumonia in a railway station. And his

dying request was that she should not be permitted to come into his

presence. Such was the price Countess Tolstoi paid for her nagging

and complaining and hysteria.

The reader may feel that she had much to nag about. Granted. But

that is beside the point. The question is: did nagging help her, or did

it make a bad matter infinitely worse? "I really think I was insane."

That is what Countess Tolstoi herself thought about it—after it was

too late.

The great tragedy of Abraham Lincoln's life also was his marriage.

Not his assassination, mind you, but his marriage. When Booth fired,

Lincoln never realized he had been shot; but he reaped almost daily,

for twenty-three years, what Herndon, his law partner, described as

"the bitter harvest of conjugal infelicity." "Conjugal infelicity?" That is

putting it mildly. For almost a quarter of a century, Mrs Lincoln

nagged and harassed the life out of him.

She was always complaining, always criticizing her husband; nothing

about him was ever right. He was stoop-shouldered, he walked

awkwardly and lifted his feet straight up and down like an Indian.

She complained that there was no spring in his step, no grace to his

movement; and she mimicked his gait and nagged at him to walk

with his toes pointed down, as she had been taught at Madame

Mentelle's boarding school in Lexington.

She didn't like the way his huge ears stood out at right angles from

his head. She even told him that his nose wasn't straight, that his

lower lip stuck out, and he looked consumptive, that his feet and

hands were too large, his head too small.

Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were opposites in every

way: in training, in background, in temperament, in tastes, in mental

outlook. They irritated each other constantly.

"Mrs Lincoln's loud, shrill voice," wrote the late Senator Albert J.

Beveridge, the most distinguished Lincoln authority of this

generation—"Mrs Lincoln's loud shrill voice could be heard across the

street, and her incessant outbursts of wrath were audible to all who

lived near the house. Frequently her anger was displayed by other

means than words, and accounts of her violence are numerous and

unimpeachable."

To illustrate: Mr and Mrs Lincoln, shortly after their marriage, lived

with Mrs Jacob Early—a doctor's widow in Springfield who was forced

to take in boarders.

One morning Mr and Mrs Lincoln were having breakfast when Lincoln

did something that aroused the fiery temper of his wife. What, no

one remembers now. But Mrs Lincoln, in a rage, dashed a cup of hot

coffee into her husband's face. And she did it in front of the other

boarders. Saying nothing, Lincoln sat there in humiliation and silence

while Mrs Early came with a wet towel and wiped off his face and

clothes.

Mrs Lincoln's jealousy was so foolish, so fierce, so incredible, that

merely to read about some of the pathetic and disgraceful scenes

she created in public—merely reading about them seventy-five years

later makes one gasp with astonishment. She finally went insane;

and perhaps the most charitable thing one can say about her is that

her disposition was probably always affected by incipient insanity.

Did all this nagging and scolding and raging change Lincoln? In one

way, yes. It certainly changed his attitude toward her. It made him

regret his unfortunate marriage, and it made him avoid her presence

as much as possible.

Springfield had eleven attorneys, and they couldn't all make a living

there; so they used to ride horseback from one county seat to

another, following Judge David Davis while he was holding court in

various places. In that way, they managed to pick up business from

all the county seat towns throughout the Eighth Judicial District.

The other attorneys always managed to get back to Springfield each

Saturday and spend the week-end with their families. But Lincoln

didn't. He dreaded to go home: and for three months in the spring,

and again for three months in the autumn, he remained out on the

circuit and never went near Springfield. He kept this up year after

year. Living conditions in the country hotels were often wretched;

but, wretched as they were, he preferred them to his own home and

Mrs Lincoln's constant nagging and wild outbursts of temper.

Such are the results that Mrs Lincoln, the Empress Eugenic, and

Countess Tolstoi obtained by their nagging. They brought nothing

but tragedy into their lives. They destroyed all that they cherished

most.

