How To Win Friends And Influence People Part 39

So he went. And he stayed. He stayed, to become the most famous warden of his time. His book 20,000 Years 20,000 Years in Sing Sing sold into the hundred of thousands of copies. sold into the hundred of thousands of copies.

His broadcasts on the air and his stories of prison life have inspired dozens of movies. His "humanizing"

of criminals wrought miracles in the way of prison reform.

"I have never found," said Harvey S. Firestone, founder of the great Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, "that pay and pay alone would either bring together or hold good people. I think it was the game itself."

Frederic Herzberg, one of the great behavorial scientists, concurred. He studied in depth the work att.i.tudes of thousands of people ranging from factory workers to senior executives. What do you think he found to be the most motivating factor - the one facet of the jobs that was most stimulating? Money? Good working conditions?

Fringe benefits? No - not any of those. The one major factor that motivated people was the work itself. If the work was exciting and interesting, the worker looked forward to doing it and was motivated to do a good job.

That is what every successful person loves: the game.

The chance for self-expression. The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to win. That is what makes foot-races and hog-calling and pie-eating contests. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance.

PRINCIPLE 12 Throw down a challenge.

I n a N u t s h e l l WIN PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING

PRINCIPLE 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."

PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

PRINCIPLE 4 Begin in a friendly way.

PRINCIPLE 5 Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.

PRINCIPLE 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

PRINCIPLE 7 Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

PRINCIPLE 8 Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.

PRINCIPLE 9 Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.

PRINCIPLE 10 Appeal to the n.o.bler motives.

PRINCIPLE 11 Dramatize your ideas.

PRINCIPLE 12 Throw down a challenge.

PART FOUR

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

1.

IF YOU MUST FIND FAULT, THIS IS THE WAY TO BEGIN

A friend of mine was a guest at the White House for a weekend during the administration of Calvin Coolidge.

Drifting into the President's private office, he heard Coolidge say to one of his secretaries, "That's a pretty dress you are wearing this morning, and you are a very attractive young woman."

That was probably the most effusive praise Silent Cal had ever bestowed upon a secretary in his life. It was so unusual, so unexpected, that the secretary blushed in confusion. Then Coolidge said, "Now, don't get stuck up. I just said that to make you feel good. From now on, I wish you would be a little bit more careful with your Punctuation."

His method was probably a bit obvious, but the psychology was superb. It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points.

A barber lathers a man before he shaves him; and that is precisely what McKinley did back in 1896, when he was running for President. One of the prominent Republicans of that day had written a campaign speech that he felt was just a trifle better than Cicero and Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster all rolled into one. With great glee, this chap read his immortal speech aloud to McKinley.

The speech had its fine points, but it just wouldn't do. It would have raised a tornado of criticism. McKinley didn't want to hurt the man's feelings. He must not kill the man's splendid enthusiasm, and yet he had to say "no." Note how adroitly he did it.

"My friend, that is a splendid speech, a magnificent speech," McKinley said. "No one could have prepared a better one. There are many occasions on which it would be precisely the right thing to say, but is it quite suitable to this particular occasion? Sound and sober as it is from your standpoint, I must consider its effect from the party's standpoint. Now you go home and write a speech along the lines I indicate, and send me a copy of it."

He did just that. McKinley blue-penciled and helped him rewrite his second speech, and he became one of the effective speakers of the campaign.

Here is the second most famous letter that Abraham Lincoln ever wrote. (His most famous one was written to Mrs. Bixby, expressing his sorrow for the death of the five sons she had lost in battle.) Lincoln probably dashed this letter off in five minutes; yet it sold at public auction in 1926 for twelve thousand dollars, and that, by the way, was more money than Lincoln was able to save during half a century of hard work. The letter was written to General Joseph Hooker on April 26, 1863, during the darkest period of the Civil War. For eighteen months, Lincoln's generals had been leading the Union Army from one tragic defeat to another. Nothing but futile, stupid human butchery. The nation was appalled.

Thousands of soldiers had deserted from the army, and en the Republican members of the Senate had revolted and wanted to force Lincoln out of the White House.

"We are now on the brink of destruction," Lincoln said. It appears to me that even the Almighty is against us. I can hardly see a ray of hope." Such was the black sorrow and chaos out of which this letter came.

I am printing the letter here because it shows how Lincoln tried to change an obstreperous general when the very fate of the nation could have depended upon the general's action.

This is perhaps the sharpest letter Abe Lincoln wrote after he became President; yet you will note that he praised General Hooker before he spoke of his grave faults.

Yes, they were grave faults, but Lincoln didn't call them that. Lincoln was more conservative, more diplomatic.

Lincoln wrote: "There are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you." Talk about tact! And diplomacy!

Here is the letter addressed to General Hooker:

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac.

Of course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.

I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality.

You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm, But I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer.