Introduction — How This Book Was Written—and Why
For years Dale Carnegie taught public speaking to business people in New York. He soon realized that as badly as these adults needed training in speaking, they needed even more training in the fine art of getting along with people. Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, at work or at home.
He couldn’t find a practical book on the subject, so he wrote one. He read everything he could find, from family court records to the old philosophers and the new psychologists. He and a researcher read the life stories of great leaders from Julius Caesar to Thomas Edison, over one hundred biographies of Theodore Roosevelt alone. Then he tested what they found in his classes, year after year, with real people and real problems.
Herbert Spencer said, “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” This is an action book. To get the most out of it, you need a deep, driving desire to get better with people. Read each chapter twice. Stop often and ask how you could use what you’ve just read. Then use it every chance you get, because only knowledge that’s used sticks in your mind. You’re not just learning information. You’re forming new habits.
A successful banker in one of those classes said that every Saturday night he went over his week and asked himself: What mistakes did I make? What did I do right? What can I learn from it? Over the years, his blunders came less often, and that habit did more for him than anything else he ever tried. Check yourself the same way as you work through the principles ahead.
Part One — Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
Principle 1 — Don’t Criticize, Condemn, or Complain
Lewis Lawes ran New York’s Sing Sing prison for many years. In his experience, few of the criminals there thought of themselves as bad men. “They are just as human as you and I,” he said. “So they rationalize, they explain.” Most insisted they never should have been locked up at all. If Al Capone and the men behind prison walls don’t blame themselves for anything, what about the people we deal with every day?
Criticism is useless because it puts a person on the defensive and makes them fight to justify themselves. It’s dangerous, too, because it wounds their pride and stirs up resentment. And it still won’t fix the thing you criticized. Criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always come home. When we deal with people, we aren’t dealing with creatures of logic. We’re dealing with creatures of emotion, driven by pride and vanity.
Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot, was flying home from an air show when both engines quit. He managed to land, but the plane was wrecked. It had been filled with jet fuel instead of gasoline. Back at the airport, the young mechanic who’d fueled it was in tears. He’d nearly killed three people. You’d expect Hoover to tear into him. Instead, Hoover put his big arm around the man’s shoulder and said, “To show you I’m sure that you’ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.”
Is there someone you’d like to change? Good. But why not start with yourself? It’s more profitable, and a lot less dangerous. Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. It takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. So instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand why they do what they do. “To know all is to forgive all.”
Principle 2 — Give Honest and Sincere Appreciation
If criticism doesn’t work, what does? There’s only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything, and that’s by making them want to do it. You can get cooperation from employees by threatening to fire them, but only until your back is turned. The only way to get someone to do anything is to give them what they want.
And what do people want? Health, food, sleep, money, the well-being of their children. And one more thing that’s almost never satisfied: a feeling of importance. William James said, “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” You’re going to hear a lot about that craving in this book.
Charles Schwab was one of the first people in America to be paid a million dollars a year. The steel king Andrew Carnegie, no relation to the author, paid him that not for what he knew about steel, but for his way with people. Here’s how Schwab described it: “There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. 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.”
It matters just as much at home. One man who took the course had a wife who asked him to list six things she could do to be a better wife. He could easily have named six. Instead, the next morning he sent her six red roses with a note: “I can’t think of six things I would like to change about you. I love you the way you are.” When he got home, she met him at the door, almost in tears.
This isn’t flattery. Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it’ll get you in trouble sooner or later. The difference is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out, the other from the teeth out. So praise your child’s good report card. Tell the chef the steak was excellent. When a tired salesclerk is unusually kind, say so.
Principle 3 — Arouse in the Other Person an Eager Want
Carnegie liked to go fishing up in Maine in the summer. He was very fond of strawberries and cream. But for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when he went fishing, he didn’t think about what he wanted. He thought about what they wanted. Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?
The only way on earth to influence people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it. If you don’t want your kids to smoke, don’t preach. Show them that cigarettes might keep them off the basketball team. Henry Ford said, “If there is any 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.” Or as Professor Harry Overstreet put it: “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.”