Bessie Hamburger, who has spent eleven years in the Domestic

Relations Court in New York City, and has reviewed thousands of

cases of desertion, says that one of the chief reasons men leave

home is because their wives nag. Or, as the Boston Post puts it:

"Many a wife has made her own marital grave with a series of little

digs."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy,

• Rule 1 is: Don't, don't nag!!!

~~~~~~~

2 - Love And Let Live

"I May Commit many follies in life," Disraeli said, "but I never intend

to marry for love." And he didn't. He stayed single until he was

thirty-five, and then he proposed to a rich widow, a widow fifteen

years his senior; a widow whose hair was white with the passing of

fifty winters. Love? Oh, no. She knew he didn't love her. She knew

he was marrying her for her money! So she made just one request:

she asked him to wait a year to give her the opportunity to study his

character. And at the end of that time, she married him.

Sounds pretty prosaic, pretty commercial, doesn't it? Yet

paradoxically enough, Disraeli's marriage was one of the most

glowing successes in all the battered and bespattered annals of

matrimony.

The rich widow that Disraeli chose was neither young, nor beautiful,

nor brilliant. Far from it. Her conversation bubbled with a laughprovoking

display of literary and historical blunders. For example, she

"never knew which came first, the Greeks or the Romans." Her taste

in clothes was bizarre; and her taste in house furnishings was

fantastic. But she was a genius, a positive genius at the most

important thing in marriage: the art of handling men.

She didn't attempt to set up her intellect against Disraeli's. When he

came home bored and exhausted after an afternoon of matching

repartee with witty duchesses, Mary Anne's frivolous patter permitted

him to relax. Home, to his increasing delight, was a place where he

could ease into his mental slippers and bask in the warmth of Mary

Anne's adoration. These hours he spent at home with his ageing wife

were the happiest of his life. She was his helpmate, his confidante,

his advisor. Every night he hurried home from the House of

Commons to tell her the day's news. And—this is important—

whatever he undertook, Mary Anne simply did not believe he could

fail.

For thirty years, Mary Anne lived for Disraeli, and for him alone. Even

her wealth she valued only because it made his life easier. In return,

she was his heroine. He became an Earl after she died; but, even

while he was still a commoner, he persuaded Queen Victoria to

elevate Mary Anne to the peerage. And so, in 1868, she was made

Viscountess Beaconsfield.

No matter how silly or scatterbrained she might appear in public, he

never criticized her; he never uttered a word of reproach; and if

anyone dared to ridicule her, he sprang to her defence with ferocious

loyalty. Mary Anne wasn't perfect, yet for three decades she never

tired of talking" about her husband, praising him, admiring him.

Result? "We have been married thirty years," Disraeli said, "and I

have never been bored by her." (Yet some people thought because

Mary Anne didn't know history, she must be stupid!)

For his part, Disraeli never made it any secret that Mary Anne was

the most important thing in his life. Result? "Thanks to his kindness,"

Mary Anne used to tell their friends, "my life has been simply one

long scene of happiness." Between them, they had a little joke. "You

know," Disraeli would say, "I only married you for your money

anyhow." And Mary Anne, smiling, would reply, "Yes, but if you had

it to do over again, you'd marry me for love, wouldn't you?" And he

admitted it was true. No, Mary Anne wasn't perfect. But Disraeli was

wise enough to let her be herself.

As Henry James put it: "The first thing to learn in. intercourse with

others is noninterference with their own peculiar ways of being

happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence

with ours."

That's important enough to repeat: "The first thing to learn in

intercourse with others is noninterference with their own peculiar

ways of being happy ..."

Or, as Leland Foster Wood in his book, Growing Together in the

Family, has observed: "Success in marriage is much more than a

matter of finding the right person; it is also a matter of being the

right person."

So, if you want your home life to be happy,

• Rule 2 is: Don't try to make your partner over.

~~~~~~~

3 - Do This And You'll Be Looking Up The Time-Tables To Reno

Disraeli's bitterest rival in public life was the great Gladstone. These

two clashed on every debatable subject under the Empire, yet they

had one thing in common; the supreme happiness of their private

lives.

