Charles Schwab had a mill manager whose men weren’t producing their quota of work.

“How is it,” Schwab asked, “that a man as capable as you can’t make this mill turn out what it should?”

“I don’t know,” the man replied. “I’ve coaxed the men; I’ve pushed them; I’ve sworn and cussed; I’ve threatened them with damnation and being fired. But nothing works. They just won’t produce.”

It happened to be the end of the day, just before the night shift came on.

“Give me a piece of chalk,” Schwab said. Then, turning to the nearest man: “How many heats did your shift make today?”

“Six.”

Without another word, Schwab chalked a big figure six on the floor, and walked away.

When the night shift came in, they saw the “6” and asked what it meant.

“The big boss was in here today,” the day men said. “He asked us how many heats we made, and we told him six. He chalked it down on the floor.”

The next morning Schwab walked through the mill again. The night shift had rubbed out “6” and replaced it with a big “7”.

When the day shift reported for work the next morning, they saw a big “7” chalked on the floor. So the night shift thought they were better than the day shift, did they? Well, they would show the night shift a thing or two. They pitched in with enthusiasm, and when they quit that night, they left behind them an enormous, swaggering “10.” Things were stepping up.

Shortly this mill, that had been lagging way behind in production, was turning out more work than any other mill in the plant.

 

The principle?

 

Let Charles Schwab say it in his own words: “The way to get things done,” say Schwab, “is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel.”

The desire to excel! The challenge! Throwing down the gauntlet! An infallible way of appealing to men of spirit.

Without a challenge, Theodore Roosevelt would never have been President of the United States. The Rough Rider, just back from Cuba, was picked for governor of New York State. The opposition discovered he was no longer a legal resident of the state; and Roosevelt, frightened, wished to withdraw. Then Thomas Collier Platt threw down the gauge. Turning suddenly on Theodore Roosevelt, he cried in a ringing voice: “Is the hero of San Juan Hill a coward?”

Roosevelt stayed in the fight – and the rest is history. A challenge not only changed his life; it had a real effect upon the history of this nation.

Charles Schwab knew the enormous power of a challenge. So did Boss Platt and Al Smith.

When Al Smith was governor of New York, he was up against it. Sing Sing, the most notorious penitentiary west of Devil’s Island, was without a warden. Scandals had been sweeping through the prison walls, scandals and ugly rumors. Smith needed a strong man to rule Sing Sing – an iron man. But who? He sent for Lewis E. Lawes of New Hampton.

“How about going up to take charge of Sing Sing?” he said jovially when Lawes stood before him. “They need a man up there with experience.”

Lawes was stumped. He knew the dangers of Sing Sing. It was a political appointment, subject to the vagaries of political whims. Wardens had come and gone – one had lasted only three weeks. He had a career to consider. Was it worth the risk?

And then Smith, who saw his hesitation, leaned back and smiled. “Young fellow,” he said, “I don’t blame you for being scared. It’s a tough spot. It’ll take a big man to go up there and stay.”

So Smith was throwing down a challenge, was he? Lawes liked the idea of attempting a job that called for a big man.

So he went. And he stayed. He stayed, to become the most famous warden alive. His book 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, sold into the hundreds of thousands of copies. He has broadcast on the air; his stories of prison life have inspired dozens of movies. And his “humanizing” of criminals has wrought miracles in the way of prison reform.

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

That is what every successful man loves: the game. The chance for self-expression. The chance to prove his 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.

So, if you want to win men – spirited men, men of mettle – to your way of thinking, Rule 12 is this:

THROW DOWN A CHALLENGE.

A few years ago, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin was being slandered by a dangerous whispering campaign. A malicious rumor was being circulated. Advertisers were being told that the newspaper carried too much advertising and too little news, that it was no longer attractive to readers. Immediate action was necessary. The gossip had to be squelched.

But how?

This is the way it was done.

The Bulletin clipped from its regular edition all reading matter of all kinds on one average day, classified it, and published it as a book. The book was called One Day. It contained 307 pages – as many as a two-dollar book; yet the Bulletin had printed all this news and feature material on one day and sold it, not for two dollars, but for two cents.

The printing of that book dramatized the fact that the Bulletin carried an enormous amount of interesting reading matter. It conveyed the facts more vividly, more interestingly, more impressively, than days of figures and mere talk could have done.

