How to Win Friends and Influence People, can be viewed as a handbook on how to handle everyday people from work to home and on how to improve your leaderships skills. Mr. Carnegie uses a lot of real life examples to show that what he is writing about works in the real world just as he says it will. The book itself is split into 4 different sections, each focus on a certain topic with developing better relationships and becoming a greater leader. The four sections are Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, Six Ways to Make People Like You, How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking, and Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment.
Each section in How to Win Friends and Influence People, has chapters that has a principle at the end. These principles are the takeaways from the chapter and they all relate back to the section they are under. This section focusses on dealing with critiques, what influences our everyday lives, and how to see things from someone else’s perspective. Mr. Carnegie states in this section that we need to go about critiquing each other differently. This can be done by using positive reinforcement because critiquing harshly can cause resentment, and “resentment can last for decades, and even until death” (Carnegie, 1981, p. 25) We are all craving praise at the end of the day no matter what it is we did because whatever we did, while we were doing it we felt it was correct. Dale cites murderers and gangsters as saying “they did nothing wrong,” which is what most criminals say, but in their head, they were doing what they felt was right for either themselves or their community (Carnegie, 1981, p. 22). When it comes to showing appreciation, we should always be honest and sincere with it. Mr. Carnegie states, “Everything we do comes from two urges. A sexual urge and a desire to be important,” when we focus more on the latter we see that there is a common theme throughout all of history and within ourselves right now (Carnegie, 1981, p. 33). No one wants to do something for someone without seeing a reward for themselves at the end, and Dale states how you can make someone eager to do what you ask of them. You first need to see things from the other persons point of view; what are their wants or needs? Once you have that you phrase what you want in a way so they see the benefits for themselves. The example Mr. Carnegie uses is a father asking his son to quit smoking cigarettes. The son isn’t going to quit just because the Father tells him and lists all the bad health data. The Dad puts it in terms for a high school boy by saying, “You won’t be able to run far or long if you keep smoking, and because of that you won’t make the basketball team.” Putting it in the person’s perspective who you are dealing with allows them to do what you want them to do, but they see it as they are doing it for themselves. Now that we learned how to handle people, we now need to learn how to keep those relationships and build new ones.
In order to maintain and create new relationships we need people to like us. Mr. Carnegie lays out six basic principles on how to make people like you. They all come down to making whoever you are interacting with feel they are the most important person in the world. In today’s world, no one really wants to hear about what you are doing and what your accomplishments are, they want to talk about themselves. Mr. Carnegie states, “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,” and this is the key to having people like you (Carnegie, 1981, p. 42). Dale sums up this section by emphasizing how much the little things mean to someone like remembering their name when you first meet them, smiling, and genuinely listening to everything they have to say. Not only will people like you if you follow these principles, they’ll regard you as a very genuine friend. With friendships, inside and outside the business world, you are bound to run into disagreements along the way and Dale Carnegie lays out a solid foundation on how to deal with those.
The last two sections of the book walk you through how to handle arguments as well as how to critique someone when it is absolutely needed. Mr. Carnegie mentioned in the earlier section to never criticize someone unless you absolutely have to, and he goes on in the last section to explain when and how you should go about that. “A barber lathers a man before he shaves him,” states Dale as he goes on to talk about how we should always start with a praise or appreciation before leading into a critique (Carnegie, 1981, p. 202). An even better way to critique someone is to do it indirectly so it seems that it is their own idea, and Mr. Carnegie proves this point by citing many famous businessmen who never tell their employees what to do. You can also soften the blow of a critique by admitting your own faults as well, so they view you as more of an equal than a superior. If the situation leads to an argument do not react emotionally at first as that will only cause the situation to escalate, instead take some time to truly go through their points and try to see it from their point of view. If you need to prove anything, do so subtly without coming off as gloating. Hurting an individual in an argument can cause resentment which can ruin any relationship with them in the future.
I went into this book not really sure of how I was going to enjoy it, and as soon as I picked it up I couldn’t put it back down. The advice in this book will not only help you have healthier friendships, but also help you become a strong and well-liked leader in the business world. I learned valuable life lessons while reading this which have opened my eyes. This book has definitely shifted my outlook on people and how to handle them, and I can’t wait to start applying Mr. Carnegie’s principles to my own life and seeing the benefits from them.