William and Catherine Gladstone lived together for fifty-nine years,

almost three score years glorified with an abiding devotion. I like to

think of Gladstone, the most dignified of England's prime ministers,

clasping his wife's hand and dancing around the hearthrug with her,

singing this song:

A ragamuffin husband and a rantipoling wife,

We'll fiddle it and scrape it

through the ups and downs

of life.

Gladstone, a formidable enemy in public, never criticized at home.

When he came down to breakfast in the morning, only to discover

that the rest of his family was still sleeping, he had a gentle way of

registering his reproach. He raised his voice and filled the house with

a mysterious chant that reminded the other members that England's

busiest man was waiting downstairs for his breakfast, all alone.

Diplomatic, considerate, he rigorously refrained from domestic

criticism.

And so, often, did Catherine the Great. Catherine ruled one of the

largest empires the world has ever known. Over millions of her

subjects she held the power of life and death. Politically, she was

often a cruel tyrant, waging useless wars and sentencing scores of

her enemies to be cut down by firing squads. Yet if the cook burned

the meat, she said nothing. She smiled and ate it with a tolerance

that the average American husband would do well to emulate.

Dorothy Dix, America's premier authority on the causes of marital

unhappiness, declares that more than fifty per cent of all marriages

are failures; and she knows that one of the reasons why so many

romantic dreams break up on the rocks of Reno is criticism—futile,

heartbreaking criticism.

So, if you want to keep your home life happy, remember Rule 3:

Don't criticize.

And if you are tempted to criticize the children . . . you imagine I am

going to say don't. But I am not. I am merely going to say, before

you criticize them, read one of the classics of American journalism,

"Father Forgets." It appeared originally as an editorial in the People's

Home Journal. We are reprinting it here with the author's

permission—reprinting it as it was condensed in the Reader's Digest:

"Father Forgets" is one of those little pieces which— dashed off in a

moment of sincere feeling—strikes an echoing chord in so many

readers as to become a perennial reprint favourite. Since its first

appearance, some fifteen years ago, "Father Forgets" has been

reproduced, writes the author, W. Livingston Larned, "in hundreds of

magazines and house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It

has been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign languages.

I have given personal permission to thousands who wished to read it

from school, church, and lecture platforms. It has been 'on the air'

on countless occasions and programmes. Oddly enough, college

periodicals have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a

little piece seems mysteriously to 'click.' This one certainly did."

Father Forgets

W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw

crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your

damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few

minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave

of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

These are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I

scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your

face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning

your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things

on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down

your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too

thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for

my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Good-bye,

Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your Shoulders

back!"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the

road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were

holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boy friends by

marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—

and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine

that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you

came in, timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I

glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you

hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and

threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small

arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your

heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were

gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my

hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit

been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this

was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love

you; it was that I expected too much of youth. It was measuring you

by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your

character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over

the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush

in and kiss me goodnight. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have

come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there,

ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these

things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow

I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you

suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when

impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is

nothing but a boy—a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now,

son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.

Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her

shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

~~~~~~~

4 - A Quick Way To Make Everybody Happy

"Most Men when seeking wives," says Paul Popenoe, Director of the

Institute of Family Relations in Los Angeles, "are not looking for

executives but for someone with allure and willingness to flatter their

vanity and make them feel superior. Hence the woman office

manager may be invited to luncheon, once. But she quite possibly

dishes out warmed-over remnants of her college courses on 'main

currents in contemporary philosophy,' and may even insist on paying

her own bill. Result: she thereafter lunches alone.

"In contrast, the noncollegiate typist, when invited to luncheon, fixes

an incandescent gaze on her escort and says yearningly, 'Now tell

me some more about yourself.' Result: he tells the other fellows that

'she's no raving beauty, but I have never met a better talker.'"

Men should express their appreciation of a woman's effort to look

well and dress becomingly. All men forget, if they have ever realized

it, how profoundly women are interested in clothes. For example, if a

man and woman meet another man and woman on the street, the

woman seldom looks at the other man; she usually looks to see how

well the other woman is dressed.

My grandmother died a few years ago at the age of ninety-eight.

Shortly before her death, we showed her a photograph of herself

that had been taken a third of a century earlier. Her failing eyes

couldn't see the picture very well, and the only question she asked

was: "What dress did I have on?" Think of it! An old woman in her

last December, bedridden, weary with age as she lay within the

shadow of the century mark, her memory fading so fast that she was

no longer able to recognize even her own daughters, still interested

in knowing what dress she had worn a third of a century before! I

was at her bedside when she asked that question. It left an

impression on me that will never fade.

The men who are reading these lines can't remember what suits or

shirts they wore five years ago, and they haven't the remotest desire

to remember them. But women—they are different, and we

American men ought to recognize it. French boys of the upper class

are trained to express their admiration of a woman's frock and

chapeau, not only once but many times during an evening. And fifty

million Frenchmen can't be wrong!

I have among my clippings a story that I know never happened, but

it illustrates a truth, so I'll repeat it:

According to this silly story, a farm woman, at the end of a heavy

day's work, set before her men folks a heaping pile of hay. And when

they indignantly demanded whether she'd gone crazy, she replied:

"Why, how did I know you'd notice? I've been cooking for you men

for the last twenty years, and in all that time I ain't heard no word to

let me know you wasn't just eating hay!"

The pampered aristocrats of Moscow and St Petersburg used to have

better manners; in the Russia of the Czars, it was the custom of the

upper classes, when they had enjoyed a fine dinner, to insist on

having the cook brought into the dining room to receive their

congratulations.

Why not have as much consideration for your wife? The next time

the fried chicken is done to a tender turn, tell her so. Let her know

that you appreciate the fact that you're not just eating hay. Or, as

Texas Guinan used to say, "Give the little girl a great big hand."

And while you're about it, don't be afraid to let her know how

important she is to your happiness. Disraeli was as great a

statesman as England ever produced; yet, as we've seen, he wasn't

ashamed to let the world know how much he "owed to the little

woman."

Just the other day, while perusing a magazine, I came across this.

It's from an interview with Eddie Cantor.

"I owe more to my wife," says Eddie Cantor, "than to anyone else in

the world. She was my best pal as a boy; she helped me to go

straight. And after we married she saved every dollar, and invested

it, and reinvested it. She built up a fortune for me. We have five

lovely children. And she's made a wonderful home for me always. If

I've gotten anywhere, give her the credit."

Out in Hollywood, where marriage is a risk that even Lloyd's of

London wouldn't take a gamble on, one of the few outstandingly

happy marriages is that of the Warner Baxters. Mrs Baxter, the

former Winifred Bryson, gave up a brilliant stage career when she

married. Yet her sacrifice has never been permitted to mar their

happiness. "She missed the applause of stage success," Warner

Baxter says, "but I have tried to see that she is entirely aware of my

applause. If a woman is to find happiness at all in her husband, she

is to find it in his appreciation, and devotion. If that appreciation and

devotion is actual, there is the answer to his happiness also."

There you are. So, if you want to keep your home life happy, one of

the most important rules is

• Rule 4: Give honest appreciation.

~~~~~~~

5 - They Mean So Much To A Woman

From Time immemorial, flowers have been considered the language

of love. They don't cost much, especially in season, and often they're

for sale on the street corners. Yet, considering the rarity with which

the average husband takes home a bunch of daffodils, you might

suppose them to be as expensive as orchids and as hard to come by

as the edelweiss which flowers on the cloud-swept cliffs of the Alps.

Why wait until your wife goes to the hospital to give her a few

flowers? Why not bring her a few roses tomorrow night? You like to

experiment. Try it. See what happens.

George M. Cohan, busy as he was on Broadway, used to telephone

his mother twice a day up to the time of her death. Do you suppose

he had startling news for her each time? No, the meaning of little

attentions is this: it shows the person you love that you are thinking

of her, that you want to please her, and that her happiness and

welfare are very dear, and very near, to your heart.