Read Showmanship in Business by Kenneth Goode and Zenn Kaufman – an exciting panorama of how showmen are ringing the cash register. It tells how Electrolux sells refrigerators by lighting matches at prospects’ ears to dramatize the silence of their refrigerator… How Personality enters Sears Roebuck catalogues with $1.95 hats auto-graphed by Ann Sothern… How George Wellbaum reveals that when a moving window display is stopped 80 per cent of the audience is lost… How Percy Whiting sells securities by showing prospects two lists of bonds – each worth $1,000 five years ago. He asks prospects which lists they would buy. Presto! Current market figures reveal that one list (his, of course) appreciated. The element of curiosity holds the prospects’ attention… How Mickey Mouse nibbles his way into the Encyclopedia and how his name on toys pulls a factory out of bankruptcy… How Eastern Air Lines packs them in on the sidewalk with a window reproducing the actual control panels of a Douglas air liner… How Harry Alexander excites his salesmen with a broadcast of an imaginary boxing bout between his product and a competitor’s… How a spotlight accidentally falls on a candy display – doubles sales… How Chrysler stands elephants on his cars to prove toughness.

Richard Borden and Alvin Busse of New York University analysed 15,000 sales interviews. They wrote a book entitled How to Win an Argument, then presented the same principles in a lecture, “Six Principles of Selling”. This was subsequently made into a movie and shown before the sales forces of hundreds of large corporations. They not only explain the principles uncovered by their research – but they actually enact them. They wage verbal battles in front of an audience, showing wrong and right ways to make a sale.

 

This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship. The movies do it. Radio does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.

Experts in window display know the trenchant power of dramatization. For example, the manufacturers of a new rat poison gave dealers a window display that included two live rats. The week the rats were shown, sales zoomed to five times their normal rate.

 

James B. Boynton of The American Weekly had to present a lengthy market report. His firm had just finished an exhaustive study for a leading brand of cold cream. Data was needed immediately on the menace of cut-rates; the prospect was one of the biggest – and most formidable – men in the advertising business.

And already his first approach had failed.

“The first time I went in,” Mr. Boynton admits, “I found myself side-tracked into a futile discussion of the methods used in the investigation. He argued and I argued. He told me I was wrong, and I tried to prove that I was right.

“I finally won my point, to my own satisfaction – but my time was up, the interview was over, and I still hadn’t produced results.

“The second time, I didn’t bother with tabulations of figures and data, I went to see this man, I dramatized my facts.

“As I entered his office, he was busy at the phone. While he finished his conversation, I opened a suit-case and dumped thirty-two jars of cold cream on top of his desk – all products he knew – all competitors of his cream.

“On each jar, I had a tag itemizing the results of the trade investigation, And each tag told its story briefly, dramatically.

“What happened?

“There was no longer an argument. Here was something new, something different. He picked up first one and then another of the cold-cream jars and read the information on the tag. A friendly conversation developed. He asked additional questions. He was intensely interested. He had originally given me only ten minutes to present my facts, but ten minutes passed, twenty minutes, forty minutes, and at the end of an hour we were still talking.

“I was presenting the same facts this time that I had presented previously. But this time I was using dramatization, showmanship – and what a difference it made.”

 

Therefore, if you want to win people to your way to thinking, Rule 11 is:

DRAMATIZE YOUR IDEAS.

I was reared on the edge of the Jesse James’ country out in Missouri and I visited the James’ farm at Kearney, Missouri, where the son of Jesse James is still living.

His wife told me stories of how Jesse robbed trains and held up banks and then gave money to the neighboring farmers to pay off their mortgages.

Jesse James probably regarded himself as an idealist at heart, just as Dutch Schultz, “Two Gun” Crowley, and Al Capone did two generations later. The fact is that every man you meet – even the man you see in the mirror – has a high regard for himself, and likes to be fine and unselfish in his own estimation.

J. Pierpont Morgan observed, in one of his analytical interludes, that a man usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one.

The man himself will think of the real reason. You don’t need to emphasize that. But all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of the motives that sound good. So, in order to change people, appeal to the nobler motives.

Is that too idealistic to work in business? Let’s see. Let’s take the case of Hamilton J. Farrell of the Farrell-Mitchell Company of Glenolden, Pennsylvania. Mr. Farrell had a disgruntled tenant who threatened to move. The tenant’s lease still had four months to run, at fifty-five dollars a month; nevertheless, he served notice that he was vacating immediately, regardless of lease.

