Dale Carnegie: how to win friends and influence people.

Dale Carnegie's best-known work focused on basic, essential principles for dealing with people successfully. His common-sense advice included never criticising, complaining about or condemning another person, giving sincere appreciation to others, and stimulating in others a specific desire, in order to motivate them.

Such advice formed the basis of the best-selling book for which Carnegie has become famous, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936). In this text, Carnegie's simple rules on how to achieve success with people are illustrated from his own and others' experiences, and also with historical stories about people such as Roosevelt and Lincoln. Although he is mainly known for this particular book, Carnegie's career began with training people to become speakers and writing various other books. He produced some of the earliest self-improvement manuals, and these are still popular today.

Carnegie's main focus is on interpersonal skills, effective communication and being a successful salesperson.

Life and career

Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) came from a poor, farming background and had to struggle through college. Looking for a way to distinguish himself, he began to enter speaking contests and, despite a shaky start, was soon winning every contest he entered. On leaving college, Carnegie worked for some time as a salesman and as an actor. He also ran his own business. Eventually, he decided to write novels and support himself by teaching at night.

Carnegie's first courses on public speaking for businessmen were run purely on a commission basis, as he was initially refused any pay. The courses did well, however, and their popularity made Dale Carnegie a great success. He went on to write many popular books and founded the Dale Carnegie Institute of Effective Speaking and Human Relations.

Carnegie's key ideas

Carnegie believed that criticism should never be used, because people who are criticised tend to respond by justifying themselves, and condemning the critical person in return. Great leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Carnegie believed, partly achieved their success because they never criticised others. Instead, Carnegie recommended the practice of self-control, understanding, and forgiveness. Most importantly, he advised that we should always try to see the other person's point of view.

In order to influence people and achieve your aims, Carnegie suggests, it is necessary to understand individual motivation. Work on the art of persuasion, and ask yourself what will motivate a person to want to do a task for you. Carnegie considered that most people are interested only in their own desires, and when given what they want, can help the giver to achieve great success in business.

Using very human, anecdotal evidence, Carnegie illustrates how nourishing a person's self-esteem can achieve far better results than criticism. For most people, he considers, the desire to be important is a main motivator, and can inspire people to do great things, such as become important leaders or make their fortune in business. On a smaller scale, people may want to drive a better car or buy a bigger house. Sometimes individuals may even become invalids to gain attention, or become insane so that they can live in their own dream world, where their importance can be exaggerated by imagination.

The rules

In How to Win Friends and Influence People, there are `In a Nutshell' conclusions at the end of each part of the book, where Carnegie summarises the main messages each section offers in terms of behaviour. Some of these are paraphrased below:

Six ways to make people like you

1. Show a genuine interest in other people

2. Be happy and positive

3. Remember that people love hearing the sound of their own name

4. Listen to other people and develop good listening skills

5. Talk about others' interests rather than your own

6. Give others a sincere sense of their importance

Twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking

1. To get the best of a situation, avoid arguments

2. Always listen to others' opinions and never tell anyone they are wrong

3. Admit it if you are wrong

4. Show friendliness

5. Make statements that the other person agrees with

6. Let the other person talk more than you

7. Make the other person feel that an idea is their own

8. See the other person's point of view

9. Show empathy with others' ideas and desires

10. Infuse some drama into your ideas

11. Appeal to the better nature of others

12. Finish with a challenge

Nine ways to change people without arousing resentment

1. Start with genuine praise and appreciation

2. Draw attention to their mistakes gradually

3. Admit that you have made mistakes and then talk about theirs

4. Don't give direct orders but ask questions

5. Never humiliate anyone, and let people keep their pride intact

6. Use plenty of genuine praise and encouragement on the slightest improvement

7. Give people a reputation to maintain

8. Encourage them. Show them that their task is easy to correct

9. Suggest what you want them to do and make them happy about it

Becoming a good public speaker

Some of the advice given by Dale Carnegie at the start of his career, when he trained and wrote to help people to make speeches in public, is summarised below.

Carnegie on speech preparation

From the beginning, Carnegie suggested, you should generate an enthusiasm within yourself for public speaking, whether you have a financial or a social goal in view. Prepare as much as possible for the speech, and have it ready well in advance. Begin planning as soon as you can, and look for a topic that you know a lot about. Always try to use your own ideas, and bring the topic of your talk into conversation, so that you can explore any interesting stories on the subject that others may be able to tell you. Think about your talk at every possible opportunity, and research it thoroughly, using libraries and other sources and collecting more material than you will need.

Do not memorise the talk word-for-word, as you will then be more likely to forget it, and it would also lose much effectiveness. While having plenty of material prepared, you should not try to say too much in the talk itself. Your material needs to be structured simply, so that you can talk as if you were in ordinary conversation.

Most people are nervous about talking in public. If you try to act bravely and pretend that you feel more confident than you really do, you will often actually gain in confidence. Practice will help you to feel more certain of yourself, and it is a good idea to rehearse your speech as much as possible, maybe in front of the mirror, or with family and friends as an audience.

Carnegie on speech delivery

Dress the part for your speech. Smile, and make sure you are clearly visible to your audience. Show respect and affection for the audience, and let the first sentence capture their attention. Examples of techniques to help you to achieve this are:

* start with a striking incident or example

* state an arresting fact

* ask for a show of hands 

* use an exhibit

* do or say something to arouse suspense 

* promise to tell the audience how they can get something they want.

You should not, however, open a talk with either an apology or a funny story. Humorous stories often fail to work, and this is particularly likely to be the case when you are nervous.

Use statistics or the testimony of experts to support your main ideas, but know your audience, and don't use technical terms if you are addressing a lay audience. Be eager to share your talk with your listeners, putting passion into your way of speaking and using your emotions without fear. Represent things visually when possible, turning a fact into a picture to help your audience to understand what you are talking about and using specific instances and concrete cases.

Stress important words, and avoid any hackneyed expressions or cliches. Once your talk is launched, you may feel more free to be humorous when appropriate, but take care to target any fun at yourself rather than others.

Your talk should have some marked form of closure. Summarise what you have said, then use a finalising climax or close of some sort that is appropriate within the context, for example:

* appeal for action

* pay the audience a sincere compliment

* raise a final laugh

* give a fitting verse of poetry or a quotation.

Carnegie's concluding advice

* Remember that many famous speakers were originally terrified of speaking in public and that a certain amount of stage fright is useful.

* Predetermine your mind to success and seize every opportunity to practice.

* By increasing your experience your fear will lessen, so seek opportunities to speak in public, and believe in yourself.

In perspective

Carnegie claimed that his theories do really work and that he had seen them transform the lives of many people. Some management writers, however, such as Stuart Crainer, have dismissed Carnegie's ideas as being simple wisdom dressed up in a commercial coating.

Certainly Carnegie's ideas are based on common sense and are hardly revolutionary. All his self-help books are based on down-to-earth and simply illustrated basic principles. Despite this simplicity, Carnegie has expressed many general truths which people acknowledge and, whatever his critics may say, the books he wrote are still popular.

In fact, Carnegie created a highly successful business out of his ideas, and his books have sold millions. Even today, much money is still being made from his work, which suggests that people still find him very relevant. Certainly, it is possible to see Carnegie's influence in some of today's ideas about management, particularly in discussions on the treatment of customers, and in approaches to interpersonal skills development.

Key titles

The editions cited here are not necessarily the first edition.

How to win friends and influence people
Tadworth, Surrey: World's Work Ltd, 1953

How to enjoy your life and your job
London: Cedar, 1990

How to stop worrying and start living
Cedar, London, 1990