Women attach a lot of importance to birthdays and anniversaries—

just why, will forever remain one of those feminine mysteries. The

average man can blunder through life without memorizing many

dates, but there are a few which are indispensable: 1492, 1776, the

date of his wife's birthday, and the year and date of his own

marriage. If need be, he can even get along without the first two—

but not the last!

Judge Joseph Sabbath of Chicago, who has reviewed 40,000 marital

disputes and reconciled 2,000 couples, says: "Trivialities are at the

bottom of most marital unhappiness. Such a simple thing as a wife's

waving good-bye to her husband when he goes to work in the

morning would avert a good many divorces."

Robert Browning, whose life with Elizabeth Barrett Browning was

perhaps the most idyllic on record, was never too busy to keep love

alive with little, tributes and attentions. He treated his invalid wife

with such consideration that she once wrote to her sisters: "And now

I begin to wonder naturally whether I may not be some sort of real

angel after all."

Too many men underestimate the value of these small, everyday

attentions. As Gaynor Maddox said in an article in the Pictorial

Review: "The American home really needs a few new vices.

Breakfast in bed, for instance, is one of those amiable dissipations a

greater number of women should be indulged in. Breakfast in bed to

a woman does much the same thing as a private club for a man."

That's what marriage is in the long run—a series of trivial incidents.

And woe to the couple who overlook that fact. Edna St. Vincent

Millay summed it all up once in one of her concise little rhymes:

" 'Tis not love's going hurts my days, But that it went in little ways."

That's a good verse to memorize. Out in Reno, the courts grant

divorces six days a week, at the rate of one every ten marriages.

How many of these marriages do you suppose were wrecked upon

the reef of real tragedy? Mighty few, I'll warrant. If you could sit

there day in, day out, listening to the testimony of those unhappy

husbands and wives, you'd know love "went in little ways."

Take your pocket knife now and cut out this quotation. Paste it inside

your hat or paste it on the mirror, where you will see it every

morning when you shave:

"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."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy,