“These people had lived in my house all winter – the most expensive part of the year,” Mr. Farrell said as he told the story to the class, “and I knew it would be difficult to rent the apartment again before fall. I could see two hundred and twenty dollars going over the hill – and believe me, I saw red.

“Now, ordinarily, I would have waded into that tenant and advised him to read his lease again. I would have pointed out that if he moved, the full balance of his rent would fall due at once – and that I could, and would, move to collect.

“However, instead of flying off the handle and making a scene, I decided to try other tactics. So I started like this: ‘Mr. Doe,’ I said, ‘I have listened to your story, and I still don’t believe you intend to move. Years in the renting business have taught me something about human nature, and I sized you up in the first place as being a man of your word. In fact, I’m so sure of it that I’m willing to take the gamble.

” ‘Now, here’s my proposition. Lay your decision on the table for a few days and think it over. If you come back to me between now and the first of the month, when your rent is due, and tell me you still intend to move, I give you my word I will accept your decision as final. I will privilege you to move and admit to myself I’ve been wrong in my judgment. But I still believe you’re a man of your word and will live up to your contract. For after all, we are either men or monkeys – and the choice usually lies with ourselves!’

“Well, when the new month came around, this gentleman came and paid his rent in person. He and his wife had talked it over, he said – and decided to stay. They had concluded that the only honorable thing to do was to live up to their lease.”

 

When the late Lord Northcliffe found a newspaper using a picture of himself which he didn’t want published, he wrote the editor a letter. But did he say, “Please do not publish that picture of me any more, I don’t like it”? No, he appealed to a nobler motive. He appealed to the respect and love that all of us have for motherhood. He wrote, “Please do not publish that picture of me any more. My mother doesn’t like it.”

 

When John D. Rockefeller, Jr., wished to stop newspaper photographers from snapping pictures of his children, he, too, appealed to the nobler motives. He didn’t say: “I don’t want their pictures published.” No he appealed to the desire, deep in all of us, to refrain from harming children. He said: “You know how it is, boys. You’ve got children yourselves, some of you. And you know it’s not good for youngsters to get too much publicity.”

 

When Cyrus H. K. Curtis, the poor boy from Maine, was starting on his meteoric career which was destined to make him millions as owner of The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies’ Home Journal – when he first started, he couldn’t afford to pay the prices that other magazines paid. He couldn’t afford to hire first-class authors to write for money alone. So he appealed to their nobler motives. For example, he persuaded even Louisa May Alcott, the immortal author of Little Women, to write for him when she was at the flood tide of her fame; and he did it by offering to send a check for a hundred dollars, not to her, but to her favorite charity.

Right here the skeptic may say: “Oh, that stuff is all right for Northcliffe and Rockefeller or a sentimental novelist. But, boy! I’d like to see you make it work with the tough babies I have to collect bills from!”

You may be right. Nothing will work in all cases – and nothing will work with all men. If you are satisfied with the results you are now getting, why change? If you are not satisfied, why not experiment?

At any rate, I think you will enjoy reading this true story told by James L. Thomas, a former student of mine:

Six customers of a certain automobile company refused to pay their bills for servicing. No customer protested the entire bill, but each one claimed that some one charge was wrong. In each case, the customer had signed for the work done, so the company knew it was right – and said so. That was the first mistake.

Here are the steps the men in the credit department took to collect these overdue bills. Do you suppose they succeeded?

1. They called on each customer and told him bluntly that they had come to collect a bill that was long past due.
2. They made it very plain that the company was absolutely and unconditionally right; therefore he, the customer, was absolutely and unconditionally wrong.
3. They intimated that they, the company, knew more about automobiles than he could ever hope to know. So what was the argument about?
4. Result: They argued.

Did any of these methods reconcile the customer and settle the account? You can answer that one yourself.

At this stage of affairs, the credit manager was about to open fire with a battery of legal talent, when fortunately the matter came to the attention of the general manager. The manager investigated these defaulting clients and discovered that they all had the reputation of paying their bills promptly. Something was wrong here – something was drastically wrong about the method of collection. So he called in James L. Thomas and told him to collect these “uncollectable accounts”.

These are the steps Mr. Thomas took.

