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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Second helpings [Help for Ponchy and Brer'] Seventy years after it first appeared, Dale Carnegie’s classic self-help manual How to Win Friends and Influence People is being republished in a new edition. Is it still relevant? The very title has a creepy feel. How to win friends and influence people? Surely you don’t win friends, you make them. Friends aren’t supposed to be trophies. And though many of us would like to influence people, I would feel very sheepish if I were caught reading a book that was so obviously telling me how to go about the task. Not only would it make me look even more shifty than I am, it would also suggest that I am too stupid or lazy to devise my own strategies for manipulating those around me. You agree, of course? Well, that’s a pity — because I have just influenced you into dismissing arguably the most successful self-help manual of all time. Dale Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People exactly 70 years ago. He had a nerve, since his own early life — failed Missouri farmer, failed teacher, failed journalist, failed actor, failed novelist, failed husband and, most spectacularly, failed investor (he lost his shirt in the Wall Street Crash) — was not exactly a compelling advertisement for self-help. But he turned the wreckage of serial disaster into the pillar of lasting success. “The reason I wrote the book was because I have blundered so often myself,” he admitted candidly. He believed that there was a market for a “practical working handbook on human relations” — and boy, was he proved right. How to Win Friends went on to acquire 16 million readers and be published in 36 languages. Carnegie’s homely aphorisms — “If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive” — were digested throughout the corporate world by ambitious men and women intent on climbing their respective greasy poles. His rules for massaging the thoughts and desires of colleagues and business contacts became fundamental laws in the black arts of public relations, spindoctoring, salesmanship and office politics. And although there are a thousand tomes around today that purport to deliver more sophisticated versions of what Carnegie wrote, the fact that he was the first gave him a tremendous advantage in shaping the corporate mindset. To take an obvious example, you can trace a direct line from his blunt instruction — “Force yourself to smile!” — to the mandatory “Have a nice day!” greeting that 21st-century America demands from every worker who comes into contact with the public. So what was his recipe for success in 1936, and would it still work in 2006? Rather as Jean-Paul Sartre was to do a few years later in Being and Nothingness (but in less pretentious prose), Carnegie put forward the thesis that we can all choose to control our lives if we wish, rather than being buffeted around by the blustery winds of fortune. He believed that most of us utilise only a tenth of our potential, and that the key to unlocking the rest is to develop our skill at dealing with other people. How do we do that? Well, Carnegie had a brutally mechanistic view of human nature. He believed that words and deeds are largely shaped by genes, upbringing and circumstance. “You deserve very little credit for being what you are,” he tells the reader. “And remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.” This apparent denial of free will may seem chilling. But Carnegie thought it could be turned to advantage. If you know the right levers to pull in other people’s psyches, he argues, you can make them respond in an entirely predictable way, like puppets. Which, of course, is the fundamental principle upon which all cunning salesmen base their techniques — whether they are marketing soap powder to housewives or (at the time when Carnegie was writing) the concept of Aryan supremacy to Germans. So how do you know which levers to pull? First, says Carnegie, by working out what makes your clients or customers tick. “Think always in terms of the other person’s point of view,” he advises. Rather than talking about yourself, listen patiently to them talking about themselves. Butter them up by lavishing appreciation on their work. Ferret out every personal detail you can about them, then drop this knowledge casually into the conversation; it will show them that you care. (Carnegie commends the American politician who could recall the first names of 50,000 people.) Above all, never get drawn into confrontations. “There’s only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument — and that’s to avoid it,” Carnegie says. If you lose the argument, he says, your credibility will be dented. But if you win the argument, you may lose the deal anyway, because the other person feels aggrieved. Instead, he advocates “the Socratic yes-yes method”, whereby you advance your cause by making a series of small propositions that each seem irrefutable — but which imperceptibly lead the other person farther and farther away from his entrenched resistance to your argument. It’s the old Machiavellian trick: persuasion by stealth. If it works well, Carnegie claims, you may not even need to make your clinching argument. Your client will already have leapt to the conclusion that you want. Or as Alexander Pope put it, a couple of centuries earlier: Men must be taught as if you taught them not And things unknown proposed as things forgot. Finally, says Carnegie, take a leaf out of J. Pierpont Morgan’s book. The mighty banker once cynically observed that people generally have two reasons for doing anything: the real reason, which is about self-gratification or self-advancement, and the reason that makes them look good in other people’s eyes. A good salesman knows how to appeal simultaneously (and surreptitiously) to both the base and noble instincts. To read Carnegie’s book today is to step into a distant world. It is full of anecdotes about heroes and villains long departed, from Theodore Roosevelt to Al Capone. It was clearly written — as so much cod-psychology was in the 1920s and 1930s — under the illusion that Freud had revealed all there was to know about human behaviour. And it was written for more innocent, trusting times. That, I think, would be the stumbling-block if you tried to apply Carnegie’s methods in our cynical age. They would seem so crude, so obviously contrived. You would be marked down as a conniving fraud within seconds of opening your mouth. Yet in one way Carnegie has never seemed so relevant. As much as ever, it seems, political leaders (both moderate and extreme) subscribe to his cynical view that you can make people or even whole populations support you if you pull the appropriate strings in their psyche. The result is chronic for political thought, or what passes for it. Chameleon-like, our leaders issue statements not to articulate their own deep-felt convictions but to “ring the right bells” with whichever audience they are addressing. And that’s a pity. Those who never utter a word without calculating its effect on the listener may indeed be good at schmoozing their way to positions of prestige. But our world also needs people, especially leaders, who aren’t afraid to blurt out the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. INSTINCT, LISTENING AND LUCK: THE KEYS TO SOCIAL AND COMMERCIAL SUCCESS Max Clifford, PR guru It comes down to that wonderful thing called instinct, which of course is impossible to describe. Instinct is the most important quality when dealing with everybody. Really it means understanding people. The better you understand someone, the better you know not only how to impress them, but also how to work with them. I work in an industry full of rich, famous and successful people, and the vast majority are interested in one person — themselves. All that matters to them is that you understand that. You then need to use your instincts to work out how to get the best out of them. Everybody reacts differently, and a particular approach could be right for A, but wrong for B. The better your instincts are shown to be, the more they will come into play. A book can be very good on theory, but there is no substitute for practice. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, entrepreneur and founder of Easy Group I decided many years ago that most people do not actually like wealthy businessmen. I felt that when I was working for my father’s shipping business. So in 1995 I set out to create easyJet, not only to make money but, more importantly, to make a difference in people’s lives so that they would like me. I have found in the past 11 years that if you offer consumers value for money, they do appreciate it — sometimes they even tell me so in the street. Those spontaneous thank-yous are the best payback for my investment. The funny thing is that if you are linked with the many, then the few (ie, “elite”) begin to notice, too! Sarah Doukas, founder and head of Storm model agency You need to feel confident — about yourself, your proposals, your eventual success. Confident people inspire faith in those around them by using their own influence and strong motivation. You can make yourself more confident by being well researched, meticulously organised and blindingly motivated, and this can lead you to good opportunities. To quote the Roman philospher Seneca: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Liz Brewer, socialite and event organiser The most important thing is to be charming. Without a certain amount of charm — and confidence — you will not get very far. If your aim is to make friends, there must be something to give back. You have to earn friendship, and there must be give and take. If you are able to influence people, the most important thing is that you do so with care. It has to be done in an honest way, and you have to believe in what you are trying to influence them to do. The ability to influence people is a gift, and you must use that gift with care. It is counter-productive if you influence people to do something, and they then turn around and say: “You advised me to do this, and it was not as you advised me it would be, and the outcome was catastrophic.” Honesty is the best policy. Peregrine Armstrong Jones, party and events organiser to the stars I’ve read only one book on the subject, and it’s a brilliant one called What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School, by Mark H. McCormack. He says that to understand people, you have to shut up and listen rather than say too much. I read that book about 15 years ago, and that is what I do. If you take the trouble to focus on what someone is saying, that is how you get a good understanding of what they want. Before I meet somebody for the first time, I actually say it to myself. I walk in to a meeting and I sit down and I say to myself: “Shut up and listen.” There’s no point in me saying too much and trying to give someone something that they don’t want. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, Vermilion, £7.99. Get a copy for £7.99 from Books First, 0870 1608080, timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
Ponchy and Brer'= Gilligan and the Professor.
ponchy is just troubled, that's all. he has a chemical imbalance.
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