PART 1: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Chapter 1: “If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive”
- 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. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.
- criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home.
- 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.
- Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain – and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
- Principle 1: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
“A great man shows his greatness,” said Carlyle, “by the way he treats little men.”
Chapter 2: The Big Secret of Dealing with People
- There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.
- The deepest urge in human nature is “the desire to be important”.
- You can get to know your character by knowing how you get your feeling of importance.
- In the long run, flattery does 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.
- Principle 2: Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Chapter 3: He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him. He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way
- The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.
- Before you want to persuade somebody to do something, pause and ask yourself: “How can I make this person want to do it?” Try finding the motivation the other person may look for. That question will stop us from rushing into a situation heedlessly, with futile chatter about our desires.
- If there is anyone’s secret to 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.
- 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.
PART 2: Six ways to make people like you
Chapter 1: Do this and You’ll be Welcome Anywhere
- Everyone is interested in themselves – morning, noon and after dinner.
- Never forget to be genuinely interested in other people is a most important quality for a sales-person to possess—for any person, for that matter.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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, become genuinely interested in other people.
Chapter 2: A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression
- Expression on one’s face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one’s back.
- There is far more information in a smile than a frown.
- Encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- 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.
- Eliminate criticism from your system and start giving appreciation instead of condemnation.
- Smile more often, forever yourself to smile even if you don’t feel like smiling.
- Everybody in the world is seeking happiness- and the easy way to find it is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outer conditions; it depends on inner conditions.
Chapter 3: If You Don’t Do This, You Are Headed For Trouble
- The importance of remembering and using names is not just the prerogative of kings and corporate executives. It works for all of us.
- The magic of remembering names 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.
- Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Chapter 4: An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationalist
- Be a good listener.
- People prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.
- If you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested.
- Ask questions that other people enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.
Chapter 5: How To Interest People
- The royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.
- Talk in terms of other person’s interests.
Chapter 6: How To Make People Like You Instantly
- Try radiating a little happiness and pass on a bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in return.
- Always make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
- Everyone craves little appreciation like you and I.
PART 3: How To Win People To Your Way Of Thinking
Chapter 1: You Can’t Win An Argument
- 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.
- 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 goodwill.
- 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.
- Few ways to keep a disagreement from becoming an argument:
- Welcome the Disagreement
- Distrust Your First Instinctive Impression
- Control your temper
- Listen first
- Look for areas of agreement
- Be honest
- Promise to think over your opponent’s ideas and study then carefully
- Thank your Opponents Sincerely for their Interests
- Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem
- The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Chapter 2: A Sure Way of Making Enemies – and How to Avoid It
- Never begin by announcing “I am going to prove so-and-so to you.”
- You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.
- 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.”
- Permit yourself to understand the other person before starting an evaluation or judgement.
- Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
Chapter 3: If You’re Wrong, Admit it
- 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?
- 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.
- If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Chapter 4: A Drop Of Honey
- 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 your 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.
- Always begin in a friendly way.
Chapter 5: The Secret of Socrates
- In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasising—and keep on emphasising—the things on which you agree.
- Get the other person saying, “Yes, yes” at the outset. Keep your opponent, if possible, from saying “No.”
- 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.
- Get the other person saying, “yes, yes” immediately.
Chapter 6: The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints
- People will not pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen patiently with open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage them to express their ideas fully.
- If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.
- Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Chapter 7: How to Get Cooperation
- Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
- No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something 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, and our thoughts.
Chapter 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.
- Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own.
- Seeing things through another person’s eyes may ease tensions when personal problems become overwhelming.
Chapter 9: What Everybody Wants
- Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.
- Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
Chapter 10: An Appeal that Everyone Likes
- 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. 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.
Chapter 11: The Movies Do It. TV Does It? Why Don’t You Do It?
- Dramatise your idea.
- Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, and dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.
Chapter 12: When Nothing Else Works, Try This
- Throw down a challenge.
- 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.
PART 4: Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offence or Arousing Resentment
Chapter 1: If You Must Find Fault, This is the Way to Begin
- It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points.
- Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Chapter 2: How to Criticise and Not be Hated for It
- Calling attention to one’s mistakes indirectly works wonders with sensitive people who may resent bitterly any direct criticism.
- Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
Chapter 3: Talk About Your Own Mistakes First
- It isn’t nearly so difficult to listen to a recital of your faults if the person criticising begins by humbly admitting that he, too, is far from impeccable.
- Admitting one’s own mistakes—even when one hasn’t corrected them—can help convince somebody to change his behaviour.
- Talk about your own mistakes before criticising the other person.
Chapter 4: No One Likes to Take Orders
- Ask questions and always give people the opportunity to do things themselves; Let people learn from their own mistakes and correct errors. This saves a person’s pride and gives him or her a feeling of importance. It encourages cooperation instead of rebellion.
- An effective leader will Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Chapter 5: Let the Other Person Save Face
- 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-Exupéry wrote: “I have 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 Let the other person save face.
Chapter 6: How to Spur People on to Success
- 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.
- Remember, we all crave appreciation and recognition, and will do almost anything to get it. But nobody wants insincerity. Nobody wants flattery.
- Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
Chapter 7: Give a Dog a Good Name
- If you want to improve a person in a certain aspect, 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.”
- If you want to excel in that difficult leadership role of changing the attitude or behaviour of others, Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Chapter 8: Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct
- 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.
- If you want to help others to improve, Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Chapter 9: Making People Glad to Do What You Want
- Always make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
- The effective leader should keep the following guidelines in mind when it is necessary to change attitudes or behaviour:
- 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.”
- People are more likely to do what you would like them to do when you Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.