1. “My visit to each customer”, says Mr. Thomas, “was likewise to collect a bill long past due – a bill that we knew was absolutely right. But I didn’t say a word about that. I explained I had called to find out what it was the company had done, or failed to do.”

2. “I made it clear that, until I had heard the customer’s story, I had no opinion to offer. I told him the company made no claims to being infallible.”

3. “I told him I was interested only in his car, and that he knew more about his car than anyone else in the world; that he was the authority on the subject.”

4. “I let him talk, and listened to him with all the interest and sympathy that he wanted – and had expected.”

5. “Finally, when the customer was in a reasonable mood, I put the whole thing up to his sense of fair play. I appealed to the nobler motives. ‘First,’ I said, ‘I want you to know that I also feel this matter has been badly mishandled. You have been inconvenienced and annoyed and irritated by one of our representatives. That should never have happened. I’m sorry and, as a representative of the company, I apologize. As I sat here and listened to your side of the story, I could not help being impressed by your fairness and patience. And now, because you are fair-minded and patient, I am going to ask you to do something for me. It’s something that you can do better than anyone else, something you know more about than anyone else. Here is this bill of yours; I know it is safe for me to ask you to adjust it, just as you would do if you were the president of my company. I am going to leave it all up to you. Whatever you say goes.”

Did he adjust the bill? He certainly did, and got quite a kick out of it, The bills ranged from $150 to $400 – but did the customer give himself the best of it? Yes, one of them did! One of them refused to pay a penny of the disputed charge; but the other five all gave the company the best of it! And here’s the cream of the whole thing – we delivered new cars to all six of these customers within the next two years!

“Experience has taught me,” says Mr. Thomas, “that when no information can be secured about the customer, the only sound basis on which to proceed is to assume that he is sincere, honest, truthful and willing and anxious to pay the charges, once he is convinced they are correct. To put it differently and perhaps mare clearly, people are honest and want to discharge their obligations. The exceptions to that rule are comparatively few, and I am convinced that the individual who is inclined to chisel will in most cases react favorably if you make him feel that you consider him honest, upright, and fair.”

So, if you want to win people to your way of thinking, it is a find thing, in general, to follow Rule 10:

APPEAL TO THE NOBLER MOTIVES.

Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop argument, eliminate ill feeling, create good will, and make the other person listen attentively?

Yes? All right. Here it is. Begin by saying: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you, I should undoubtedly feel just as you do.”

An answer like that will soften the most cantankerous old cuss alive. And you can say that and be 100 per cent sincere, because if you were the other person, of course you would feel just as he does. Let me illustrate. Take Al Capone, for example. Suppose you had inherited the same body and temperament and mind that Al Capone inherited. Suppose you had had his environment and experiences. You would then be precisely what he is—and where he is. For it is those things—and only those things—that made him what he is.

The only reason, for example, that you are not a rattlesnake is that your mother and father weren’t rattlesnakes. The only reason you don’t kiss cows and consider snakes holy is because you weren’t born in a Hindu family on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

You deserve very little credit for being what you are — and remember, the man who comes to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserves very little discredit for being what he is. Feel sorry for the poor devil. Pity him. Sympathize with him. Say to yourself what John B. Gough used to say when he saw a drunken bum staggering down the street : “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

Three-fourths of the people you will meet tomorrow are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.

I once gave a broadcast about the author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. Naturally, I knew she had lived and written her immortal books in Concord, Massachusetts. But, without thinking what I was saying, I spoke of visiting her old home in Concord, New Hampshire. If I had said New Hampshire only once, it might have been forgiven. But, alas! alack! I said it twice. I was deluged with letters and telegrams, stinging messages that swirled around my defenceless head like a swarm of hornets. Many were indignant. A few insulting. One Colonial Dame, who had been reared in Concord, Massachusetts, and who was then living in Philadelphia, vented her scorching wrath upon me. She couldn’t have been much more bitter if I had accused Miss Alcott of being a cannibal from New Guinea. As I read the letter, I said to myself: “Thank God, I am not married to that girl.” I felt like writing and telling her that although I had made a mistake in geography, she had made a far greater mistake in common courtesy. That was to be just my opening sentence. Then I was going to roll up my sleeves and tell her what I really thought. But I didn’t. I controlled myself. I realized that any hot-headed fool could do that—and that most fools would do just that.

