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by Micah Elliott.
Original Post: Win Friends and Influence People
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While getting ready for Startup School, I was frantically trying to plow through the bulk of Paul Graham's essays. He mentions that an important read for preparing to start your own business is How To Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. I picked it up at the library (footnote: I bet most libraries have a lot of copies of it, but I'll probably need to own a copy) a couple weeks ago, and I'm happy to report that this gem from 1936 is timeless and truly life-changing. PG doesn't offer much reason for this book recommendation, but I think it's simply to make me a better person. I'll further infer that it has to do with the importance of charisma, generally rounding out one's personality, and finding ways to get responsiveness from people by making them feel good.
I could be posting this article as a review on Amazon, but there are already 579 reviews of it, so why make another there (maybe I'll copy this there eventually)? My real intent in this post is to spark your interest in the book and get you pick up a copy and absorb every nugget, so your relationships will increase and improve. I seem to remember hearing something about the book some years ago, but I think I was put off by the title -- I don't want to win friends, I just like to make them. Don't worry; the book is really just about improving yourself. Breakdown
One complaint I have is that the table of contents does not very well summarize the maxims. They are, however, listed in a table at the end of each of the sections. I'll combine them here by their major sections.
Fundamentals for handling people: Don't be critical. Be sincerely appreciative, not flattering. Arouse in the other person an eager want, by focusing on their needs instead of yours.
Making people like you: Get others to do most of the talking. Listen well, and make them feel important. Then they'll feel so good about being listened to that they'll do anything for you.
Win people to your way of thinking: Always start in a friendly way, and be dramatic! See things from the other person's point of view, and be sympathetic with that view.
Leadership: Give lots of genuine praise, and be encouraging. Talk about your own mistakes first, and make his faults seem easy to correct. Ask questions instead of giving orders. Give the other person person a fine reputation to live up to, and let him save face. My Experience
Some of the lessons in the book are especially challenging to apply; e.g., making other people feel like your ideas are their own. A fundamental part of an entrepreneur's livelihood is idea generation. But ideas supposedly are not terribly valuable on their own (it's the execution that counts), so maybe this maxim is still valid. This seems to underscore the importance of having a lot of trust in your business partner(s).
I've noticed that a lot of people don't call me by my name; maybe just because it's slightly uncommon. I do make an effort to remember someone's name and use it with some frequency. It was encouraging to hear Carnegie underscore this. He's right -- it does feel good when someone calls me Micah.
I'm going to change my approach to making requests of people. I have a habit of getting right to the point and immediately stating what I want and why. That's probably why so many of my requests go unanswered! A general theme in the book is that getting what you want involves some indirection. I.e., think of things from the other person's perspective and present things from an angle of how they are the beneficiary. Summary
Overall, lots of Carnegie's ideas are common sense, but it still was useful to hear him make them concrete. Some of the principles are not so obvious and I probably wouldn't have ever discovered them on my own. I toted this book around with me for a couple weeks and found that having the ideas fresh in my head greatly improved my interactions with people. For this reason, I think this book (or its summary) would be highly valuable to skim over before every important meeting.
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