Part Two — Six Ways to Make People Like You
Principle 1 — Become Genuinely Interested in Other People
Those are the basics of handling people. Now, how do you make them like you? Watch a dog. A dog is the only animal that doesn’t have to work for a living. A hen has to lay eggs, a cow has to give milk, and a canary has to sing. But 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. As the Roman poet Publilius Syrus put it, “We are interested in others when they are interested in us.”
Principle 2 — Smile
A dog’s wagging tail says he’s glad to see you. A smile says the same thing. The hiring manager at a big New York department store said she’d rather hire a salesclerk who hadn’t finished grade school, if they had a pleasant smile, than someone with a PhD and a somber face. People who smile tend to manage, teach, and sell better, and to raise happier children.
You don’t feel like smiling? Then force yourself. Act as if you’re already happy, and you’ll tend to become happy. William James said, “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together.” So smile, even at the people who seem least likely to smile back. Nobody needs a smile so much as those who have none left to give.
Principle 3 — Remember That a Person’s Name Is to That Person the Sweetest and Most Important Sound in Any Language
A smile makes a good first impression. Remembering a name makes a lasting one. Jim Farley, the man who helped put Franklin Roosevelt in the White House, learned this back when he sold building supplies. Whenever he met someone, he learned their full name and a few facts about their family and work. A year later, he could shake their hand, ask about their family, and ask about the hollyhocks in their backyard. Farley knew the average person cares more about their own name than all the other names on earth put together. Remember it, and you’ve paid them a quiet compliment. Forget it, and you’ve put yourself at a real disadvantage.
Andrew Carnegie figured this out by age ten. As a boy in Scotland, he had a nest of baby rabbits and nothing to feed them. So he told the neighborhood kids that if they’d pull clover and dandelions for the bunnies, he’d name the bunnies after them. It worked like magic. Years later, he wanted to sell steel rails to the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose president was J. Edgar Thomson. So he built a huge steel mill in Pittsburgh and named it the Edgar Thomson Steel Works. You can guess where the railroad bought its rails.
Most people forget names because they don’t take the time to focus and repeat them. Napoleon the Third, emperor of France, had a simple method. If he didn’t catch a name, he asked for it again. Then he repeated it several times and tied it in his mind to the person’s face.
Principle 4 — Be a Good Listener; Encourage Others to Talk About Themselves
Once you know someone’s name, the next thing is to listen to them. A mother in one of the classes shared what her young son Robert once said to her. “Mom, I know that you love me very much.” She asked if he’d ever doubted it. “No,” he said, “but I really know you love me because whenever I want to talk to you about something you stop whatever you are doing and listen to me.”
If you want to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions the other person will enjoy answering. Get them talking about themselves.
Principle 5 — Talk in Terms of the Other Person’s Interests
Listening shows people you care. Talking about what they care about shows it even more. Theodore Roosevelt always knew what to say to a visitor. Whenever he expected a guest, he stayed up late the night before reading about whatever that person loved most. He knew that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things they treasure most.
Principle 6 — Make the Other Person Feel Important—and Do It Sincerely
All of these come back to an old rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” You want to feel important in your own little world. You don’t want cheap flattery, but you do crave sincere appreciation. So does everyone else. Little courtesies like “I’m sorry to trouble you,” “Would you mind?” and “Thank you” oil the gears of everyday life. And remember that almost everyone you meet feels superior to you in some way. A sure way to their hearts is to let them see, in some quiet way, that you recognize their importance, and that you mean it.
Part Three — How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
Principle 1 — The Only Way to Get the Best of an Argument Is to Avoid It
Getting people to agree with you is harder than getting them to like you, and the first mistake most of us make is to argue. There’s only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument, and that’s to avoid it. Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each side more sure than ever that they’re right.
Suppose you win. You shoot their argument full of holes. You’ll feel fine. But you’ve hurt their pride, and they’ll resent your triumph. So which would you rather have, a showy victory or a person’s goodwill? You can seldom have both. When a disagreement starts, control your temper. Listen first. Start with the points you agree on. Look for places where you were wrong, and say so. As Buddha said, “Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love.”