I wanted to be above fools. So I resolved to try to turn her hostility into friendliness. That would be a challenge, a sort of a game I could play. I said to myself : “After all, if I were she, I should probably feel just as she does.” So I determined to sympathize with her viewpoint. The next time I was in Philadelphia, I called her on the telephone. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Mrs. So-and-so, you wrote me a letter a few weeks ago, and I want to thank you for it.

SHE (in incisive, cultured, well-bred tones): To whom have I the honour of speaking ?

ME: I am a stranger to you. My name is Dale Carnegie. You listened to a broadcast I gave about Louisa May Alcott a few Sundays ago, and I made the unforgivable blunder of saying that she had lived in Concord, New Hampshire. It was a stupid blunder, and I want to apologize for it. It was so nice of you to take the time to write me.

SHE: I am sorry, Mr. Carnegie, that I wrote as I did. I lost my temper. I must apologize.

ME: No! No! You are not the one to apologize; I am the one to apologize. Any school child would have known better than to have said what I said. I apologized over the air the Sunday following, and I want to apologize to you personally now.

SHE : I was born in Concord, Massachusetts. My family has been prominent in Massachusetts affairs for two centuries, and I am very proud of my native state. I was really quite distressed to hear you say that Miss Alcott was born in New Hampshire. But I am really ashamed of that letter.

ME: I assure you that you were not one-tenth as distressed as I am. My error didn’t hurt Massachusetts; but it did hurt me. It is so seldom that people of your standing and culture take the time to write people who speak on the radio, and I do hope you will write me again if you detect an error in my talks.

SHE: You know, I really like very much the way you have accepted my criticism. You must be a very nice person. I should like to know you better.

So, by apologizing and sympathizing with her point of view, I got her apologizing and sympathizing with my point of view. I had the satisfaction of controlling my temper, the satisfaction of returning kindness for an insult. I got infinitely more real fun out of making her like me than I could ever have gotten out of telling her to go and take a jump in the Schuylkill River.

 

Every man who occupies the White House is faced almost daily with thorny problems in human relations. President Taft was no exception, and he learned from experience the enormous chemical value of sympathy in neutralizing the acid of hard feelings. In his book, Ethics in Service, Taft gives rather an amusing illustration of how he softened the ire of a disappointed and ambitious mother.

“A lady in Washington [writes Taft] whose husband had some political influence, came and laboured with me for six weeks or more to appoint her son to a position. She secured the aid of Senators and Congressmen in formidable number and came with them to see that they spoke with emphasis. The place was one requiring technical qualification, and following the recommendation of the head of the Bureau, I appointed somebody else. I then received a letter from the mother, saying that I was most ungrateful, since I declined to make her a happy woman as I could have done by a turn of my hand. She complained further that she had laboured with her state delegation and got all the votes for an administration bill in which I was especially interested and this was the way I had rewarded her.

“When you get a letter like that, the first thing you do is to think how you can be severe with a person who has committed an impropriety, or even been a little impertinent. Then you may compose an answer. Then if you are wise, you will put the letter in a drawer and lock the drawer. Take it out in the course of two days — such communications will always bear two days delay in answering—and when you take it out after that interval, you will not send it. That is just the course I took. After that, I sat down and wrote her just as polite a letter as I could, telling her I realized a mother’s disappointment under such circumstances, but that really the appointment was not left to my mere personal preference, that I had to select a man with technical qualifications, and had, therefore, to follow the recommendations of the head of the Bureau. I expressed the hope that her son would go on to accomplish what she had hoped for him in the position which he then had. That mollified her and she wrote me a note saying she was sorry she had written as she had.

“But the appointment I sent in was not confirmed at once, and after an interval I received a letter which purported to come from her husband, though it was in the same handwriting as all the others. I was therein advised that, due to the nervous prostration that had followed her disappointment in this case, she had to take to her bed and had developed a most serious case of cancer of the stomach. Would I not restore her to health by withdrawing the first name and replacing it by her son’s? I had to write another letter, this one to the husband, to say that I hoped the diagnosis would prove to be inaccurate, that I sympathized with him in the sorrow he must have in the serious illness of his wife, but that it was impossible to withdraw the name sent in. The man whom I appointed was confirmed, and within two days after I received that letter, we gave a musicale at the White House. The first two people to greet Mrs. Taft and me were this husband and wife, though the wife had so recently been in articulo mortis.”

