HOW TO WIN FRIENDS & INFLUENCE PEOPLE

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a self-help book written by Dale Carnegie, published in 1936. It is one of the best-selling books of all time.

I first read this when I was at college and first heard of it in a personal development seminar. This book led to me to read and explore other self-help books. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Success System that Never Fails by William Clement Stone, were to follow.

I have occasionally found the title of this book, and the headings used in some of its chapters quite off-putting. The title does not represent the valuable concepts, ideas and lessons presented. This not really a self-help book for people who want to make friends and to influence people. It is a book that restates the basic systems of belief in personal development, self-motivation, and leadership. At the time, I was about to make the leap into the working world. It held the keys to effective leadership.

This section precedes the main content of the book.

Eight Things This Book Will Do help You achieve (from the 1981 edition of the book)

1. Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions.
2. Enable you to make friends quickly and easily.
3. Increase your popularity.
4. Help you to win people to your way of thinking.
5. Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done.
6. Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant.
7. Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist.
8. Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates.

The book covered the sections and principles over several chapters.

The sections and principles

 

Techniques in Handling People:

1. Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six Ways to Make People Like You:

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Win People to Your Way of Thinking:

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “you’re wrong”.
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatise your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Each section includes chapters explaining the principles supported by relatable and interesting examples.

 I used to subconsciously recall the principles from Carnegie’s book when facing challenging conditions in the formative years of my career. When I cannot seem to find the answers, I will pick the book up again. I highlighted the parts of the book deemed important. In addition to that, I write down notes of the key points in the days before we had word processors. Returning to the book and notes was also quite refreshing and interesting. It was a study in contrast in my ideas and principles at different times in the post college years.

The original book and notes are already long gone but the principles taught remain with me.

What I find so intriguing about Carnegie’s concepts are that they are so simple and obvious. They just look and feel like common sense.  There are no revelations here as there is nothing new about interpersonal relationships, communication, and leadership. The principles offered in each chapter is so obvious and so straight in the face. And yet, I struggled to put them into practice.

Despite this fact I personally feel that it is important to read all these concepts and reflect on them. It is because each of these principles are such common-sense statements and assumed as universally understood. They are never the first thing to appear in our minds. No matter how many times I try to stick to these principles, they end to slip away and forgotten.

That was why I had to reread certain sections of the book or my notes from time to time to refresh my memory. Carnegie’s book prompts me to compare my recent behaviours against these concepts.

Most of the examples use were quite dated. I was not able to relate to the examples of the famous men as they were from a different era. However, I did get the point the author is conveying.

The book basically tells you to be agreeable to everyone and, find something to like about them. Then praise them and talk about their interests. At first glance this looks like we must be please people all the time.

I assure you that to does not have to be the case. It is not in my character to be patronising. Neither am I a flatterer. Flattery is so fake. People can smell a snake oil salesperson from far away.

My advice is that you must be genuine, sincere, and honest when applying the principles in the book.

You do have to genuinely like and are interested in people and you must mean what you say.

I would like to emphasise again that this book is not the go-to book for finding how to make friends. This is because it does not cover methods of finding and nurturing friendships.

The advice and lessons in the book have remained constant and applicable over the years for several reasons. They are easy to understand and the methods make sense. A way of gaining confidence in leadership is through understanding human nature, easily picked up from the book.

In my opinion, the best way forward is to figure out which principles work for you, and which do not. You can act on it after that.

This is a great place to start if you have difficulties handling people in general.

Best wishes to you.