• Rule 5 is: Pay little attentions.

~~~~~~~

6 - If You Want To Be Happy, Don't Neglect This One

Walter Damrosch married the daughter of James G. Blaine, one of

America's greatest orators and one-time candidate for President.

Ever since they met many years ago at Andrew Carnegie's home in

Scotland, the Damroschs have led a conspicuously happy life.

The secret?

"Next to care in choosing a partner,". says Mrs Damrosch, "I should

place courtesy after marriage. If young wives would only be as

courteous to their husbands as to strangers! Any man will run from a

shrewish tongue."

Rudeness is the cancer that devours love. Everyone knows this, yet

it's notorious that we are more polite to strangers than we are to our

own relatives. We wouldn't dream of interrupting strangers to say,

"Good heavens, are you going to tell that old story again!" We

wouldn't dream of opening our friends' mail without permission, or

prying into their personal secrets. And it's only the members of our

own family, those who are nearest and dearest to us, that we dare

insult for their trivial faults.

Again to quote Dorothy Dix: "It is an amazing but true thing that

practically the only people who ever say mean, insulting, wounding

things to us are those of our own households."

"Courtesy," says Henry Clay Risner, "is that quality of heart that

overlooks the broken gate and calls attention to the flowers in the

yard beyond the gate." Courtesy is just as important to marriage as

oil is to your motor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the beloved "Autocrat of the Breakfast

Table," was anything but an autocrat in his own home. In fact, he

carried his consideration so far that when he felt melancholy and

depressed, he tried to conceal his blues from the rest of his family. It

was bad enough for him to have to bear them himself, he said,

without inflicting them on the others as well.

That is what Oliver Wendell Holmes did. But what about the average

mortal? Things go wrong at the office; he loses a sale or gets called

on the carpet by the boss. He develops a devastating headache or

misses the five-fifteen; and he can hardly wait till he gets home—to

take it out on the family.

In Holland you leave your shoes outside on the doorstep before you

enter the house. By the Lord Harry, we could learn a lesson from the

Dutch and shed our workaday troubles before we enter our homes.

William James once wrote an essay called "On a Certain Blindness in

Human Beings." It would be worth a special trip to your nearest

library to get that essay and read it. "Now the blindness in human

beings of which this discourse will treat," he wrote, "is the blindness

with which we all are afflicted in regard to the feelings of creatures

and people different from ourselves."

"The blindness with which we all are afflicted." Many men who

wouldn't dream of speaking sharply to a customer, or even to their

partners in business, think nothing of barking at their wives. Yet, for

their personal happiness, marriage is far more important to them, far

more vital, than business.

The average man who is happily married is happier by far than the

genius who lives in solitude. Turgenev, the great Russian novelist,

was acclaimed all over the civilized world. Yet he said: "I would give

up all my genius, and all my books, if there were only some woman,

somewhere, who cared whether or not I came home late for dinner."

What are the chances of happiness in marriage anyway? Dorothy

Dix, as we have already said, believes that more than half of them

are failures; but Dr Paul Popenoe thinks otherwise. He says: "A man

has a better chance of succeeding in marriage than in any other

enterprise he may go into. Of all the men that go into the grocery

business, 70 per cent fail. Of the men and women who enter

matrimony, 70 per cent succeed."

Dorothy Dix sums the whole thing up like this: "Compared with

marriage," she says, "being born is a mere episode in our careers,

and dying a trivial incident.

"No woman can ever understand why a man doesn't put forth the

same effort to make his home a going concern as he does to make

his business or profession a success.

"But, although to have a contented wife and a peaceful and happy

home means more to a man than to make a million dollars, not one

man in a hundred ever gives any real serious thought or makes any

honest effort to make his marriage a success. He leaves the most

important thing in his life to chance, and he wins out or loses,

according to whether fortune is with him or not. Women can never

understand why their husbands refuse to handle them diplomatically,

when it would be money in their pockets to use the velvet glove

instead of the strong-arm method.

"Every man knows that he can jolly his wife into doing anything, and

doing without anything. He knows that if he hands her a few cheap

compliments about what a wonderful manager she is, and how she

helps him, she will squeeze every nickel. Every man knows that if he

tells his wife how beautiful and lovely she looks in her last year's

dress, she wouldn't trade it for the latest Paris importation. Every

man knows that he can kiss his wife's eyes shut until she will be

blind as a bat, and that he has only to give her a warm smack on the

lips to make her dumb as an oyster.

"And every wife knows that her husband knows these things about

her, because she has furnished him with a complete diagram about

how to work her. And she never knows whether to be mad at him or

disgusted with him, because he would rather fight with her and pay

for it in having to eat bad meals, and have his money wasted, and

buy her new frocks and limousines and pearls, than to take the

trouble to flatter her a little and treat her the way she is begging to

be treated."

So, if you want to keep your home life happy.

• Rule 6 is: Be courteous.

~~~~~~~

7 - Don't Be A "Marriage Illiterate"

Dr Katherine Bement Davis, general secretary of the Bureau of Social

Hygiene, once induced a thousand married women to reply very

frankly to a set of intimate questions. The result was shocking—an

incredibly shocking comment upon the sexual unhappiness of the

average American adult. After perusing the answers she received

from these thousand married women, Dr Davis published without

hesitation her conviction that one of the chief causes of divorce in

this country is physical mismating.

Dr G. V. Hamilton's survey verifies this finding. Dr Hamilton spent

four years studying the marriages of one hundred men and one

hundred women. He asked these men and women individually

something like four hundred questions concerning their married lives,

and discussed their problems exhaustively—so exhaustively that the

whole investigation took four years. This work was considered so

important sociologically that it was financed by a group of leading

philanthropists. You can read the results of the experiment in What's

Wrong with Marriage? by Dr G.V. Hamilton and Kenneth Macgowan.

Well, what is wrong with marriage? "It would take a very prejudiced

and very reckless psychiatrist," says Dr Hamilton, "to say that most

married friction doesn't find its source in sexual maladjustment. At

any rate, the frictions which arise from other difficulties would be

ignored in many, many cases if the sexual relation itself were

satisfactory."