Principle 2 — Show Respect for the Other Person’s Opinions; Never Say, “You’re Wrong”
Theodore Roosevelt once admitted that if he could be right 75 percent of the time, that was the best he could hope for. What about the rest of us? If you could be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, you could go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. And if you can’t, what right do you have to tell other people they’re wrong?
You can tell someone they’re wrong with just a look. And does it make them want to agree with you? Never. You’ve struck a direct blow at their intelligence and pride. That makes them want to strike back, not change their minds. We often change our minds without any fuss. But when someone tells us we’re wrong, we dig in. As the historian James Harvey Robinson wrote, “It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened.” Two thousand years ago, Jesus said, “Agree with thine adversary quickly.”
Principle 3 — If You Are Wrong, Admit It Quickly and Emphatically
And when you’re the one who’s wrong, say so first. Carnegie used to let his little dog, Rex, run in a park without a leash. One day a policeman warned him that next time he’d have to tell it to the judge. Sure enough, a few weeks later he and Rex ran right into the same officer. This time he spoke first. “Officer, you’ve caught me red-handed. I’m guilty. I have no alibis, no excuses.” The officer softened right up and told him to just take Rex over the hill where he couldn’t see him. That policeman, being human, wanted a feeling of importance. Once he started condemning himself, the only way the officer could feed his self-esteem was to show mercy.
Principle 4 — Begin in a Friendly Way
Whether you’re admitting a mistake or asking for something, the way you open matters. Lincoln said it best: “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.”
Principle 5 — Get the Other Person Saying “Yes, Yes” Immediately
Once you’ve started friendly, stay on common ground. Don’t begin with the things you disagree on. Begin with the things you agree on, and keep stressing that you both want the same result. Socrates was one of the greatest persuaders who ever lived. Did he tell people they were wrong? Oh, no. Not Socrates. He asked questions his opponent had to agree with, and kept going until he had an armful of yeses. Before long, his opponents found themselves agreeing with a conclusion they’d have flatly rejected a few minutes earlier.
Principle 6 — Let the Other Person Do a Great Deal of the Talking
Most of us talk too much when we’re trying to win someone over. Let the other person talk instead. The French philosopher La Rochefoucauld said, “If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.” A woman named Henrietta bragged to her coworkers about every success, and they resented her for it. So she changed. “Now, when we have some time to chat,” she said, “I ask them to share their joys with me, and I only mention my achievements when they ask.”
Principle 7 — Let the Other Person Feel That the Idea Is His or Hers
Letting people talk leads to something even better: letting them come up with the idea. Eugene Wesson sold sketches to a fabric designer. For three years he called on the man every week, and the man never bought a thing. So Wesson brought in some unfinished sketches and asked the man how he’d finish them. “I had urged him to buy what I thought he ought to have,” Wesson said. “Then 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.”
Colonel Edward House was one of President Woodrow Wilson’s closest advisers. Once, House urged a policy that Wilson seemed to reject. A few days later, at dinner, House heard Wilson present the idea as his own. Did House say, “That’s not your idea. That’s mine”? Oh, no. He didn’t care about credit. He wanted results. So he let Wilson keep believing the idea was his.
Principle 8 — Try Honestly to See Things from the Other Person’s Point of View
Behind all of this is one habit: seeing things through the other person’s eyes. They may be totally wrong, but they don’t think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to understand them. Compare how much you care about your own affairs with how little you care about anything else. Then realize that everybody else feels exactly the same way. Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint.
Principle 9 — Be Sympathetic with the Other Person’s Ideas and Desires
Seeing their point of view is the first step. Telling them you see it is the next. Here’s a magic phrase that stops arguments and makes the other person listen: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.” And you can mean it, because if you’d had their life, you would.
Carnegie once said on the radio that Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, had lived in Concord, New Hampshire. It was Concord, Massachusetts. A woman in Philadelphia sent him a furious letter, and he was tempted to tell her off. But only fools do that, and he wanted to be above fools. So he said to himself, “After all, if I were she, I would probably feel just as she does.” He called her and thanked her for the correction, and by the end of the call she was apologizing to him. Making her like him was far more fun than telling her to go jump in the river.
