Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem that we face, especially if we are in business. 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 ability to lead people. This book deals with how to understand and get along with people; how to make people like you and how to win others to your way of thinking. The sole purpose of this book is help discover and profit by those dormant and unused assets.  To get the best out of this book –

1. Picture yourself how their mastery will aid you in leading a richer, fuller, happier and more fulfilling life. My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skills in dealing with people.
2. The use of these principles can be made habitual only by a constant and vigorous campaign of review and application.
3. Learning is an active process, and we learn by doing. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind. 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.
4. Offer your spouse, your child or some business associate a dime or a dollar everytime he or she catches you violating a certain principle.

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the Beehive

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 fir to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence. 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. As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation. Roosevelt’s condemnation didn’t persuade Taft that he was wrong. Let’s realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility. Your bad manners are exceeded only by your bad manners.

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. Benjamin Franklin 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 and speak all the good I know of everybody.” Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. Before you criticize children, read one of the classics of American journalism, “Father Forgets”. 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’.

Principle I – Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

1. The Big Secret of Dealing with People

The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.  Everything you do urges from Sex urge and desire to be great. The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. The desire for a feeling of importance is one of the chief distinguishing differences between mankind and the animals. If our ancestors hadn’t had the flaming urge for a feeling of importance, civilization would have been impossible. Without it, we should have been just about like animals. Many people who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were unable to achieve in the world of reality.

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. I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people. 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 that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I believe in giving a person an 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. Carnegie mellon praised his associates publicly as well as privately. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciate them.

Knowing the value of appreciation and confidence, Florenz Ziegfeld made women feel beautiful by sheet power of his gallantry and consideration. We nourish the bodies of our children and friends and employees, but seldom do we nourish their self-esteem. 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 is one is sincere and other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other is selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned. Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you. Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself. One of the most neglected virtues of our daily existence is appreciation. Try leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily trips. Give honest, sincere appreciation. 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.

1. He who can do this has he 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. Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something. 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. I learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants. If there is 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. Do not state what you want but write how you could help others and focus on their wants not your own. 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. Self-expression is the dominant necessity of human nature.

Principle 3 – Arouse in the other person an eager want

Six Ways to Make People Like You

1. Do this and You’ll be welcome Anywhere

A dog makes his living by giving you nothing but love. 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. People are not interested in you but in themselves. If we merely try to impress people and get people interested in us, we will never have many true, sincere friends. It is 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.

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. I never forgot that to be genuinely interested in other people is a most important quality for a salesperson 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. Showing a genuine interest in others not only wins friends for you but may develop in its customers a loyalty to your company. We are interested in others when they are interested in us.

Principle 1 – Become genuinely interested in other people.

• A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression

People who smile 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. Telephone companies throughout the United States have a programme called “phone power “which is offered to employees who use the telephone for selling their services or products. 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. You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Principle 2 – Smile

• If you don’t do this, you are headed for trouble.

Jim Farley discovered early in life that the average person is more interested in his or her own name in all the other names on earth put together. Early in life, he showed a flair for organization, a genius for leadership. The policy of remembering and honoring the names of his friends and business associates was one of the secrets of Andrew Carnegie’s leadership. FDR 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?

• An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationalist

I had been a merely good listener and had encouraged him to talk. 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. Millie Esposito made it her business to listen carefully when one of her children wanted to speak with her. I listened patiently to all he had to say, I was tempted to interrupt, but I realized that would be bad policy. 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.

He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic listener to whom he could unburden himself. That is frequently all the irritated customer wants and the dissatisfied employee or the hurt friend. 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. People who talk only of themselves think only of themselves. They are not educated no matter how instructed they may be. To be interesting, be interested. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.

Principle 4 – Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.

• How to Interest People

Whenever FDR expected a visitor, he sat up late the night before, treading up on the subject in which he knew his guest was particularly interested. I also conversed with her about her constructive participation in his success. Talking in terms of the other person’s interests pays off for both parties.

Principle 5 – Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

• How to Make People Like You Instantly

Always make the other person feel important. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. You want your friends and associates to be, as Charles Schwab put it, “hearty in their approbation and lavish in their praise”. 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 oils the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life- and incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.

Principle 6 – Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

1. If you can’t win an Argument

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 rattlesnakes and earthquakes. Benjamin Franklin said – 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.  Buddha said – Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love. A misunderstanding is never ended by an argument but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation and sympathetic desire to see the other person’s viewpoint. 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.

• Watch out for your first reaction. It maybe you at your worst, not the best.
• Try to build bridges of understanding. Don’t build higher barriers of misunderstanding.
• Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are.
• 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 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.

