Shubham Surana
Professor Mahoney
Professional Responsibility and Leadership
16 December 2018
How to Win Friends and Influence People: Case Study Analysis
Background
In the year 1936, Dale Carnegie published his first edition of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” as a self-help book to explicate his management and human interaction principles the people who were interested. Since then, over 15 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide, establish Carnegie in the hall of fame of best-selling authors of all time. Originally, Carnegie gave courses to large corporations – often spanning 14-weeks – to teach them the principles of human interaction. Publishing firm Simon & Schuster persuaded Carnegie to allow a stenographer to take notes from the course and stitch them into a book. The rest was then history.
Major Sections and Relevant Case Examples
In the following paragraphs, I intend to dispel the major themes and sections from the book. Furthermore, I include relevant case example and real life illustrations of major leaders, like Abraham Lincoln, who serve as prime models of Carnegie’s values. Ultimately, my intention is to coalesce Carnegie’s seminal work in the following few pages to give a broad understanding of how leaders today can use and benefit from his timeless book.
Section 1: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
The first of Carnegie’s teachings relates to techniques humans can use to interact with people, not only in their organizations but also in day-to-day life. He offers the standard dogma that all actions humans take are motivated by either the desire to be important or from sex. While the latter can be spent on a wholly different essay, the former is the basis that builds our theories on human interaction. Carnegie initiates by advising readers not to “criticize, condemn, or complain” By this, he offers the example of a manager overlooking a construction project. The workers at the construction site continually refuse to put on their safety hats and often toss it around as if it is an object of sport. The manager continually resorts to the same following tactic: criticizing the workers, yelling at them to put on their hats, and threatening to deduct their pay if they refuse to do so. However, the outcome of such an approach is that the workers put on their hats in the presence of the manager but instantly remove them whenever he turns a blind eye. Instead, Carnegie offers a different approach. By not criticizing and condemning the workers, the manager should instead approach them with an amiable tone; further, he should tell them about the benefits of placing the hats on their head, and how they are provided to ensure their safety. The result of the approach was a startling increase in worker compliance as they continually began to understand how the hats were of benefit to them. World famous psychologist B.F. Skinner proved that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much faster and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior.
Since then, further studies have shown that this same principle applies to humans as well: Criticizing others doesn’t yield anything positive.
We aren’t able to make real changes by criticizing people, and we’re instead often met with resentment. It’s important to remember that when dealing with people, we’re dealing not with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, who are motivated by pride and ego.
Carnegie also advises to give honest and sincere appreciation to the people around you. He claims that appreciation can act as one of the most powerful tools in the art of dealing with people. While most individuals rarely perform at their maximum potential under the bludgeoning weight of harsh criticism and rebuke, honest appreciation allows humans to transform to their best. However, users should be cautioned that flattery or white lies will not elicit such a response from the people you work with. It must be sincere and meaningful, often filled with love. In addition, when managing people, individuals must arouse within them an eager want. To elicit that which we desire from another individual, it is essential to first forget our own perspective and see instead what motivates the counterparty. By grasping and seeing their view, we can show them how the accomplishment of our goals will be mutually beneficial.
Six Ways to Make People Like You
If we consider some of the most liked presidents in the history of the United States, most people would agree that we can boil down the list to 3 particular examples: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy. There are various similarities one might draw between the conduct and way these presidents carried themselves to lead the nation, and Carnegie outlines them in his book. First, a leader should be genuinely interested in the matters of his subjects. Canregie says that “You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.” Furthermore, he recommends smiling as a gesture to make yourself more approachable. Kennedy was known for his particularly enchanting smile when he gave public appearances and he was constantly intertwined with the Civil Rights Movement and problems that plagued his constituents during his time as president.
Furthermore, Carnegie informs readers that the sweetest sound to any person is their name. Being able to remember people’s names is a valuable asset that strengthens your relationship with that individual. For example, people are willing to donate large sums of money just to have a building with their name placed on it. Last year, the Tandon family from Mumbai donated the whopping sum of $150 million to have the NYU Polytechnic Engineering School renamed to Tandon School of Engineering.
Plus, we tend to take the people in our lives for granted so often that we neglect to let them know that we appreciate them. We must be careful to keep in mind the difference between appreciation and flattery, which seldom works with discerning people, as it is shallow, selfish and insincere. Flattery comes from the tongue; appreciation comes from the heart. Day in and day out, we spend most of our time thinking about ourselves. But if we stop thinking about ourselves for a bit and start thinking about other people’s strengths, we wouldn’t have to resort to cheap flattery and we could offer honest, sincere appreciation. With words of true appreciation, we have the power to completely change another person’s perception of themselves, improve their motivation, and be a driving force behind their success. When you think about it like that – when we have nothing to lose and only positive outcomes to gain – why wouldn’t we offer genuine appreciation more often?
Finally, Carnegie advises that the way to make the most out of an argument is to simply not have one. We are often tempted to argue with others, especially when we are absolutely convinced that we’re right about something. But even if we are right, what does arguing about it yield? Why prove someone else wrong? Is that going to make the person like us? Why not just let him save face, if we have nothing to gain from it but “feeling” superior? Not to mention, nine times out of 10, arguing just results in the other person even more firmly convinced that he is right. According to Carnegie, it’s impossible to win an argument. If we lose the argument, we lose; if we win the argument, we have made the other person feel inferior, hurt his pride, and made him resent us. In other words, we still lose.
Ultimately, the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie offers a vast plethora of useful techniques to deal with people and increase the value of our interactions with others. The aforementioned examples serve as an illustration of the incontrovertible truth of his teachings, and unequivocally help move us forward in our daily and professional lives.