S, Hurok is probably America’s number one music manager. For a fifth of a century he has been handling artists — such world-famous artists as Chaliapin, Isadora Duncan, and Pavlova. Mr. Hurok told me that one of the first lessons he learned in dealing with his temperamental stars was the necessity for sympathy, sympathy, and more sympathy with their ridiculous idiosyncrasies.

For three years, he was impresario for Feodor Chaliapin — one of the greatest bassos who ever thrilled the ritzy box-holders at the Metropolitan. Yet Chaliapin was a constant problem. He carried on like a spoiled child. To put it in Mr. Hurok’s own inimitable phrase: “He was a hell of a fellow in every way.”

For example, Chaliapin would call up Mr. Hurok about noon of the day he was going to sing and say: “Sol, I feel terrible. My throat is like a raw hamburger. It is impossible for me to sing to-night.” Did Mr. Hurok argue with him? Oh, no. He knew that an entrepreneur couldn’t handle artists that way. So he would rush over to Chaliapin’s hotel, dripping with sympathy. “What a pity,” he would mourn. “What a pity! My poor fellow. Of course, you cannot sing. I will cancel the engagement at once. It will only cost you a couple of thousand dollars, but that is nothing in comparison to your reputation.”

Then Chaliapin would sigh and say: “Perhaps you had better come over later in the day. Come at five and see how I feel then.”

At five o’clock, Mr. Hurok would again rush to his hotel, dripping with sympathy. Again he would insist on cancelling the engagement, and again Chaliapin would sigh and say: “Well, maybe you had better come to see me later. I may be better then.”

At seven-thirty the great basso would consent to sing, only with the understanding that Mr. Hurok would walk out on the stage of the Metropolitan and announce that Chaliapin had a very bad cold and was not in good voice. Mr. Hurok would lie and say he would do it, for he knew that was the only way to get the basso out on the stage.

 

Dr. Arthur I. Gates says in his splendid book, Educational Psychology:

“Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults . . . show their bruises, relate their accidents, illnesses, especially details of surgical operations. ‘Self-pity’ for misfortunes real or imaginary is, in some measure, practically a universal practice.”

So, if you want to win people to your way of thinking, Rule 9 is:

BE SYMPATHETIC TO THE OTHER PERSON’S IDEAS AND DESIRES.

Remember that the other man may be totally wrong. But he doesn’t think so. Don’t condemn him. Any fool can do that. Try to understand him. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional men even try to do that.

There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does. Ferret out that hidden reason—and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality,

Try honestly to put yourself in his place.

If you say to yourself : “How would I feel, how would I react if I were in his shoes?” you will save a lot of time and irritation, for “by becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect”. And, in addition, you will sharply increase your skill in human relationships.

“Stop a minute [says Kenneth M. Goode, in his book, How to Turn People into Gold] stop a minute to contrast your keen interest in your own affairs with your mild concern about anything else. Realize then, that everybody else in the world feels exactly the same way! Then, along with Lincoln and Roosevelt, you will have grasped the only solid foundation for any job other than warden in a penitentiary: namely, that success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other man’s viewpoint.”

For years, I have taken a great deal of my recreation by walking and riding in a park near my own home. Like the Druids of ancient Gaul, I all but worship an oak-tree, so I was distressed season after season to see the young trees and shrubs killed off by needless fires. These fires weren’t caused by careless smokers. They were almost all caused by boys who went out to the park to go native and cook a frankfurter or an egg under the trees. Sometimes, these fires raged so fiercely that the fire department had to be called out to fight the conflagration.

There was a sign on the edge of the park saying that anyone who started a fire was liable to fine and imprisonment; but the sign stood in an unfrequented part of the park, and few boys ever saw it. A mounted policeman was supposed to look after the park; but he didn’t take his duties too seriously, and the fires continued to spread season after season. On one occasion I rushed up to a policeman and told him about a fire spreading rapidly through the park and wanted him to notify the fire department; and he nonchalantly replied that it was none of his business because it wasn’t in his precinct! I was desperate, so after that when I went riding, I acted as a self-appointed committee of one to protect the public domain. In the beginning, I am afraid I didn’t even attempt to see the boys’ point of view. When I saw a fire blazing under the trees, I was unhappy about it, so eager to do the right thing, that I did the wrong thing. I could ride up to the boys, warn them that they could be gaoled for starting a fire, order it put out with a tone of authority; and, if they refused, I would threaten to have them arrested. I was merely unloading my feelings without thinking of their point of view.