• A sure way to making enemies and how to avoid it

If you tell people, they are wrong, you have struck a direct blow at their intelligence, judgement, pride and self-respect. It is difficult under even the most benign conditions, to change people’s minds. So why make it harder? Why handicap yourselves? If you are going to prove anything, don’t let anybody know it. Do it subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel that you are doing it. This is expressed succinctly by Alexander Pope – Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot. Quit telling people that they are wrong. There is positive magic in such phrases as – I may be wrong. I frequently am Let’s examine the facts. Our brokerage has made so many mistakes that I am frequently ashamed. We may have erred in your case. Tell me about it. 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.

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. Our first reaction to most of statements (which we hear from other people) is an evaluation or judgement, rather than an understanding of it. Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the meaning of the statement is to the other person. I even forbid myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as ‘certainty’, ‘undoubtedly’, etc. and I adopted, instead of them, ’I conceive’, ‘I apprehend’ or ‘I imagine’ a thing to be so or so, or ‘It appears to me at present’.

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. Nothing good is accomplished and a lot of damage can be done if you tell a person straight out that s/he is wrong. You only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion. 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 strained relations between us began to thaw and melt away. 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. 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 person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong”.

• If You’re Wrong, Admit It

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. 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. By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.

• A Drop of Honey

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 issues 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 candour and the desire to get together, we will get together.

If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win to your way of thinking with all the logic 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 be 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. You with your knowledge of human nature, will easily see the significance of these facts. Friendly, sympathetic and appreciative approach wins. Kindliness and friendly approach and appreciation can make people change their minds more readily than all the bluster and storming in the world.

Principle 4 – Begin in a friendly way.

• The Secret of Socrates

In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing – Keep on emphasizing – the things on which you agree. Get the other people saying “Yes, Yes” at the outset. Keep your opponent, if possible, from saying “No”. 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 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 persons viewpoint and try to get that person saying ‘Yes, Yes’.

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 Safety Valve in Handling Complaints

Almost every successful person likes to reminisce about his early struggles. He encouraged the other person to do most of talking – and made a favorable impression. By being a good listener and letting other person do most of the talking, he was able to weigh both sides fairly in his mind and came to the positive conclusion which was a challenge he creates for himself. Even out friends would much rather talk to us about their achievements than listen to us boast about ours. If you want enemies, excel your friends but if you want friends, let your friends excel you. 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.

• How to Get Cooperation

It’s a bad judgement to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people. It is wiser to make suggestions – and let the other person think out the conclusion. 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. Nobody likes to feel that s/he is being sold something or told to do a thing. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, our thoughts. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

2500 years ago, Lao-Tse, a Chinese sage said – ‘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.’

• A Formula that will work wonders for You.

Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint. Learn to look at things from others point of view. 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.

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

• What Everybody Wants

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

1. An Appeal that Everybody Likes

Please do not publish that picture of me anymore. My mother doesn’t like it.

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.

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

1. The movies do it. TV Does it. Why don’t you do it?

We don’t propose on our knees anymore, but many suitors still set up a romantic atmosphere before they pop the question.

1. When Nothing Else Works, Try This

The desire to excel! The Challenge! Throwing down the gaundlet! An Infallible way of appealing to people of spirit. “All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory.” 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.

Principle 12 – Throw down a Challenge.

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.

It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points. Beginning with praise is like the dentist who begins his work with Novocain.

Principle 1 – Begin with praise and honest appreciation.

• How to Criticize and Not be hated for it

Simply changing one three letter word ( but to and ) can often spell the difference between failure and success in changing people without giving offense or arousing resentment.

“We’re proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.”

Principle 2 – Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly

• Talk about your own mistakes first

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. People do judge us by our letters and misspellings make us look less professional.

Principle 3 – Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person

• No One likes to Take Orders

People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued. A leader calls everybody together, explains the situation to them, and tells them how much it would mean to the company and to them if they could make it possible to produce the order on time.

Principle 4 – Ask questions instead of giving direct orders

• 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. 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.

• 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. Charles Dickens, H.G.Wells, John Rangelspaugh, Keith Roper are some examples of transformed personalities. 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. 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.

Principle 6 – Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be ‘hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise’.

• Give a Dog a Good Name

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. If you want to improve a person in a certain respect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics. And it might be well to assume and state openly that other people have the virtue you want them to develop. ‘Marie, You do not know what treasures are within you’.

Principle 7 – Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to

• Make the fault seem easy to correct.

Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that s/he is stupid or dumb at certain thing, has not 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 or her ability to do it, that s/he has undeveloped flair for it – and s/he will practice until dawn comes in the window in order to excel.

• Making People Glad to do what you want.

Always make the other person happy about the thing you suggest. I would be doing him a favor.

Keep following guidelines in mind –

• 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.
• Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do
• Be Empathetic. Ask yourself what is it the other person really wants.
• Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest
• Match those benefits to the other person’s wants
• When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that he personally will benefit.

Principle 9 – Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.