Dr Paul Popenoe, as head of the Institute of Family Relations in Los

Angeles, has reviewed thousands of marriages and he is one of

America's foremost authorities on home life. According to Dr

Popenoe, failure in marriage is usually due to four causes. He lists

them in this order:

• 1. Sexual maladjustment.

• 2. Difference of opinion as to the way of spending leisure time.

• 3. Financial difficulties.

• 4. Mental, physical, or emotional abnormalities.

Notice that sex comes first; and that, strangely enough, money

difficulties come only third on the list.

All authorities on divorce agree upon the absolute necessity for

sexual compatibility. For example, a few years ago Judge Hoffman of

the Domestic Relations Court of Cincinnati—a man who has listened

to thousands of domestic tragedies—announced: "Nine out of ten

divorces are caused by sexual troubles."

"Sex," says the famous psychologist, John B. Watson, "is admittedly

the most important subject in life. It is admittedly the thing which

causes the most ship-wrecks in the happiness of men and women."

And I have heard a number of practicing physicians in speeches

before my own classes say practically the same thing. Isn't it pitiful,

then, that in the twentieth century, with all of our books and all of

our education, marriages should be destroyed and lives wrecked by

ignorance concerning this most primal and natural instinct?

The Rev. Oliver M. Butterfield after eighteen years as a Methodist

minister gave up his pulpit to direct the Family Guidance Service in

New York City, and he has probably married as many young people

as any man living. He says:

"Early in my experience as a minister I discovered that, in spite of

romance and good intentions, many couples who come to the

marriage altar are matrimonial illiterates." Matrimonial illiterates!

And he continues: "When you consider that we leave the highly

difficult adjustment of marriage so largely to chance, the marvel is

that our divorce rate is only 16 per cent. An appalling number of

husbands and wives are not really married but simply undivorced:

they live in a sort of purgatory."

"Happy marriages," says Dr Butterfield, "are rarely the product of

chance: they are architectural in that they are intelligently and

deliberately planned."

To assist in this planning, Dr Butterfield has for years insisted that

any couple he marries must discuss with him frankly their plans for

the future. And it was as a result of these discussions that he came

to the conclusion that so many of the high contracting parties were

"matrimonial illiterates."

"Sex," says Dr Butterfield, "is but one of the many satisfactions in

married life, but unless this relationship is right, nothing else can be

right."

But how to get it right? "Sentimental reticence"—I'm still quoting Dr

Butterfield—"must be replaced by an ability to discuss objectively

and with detachment attitudes and practices of married life. There is

no way in which this ability can be better acquired than through a

book of sound learning and good taste. I keep on hand several of

these books in addition to a supply of my own booklet, Marriage and

Sexual Harmony.

"Of all the books that are available, the three that seem to me most

satisfactory for general reading are: The Sex Technique in Marriage

by Isabel E. Hutton; The Sexual Side of Marriage by Max Exner; The

Sex Factor in Marriage by Helena Wright."

So,

• Rule 7 of "How to Make Your Home Life Happier" is: 'Read a good

book on the sexual side of marriage.

Learn about sex from books? Why not? A few years ago, Columbia

University, together with the American Social Hygiene Association,

invited leading educators to come and discuss the sex and marriage

problems of college students. At that conference, Dr Paul Popenoe

said: "Divorce is on the decrease. And one of the reasons it is on the

decrease is that people are reading more of the recognized books on

sex and marriage."

So I sincerely feel that I have no right to complete a chapter on

"How to Make Your Home Life Happier" without recommending a list

of books that deal frankly and in a scientific manner with this tragic

problem.

----

• The Sex Side Of Life, by Mary Ware Dennett. An explanation for

young people. Published by the author, 24-30 29th Street, Long

Island City, New York.

• The Sexual Side Of Marriage, by M.J. Exner, M.D. A sound and

temperate presentation of the sexual problems of marriage. W.W.

