How to Win Friends and Influence People: Updated For the Next Generation of Leaders (Dale Carnegie Books)

by Dale Carnegie

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?

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.

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.

Never begin by announcing, “I am going to prove so-and-so to you.” That’s bad. That’s tantamount to saying: “I am smarter than you are. I am 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.

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.”

“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.

“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 statement means to the other person.”

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.

“I made it a rule,” wrote 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 prevail’d with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.

“I am convinced now that nothing good is accomplished and much 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 dignity and making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion.”

PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”

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.

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.

For the first time in my life, I was criticizing myself—and I loved it.

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.

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 them first.

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.”

PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

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.

PRINCIPLE 4 Begin in a friendly way.

In talking with people, do not 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.

A “No” response, according to Professor Harry 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.”

PRINCIPLE 5 Get the other person saying “Yes, yes” immediately.

Most people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too much talking. 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.

“But—and this is the point of the story—I should never have sold electricity to this Pennsylvania Dutch farmwife if I had not first let her talk herself into it! “People can’t be ‘sold.’ You have to let them buy.”

“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.”

The truth is, 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, and trumpet our successes to them, it can arouse feelings of envy and even resentment. So let’s minimize our achievements. Let’s be modest. That always makes a hit. We ought to be modest, for both you and I will pass on and be completely forgotten a century from now. Life is too short to bore other people with talk of our petty accomplishments. Let’s encourage them to talk instead. So if we want to win people to our way of thinking:

PRINCIPLE 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

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?

“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.”

“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.”

PRINCIPLE 7 Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

There is a reason why the other person thinks and acts as they do. Ferret out that reason—and you have the key to their actions, perhaps to their personality.

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.

“Cooperativeness 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.”

“Why should he or she want to do it?”

I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person—from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives—was likely to answer.

PRINCIPLE 8 Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feeling, create goodwill, 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.”

You deserve very little credit for being what you are—and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, and 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.

So, because I had apologized and sympathized with her point of view, she began apologizing and sympathizing with my point of view.

“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.”

PRINCIPLE 9 Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.

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.

When the late Lord Northcliffe found a newspaper using a picture of him that he didn’t want published, he wrote the editor a letter. But did he say, “Please do not publish that picture of me anymore; 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 anymore. My mother doesn’t like it.”

“Experience has taught me,” said 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.

PRINCIPLE 10 Appeal to the nobler motives.

This is a time 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. Advertisers do it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.