Principle 10 — Appeal to the Nobler Motives
J. P. Morgan once said that a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one. We all like to think of ourselves as good and fair. So when you want to change someone, appeal to the reason that sounds good.
A landlord who took the course had a tenant who wanted to break his lease. Instead of threatening him, the landlord said, “I sized you up in the first place as being a man of your word.” He asked the tenant to think it over for a few days. When the new month came, the tenant paid his rent in person. He and his wife had decided the only honorable thing to do was to keep their lease. The same idea helped Cyrus Curtis, who started the Saturday Evening Post and couldn’t afford big fees. He got Louisa May Alcott to write for him at the height of her fame by sending a hundred-dollar check, not to her, but to her favorite charity.
Principle 11 — Dramatize Your Ideas
Sometimes the problem isn’t what you say but how you say it. Just stating a truth isn’t enough. It has to be made vivid. James Boynton had to present a market report on cold cream to a big client. The first time, they argued about his research until his time ran out. The second time, he opened a suitcase and dumped thirty-two jars of cold cream on the man’s desk, all competitors’ brands. Each jar had a tag with a short summary of the research. There was no more argument. The man had given Boynton ten minutes, and an hour later they were still talking. “I was presenting the same facts,” Boynton said. “But this time I was using dramatization, showmanship, and what a difference it made.”
Principle 12 — Throw Down a Challenge
And when nothing else works, try this. Charles Schwab had a mill whose workers weren’t making their quota. Just before the night shift came on, Schwab asked a worker how many heats his shift had made. “Six.” Without a word, Schwab chalked a big “6” on the floor and walked away. The next morning, the night shift had rubbed it out and chalked a big “7.” So the night shift thought they were better, did they? That night the day shift left behind an enormous, swaggering “10.” Before long, that lagging mill was outproducing every mill in the plant. “The way to get things done,” Schwab said, “is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel.”
When Al Smith was governor of New York, he asked Lewis Lawes, the warden from the start of this summary, to take over Sing Sing. Lawes hesitated. Smith smiled. “Young fellow, I don’t blame you for being scared. It’ll take a big person to go up there and stay.” So Lawes went, and he became the most famous warden of his time. That’s what every successful person loves: the game. The chance to prove their worth. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance.
Part Four — Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
Principle 1 — Begin with Praise and Honest Appreciation
So far we’ve talked about winning people over. But a leader often has to do something harder: change people without offending them. That starts with how you begin. A barber lathers a man before he shaves him. Starting with praise is like a dentist starting with Novocain. The patient still gets drilled, but the Novocain takes away the pain. It’s always easier to hear unpleasant things after we’ve heard some praise.
Principle 2 — Call Attention to People’s Mistakes Indirectly
Charles Schwab once found some of his workers smoking right under a “No Smoking” sign. Did he point to the sign and say, “Can’t you read?” Oh, no, not Schwab. He handed each man a cigar and said, “I’ll appreciate it, boys, if you will smoke these on the outside.” They knew he knew they’d broken a rule. And they admired him for not saying a word about it.
A lot of us start with sincere praise and then ruin it with the word “but.” “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.” Johnnie feels good until he hears “but.” Then he wonders if the praise was just a setup. Change “but” to “and.” “We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.” Now he can take the praise to heart and try to live up to it.
Principle 3 — Talk About Your Own Mistakes Before Criticizing the Other Person
Carnegie’s niece Josephine came to New York to be his secretary. She was nineteen, with almost no business experience. When he needed to point out a mistake, he’d start like this: “You have made a mistake, Josephine, but the Lord knows, it’s no worse than many I have made. You were not born with judgment. That comes only with experience, and you are better than I was at your age.” It isn’t nearly so hard to hear about your faults if the person criticizing you starts by admitting they’re far from perfect too.
Clarence Zerhusen found out his fifteen-year-old son was experimenting with cigarettes. But he smoked too, so he didn’t lecture. He told his son how he’d started at about the same age, how the nicotine had gotten the best of him, and how now he could hardly quit. His son thought it over and decided not to smoke. He never did start.