Norton & Co., Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

• Preparation For Marriage, by Kenneth Walker, M.D. A lucid

exposition of marital problems. W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 70 Fifth

Avenue, New York City.

• Married Love, by Marie C. Slopes. A frank discussion of marital

relationships. G.P. Putman's Sons, 2 West 45th Street, New York

City.

• Sex In Marriage, by Ernest R. and Gladys H. Groves. An informative

and comprehensive book. Emerson Books, Inc., 251 West 19th

Street, New York City.

• Preparation For Marriage, by Ernest R. Groves. Emerson Books,

Inc., 251 West 19th Street, New York City.

• The Married Woman, by Robert A. Ross, M.D., and Gladys H.

Groves. A practical guide to happy marriage. Tower Books, World

Publishing Company, 14 West 49th Street, New York City.

----

In a Nutshell

Seven Rules For Making Your Home Life Happier

• Rule 1: Don't nag.

• Rule 2: Don't try to make your partner over.

• Rule 3: Don't criticize.

• Rule 4: Give honest appreciation.

• Rule 5: Pay little attentions.

• Rule 6: Be courteous.

• Rule 7: Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage.

In its issue for June, 1933, American Magazine printed an article by

Emmet Crozier, "Why Marriages Go Wrong." The following is a

questionnaire reprinted from that article. You may find it worth while

to answer these questions, giving yourself ten points for each

question you can answer in the affirmative.

For Husbands

1. Do you still "court" your wife with an occasional gift of flowers,

with remembrances of her birthday and wedding anniversary, or with

some unexpected attention, some unlooked-for tenderness?

2. Are you careful never to criticize her before others?

3. Do you give her money to spend entirely as she chooses, above

the household expenses?

4. Do you make an effort to understand her varying feminine moods

and help her through periods of fatigue, nerves, and irritability?

5. Do you share at least half of your recreation hours with your wife?

6. Do you tactfully refrain from comparing your wife's cooking or

housekeeping with that of your mother or of Bill Jones' wife, except

to her advantage?

7. Do you take a definite interest in her intellectual life, her clubs and

societies, the books she reads, her views on civic problems?

8. Can you let her dance with and receive friendly attentions from

other men without making jealous remarks?

9. Do you keep alert for opportunities to praise her and express your

admiration for her?

10. Do you thank her for the little jobs she does for you, such as

sewing on a button, darning your socks, and sending your clothes to

the cleaners?

For Wives

1. Do you give your husband complete freedom in his business

affairs, and do you refrain from criticizing his associates, his choice of

a secretary, or the hours he keeps?

2. Do you try your best to make your home interesting and

attractive?

3. Do you vary the household menu so that he never quite knows

what to expect when he sits down to the table?

4. Do you have an intelligent grasp of your husband's business so

you can discuss it with him helpfully?

5. Can you meet financial reverses bravely, cheerfully, without

criticizing your husband for his mistakes or comparing him

unfavourably with more successful men?

6. Do you make a special effort to get along amiably with his mother

or other relatives?

7. Do you dress with an eye for your husband's likes and dislikes in

colour and style?

8. Do you compromise little differences of opinion in the interest of

harmony?

9. Do you make an effort to learn games your husband likes, so you

can share his leisure hours?

10. Do you keep track of the day's news, the new books, and new

ideas, so you can hold your husband's intellectual interest?

---------------------------

The Dale Carnegie Courses (Removed)

Other Books (Removed)

End

й dealer in art, very much the man about town, who spoke threeсora Maria Gonzalez of Guadalajara,ьlow learned the sharp necessityьlow was then the Imperialьlow, the Imperial Chancellor, that he take the blame.ьlow to announce that it was all hisьlow protested, "it seems to me utterlyьlow's mouth, heьlow's knew that he ought to have praised before heьllow continued, "inьlow hadьlow, not once, but several times. Andьlow, I shall punch him in the nose."ьlow saved himself in time - but, canny diplomat that he was,йry wrote: "I haveйe persuaded him to take some belated dancing lessons.пve to believe you will always get a favorable reaction from