The result? The boys obeyed — obeyed sullenly and with resentment. After I rode on over the hill, they probably rebuilt the fire; and longed to burn up the whole park.

With the passing of the years, I hope I acquired a trifle more knowledge of human relations, a little more tact, a little greater tendency to see things from the other person’s point of view. Then, instead of giving orders, I would ride up to a blazing fire and begin something like this:

“Having a good time, boys? What are you going to cook for supper?…  I loved to build fires myself when I was a boy—and I still love to. But you know they are very dangerous here in the park. I know you boys don’t mean to do any harm; but other boys aren’t so careful. They come along and see that you have built a fire; so they build one and don’t put it out when they go home, and it spreads among the dry leaves and kills the trees. We won’t have any trees here at all if we aren’t more careful. You could be put in gaol for building this fire. But I don’t want to be bossy and interfere with your pleasure. I like to see you enjoy yourselves; but won’t you please rake all the leaves away from the fire right now—and you’ll be careful to cover it with dirt, a lot of dirt, before you leave, won’t you? And the next time you want to have some fun, won’t you please build your fire over the hill there in the sand pit? It can’t do any danger there. . .. Thanks so much, boys. Have a good time.”

What a difference that kind of talk made! That made the boys want to co-operate. No sullenness, no resentment, They hadn’t been forced to obey orders. They had saved their faces. They felt better and I felt better because I had handled the situation with consideration for their point of View.

Tomorrow, before asking anyone to put out a fire or buy a can of Afta cleaning fluid or give fifty dollars to the Red Cross, why not pause and close your eyes and try to think the whole thing through from the other person’s point of view? Ask yourself: ‘‘Why should he want to do it?” True, that will take time; but it will make friends and get better results and get them with less friction and less shoe leather.

“I should rather walk the sidewalk in front of a man’s office for two hours before an interview,” said Dean Donham of the Harvard business school, “than step into his office without a perfectly clear idea of what I am going to say and what he — from my knowledge of his interests and ‘motives — is likely to answer.”

That is so important that I am going to repeat it in italics for the sake of emphasis.

“I should rather walk the sidewalk in front of a man’s office for two hours before an interview, than step into his office without a perfectly clear idea of what I am going to say and what he—from my knowledge of his interests and motives — is likely to answer.”

If, as a result of reading this book, you get only one thing — an increased tendency to think always in terms of the other person’s point of view, and see things from his angle as well as your own — if you get only that one thing from this book, it may easily prove to be one of the milestones of your career.

Therefore, if you want to change people without giving offence or arousing resentment, Rule 8 is:

TRY HONESTLY TO SEE THINGS FROM THE OTHER PERSON’S POINT OF VIEW.

Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn’t it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people? Wouldn’t it be wiser to make suggestions – and let the other man think out the conclusion for himself?

To illustrate: Mr. Adolph Seltz of Philadelphia, a student of one of my courses, suddenly found himself confronted with the necessity of injecting enthusiasm into a discouraged and disorganized group of automobile salesmen. Calling a sales meeting, he urged his men to tell him exactly what they expected from him. As they talked, he wrote their ideas on the blackboard. He then said: “I’ll give you all these qualities you expect from me. Now I want you to tell me what I have a right to expect from you.” The replies came quick and fast: loyalty, honesty, initiative, optimism, team work, eight hours a day of enthusiastic work. One man volunteered to work fourteen hours a day. The meeting ended with a new courage, a new inspiration, and Mr. Seltz reported to me that the increase of sales had been phenomenal.

“The men had made a sort of moral bargain with me, ” said Mr. Seltz, “and as long as I lived up to my part in it, they were determined to live up to theirs. Consulting them about their wishes and desires was just the shot in the arm they needed.”

No man likes to feel that he is being sold something or told to do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, our thoughts.

For example, take the case of Eugene Wesson. He lost countless thousands of dollars in commissions before he learned this truth. Mr. Wesson sells sketches for a studio that creates designs for stylists and textile manufacturers. Mr. Wesson had called once a week, every week for three years, on one of the leading stylists in New York. “He never refused to see me,” said Mr. Wesson, “but he never bought. He always looked over my sketches very carefully and then said: ‘No, Wesson, I guess we don’t get together today.’ ”

After a hundred and fifty failures, Wesson realized he must be in a mental rut; so he resolved to devote one evening a week to the study of influencing human behavior, and to develop new ideas and generate new enthusiasms.