Principle 4 — Ask Questions Instead of Giving Direct Orders
No one likes taking orders. Owen D. Young, the head of General Electric, never said, “Do this,” or “Don’t do that.” He’d say, “You might consider this,” or “Do you think that would work?” He let his people do things themselves and learn from their mistakes. That saves a person’s pride and gets you cooperation instead of rebellion. People are more likely to accept an order if they’ve had a part in the decision behind it.
Principle 5 — Let the Other Person Save Face
General Electric once had to remove Charles Steinmetz as head of a department. Steinmetz was a genius with electricity, but a failure at running a department. He was also essential and sensitive. So they gave him a new title, Consulting Engineer, for work he was already doing, and let someone else run the department. Steinmetz was happy, and so was GE. As the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote, “What matters is not what I think of him, but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime.”
Principle 6 — Praise the Slightest Improvement and Praise Every Improvement
Saving face protects people. Praise lifts them up. “Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit,” one psychologist wrote. “We cannot flower and grow without it.” A print shop manager named Mr. Roper didn’t just tell a young printer, “You’re good.” He pointed out exactly how his work was better, and that made the praise mean much more. When praise is specific, it comes across as sincere. So praise the smallest step forward, and every step after it. As Schwab said, be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
Principle 7 — Give the Other Person a Fine Reputation to Live Up To
Praise works even better when it looks ahead. If you want to improve a person in some way, act as though that trait is already one of their strengths. Give them a fine reputation to live up to, and they’ll work hard rather than let you down.
A patient once told Dr. Martin Fitzhugh, a dentist in Dublin, that the metal cup holder in his office wasn’t very clean. So he wrote a note to Bridgit, who cleaned his office twice a week. He thanked her for her fine work and said she should feel free to stay an extra half hour now and then for things like polishing the cup holders. The next day his desk was polished like a mirror, and so was his chair, which he nearly slid out of. “I had given my charwoman a fine reputation to live up to,” he said. “How much additional time did she spend on this? That’s right, none at all.”
Principle 8 — Use Encouragement; Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct
A bachelor of about forty got engaged, and his fiancée talked him into dancing lessons. His first teacher told him he was doing everything wrong, and he quit. His second told him he had a natural sense of rhythm. “That encouraged me,” he said. “That gave me hope. That made me want to improve.”
Tell someone they’re dumb at something, and you’ve killed their reason to try. Do the opposite. Make the thing seem easy. Let them know you believe they have a flair for it. They’ll practice until the sun comes up to get better. That’s how a friend, Lowell Thomas, got the author to play bridge. “There is nothing to bridge except memory and judgment,” he told him. “You’ve written articles on memory. Bridge will be a cinch for you.” And almost before he knew it, he was sitting at a bridge table for the first time.
Principle 9 — Make the Other Person Happy About Doing the Thing You Suggest
During the First World War, Colonel House was sent to Europe as a peace envoy. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan badly wanted that job. So House told him it would be unwise for him to go, because someone as important as Bryan would attract too much attention. House practically told Bryan he was too important for the job, and Bryan was satisfied. Always make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
One father who took the course had a son, Jeff, who hated picking up pears from under the pear tree before the lawn was mowed. So his father made a deal. “For every bushel basket full of pears you pick up, I’ll pay you one dollar. But after you are finished, for every pear I find left in the yard, I’ll take away a dollar.” Jeff picked up every pear. His father even had to make sure he didn’t pull a few off the tree.
So before you ask someone for something, know exactly what you want them to do. Ask yourself what they really want, and show them how doing this will help them get it. And be sincere. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. These approaches won’t work on everyone every time. But if they raise your success by even 10 percent, you’ve become 10 percent more effective as a leader than you were before. That’s your reward.
Herbert Spencer said the great aim of education isn’t knowledge but action. That’s exactly what this book asks of you. You can finish this book in a weekend, but living it takes the rest of your life. So pick one principle, try it on the next person you talk to, and see what happens.