Presently he was stimulated to try a new approach. Picking up half a dozen unfinished sketches the artists were working on, he rushed over to his buyer’s office. “I want you to do me a little favor, if you will,” he said. “‘Here are some uncompleted sketches. Won’t you please tell me how we could finish them up in such a way that they would be of service to you?”

The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without uttering a word and then said: “Leave these with me for a few days, Wesson, and then come back and see me.”

Wesson returned three days later, got his suggestions, took the sketches back to the studio and had them finished according to the buyer’s ideas. The result? All accepted.

That was nine months ago. Since that time, this buyer has ordered scores of other sketches, all drawn according to his ideas – and the net result has been more than sixteen hundred dollars in commissions for Wesson. “I now realize why I failed for years to sell this buyer,” said Mr. Wesson. “I had urged him to buy what I thought he ought to have. I do the very opposite now. I urge him to give me his ideas. He feels now that that he is creating the designs. And he is. I don’t have to sell him now. He buys.”

 

When Theodore Roosevelt was Governor of New York, he accomplished an extraordinary feat. He kept on good terms with the political bosses and yet he forced through reforms which they bitterly disliked.

And here is how he did it.

When an important office was to be filled, he invited the political bosses to make recommendations. “At first,” said Roosevelt, “they might propose a broken-down party hack, the sort of man who has to be ‘taken care of’. I would tell them that to appoint such a man would not be good politics, as the public would not approve it.

“Then they would bring me the name of another party hack, a persistent office holder, who, if he had nothing against him, had little in his favour. I would tell them that this man would not measure up to the expectations of the public, and I would ask them to see if they could not find someone more obviously fitted for the post.

“Their third suggestion would be a man who was almost good enough, but not quite.

“Then I would thank them, asking them to try once more, and their fourth suggestion would be acceptable; they would then name just the sort of man I should have picked out myself. Expressing my gratitude for their assistance, I would appoint this man — and I would let them take the credit for the appointment… I would tell them that I had done these things to please them and now it was their turn to please me.”

And they did. They did it by supporting such sweeping reforms as the Civil Service Bill and the Franchise Tax Bill.

Remember, Roosevelt went to great lengths to consult the other man and show respect for his advice, When Roosevelt made an important appointment, he let the bosses really feel that they had selected the candidate, that the idea was theirs.

 

An automobile dealer on Long Island used this same technique to sell a used car to a Scotsman and his wife. This dealer had shown the Scotsman car after car, but there was always something wrong. This didn’t suit. That was out of kilter. The price was too high. Always the price was too high. At this juncture, the dealer, a member of one of my courses, appealed to the class for help.

We advised him to quit trying to sell “Sandy” and let “Sandy” buy. We said, instead of telling “Sandy” what to do, why not let him tell you what to do? Let him feel that the idea is his.

That sounded good. So the dealer tried it a few days later when a customer wanted to trade an old car in on a new one. The dealer knew this used car might appeal to “Sandy”. So, he picked up the phone and asked “Sandy” if he wouldn’t, as a special favour, come over and give him a bit of advice.

When “Sandy” arrived, the dealer said: “You are a shrewd buyer. You know car values. Won’t you please look over this car and try it out and tell me how much I ought to allow for it in-a trade?”

“Sandy” was “one vast substantial smile”. At last his advice was being sought, his ability was being recognized.

He drove the car up Queens Boulevard from Jamaica to Forest Hills and back again. “If you can get that car for three hundred,” he advised, “you’ll be getting a bargain.”

“If I can get it at that figure, would you be willing to buy it?” the dealer inquired. Three hundred? Of course. That was his idea, his appraisal. The deal was closed immediately.

 

This same psychology was used by an X-ray manufacturer to sell his equipment to one of the largest hospitals in Brooklyn. This hospital was building an addition and preparing to equip it with the finest X-ray department in America. Dr. L_____, who was in charge of the X-ray department, was overwhelmed with salesmen, each caroling the praises of his own equipment.

One manufacturer, however, was more skillful. He knew far more about handling human nature than the others did. He wrote a letter something like this:

“Our factory has recently completed a new line of X-ray equipment. The first shipment of these machines has just arrived at our office. They are not perfect. We know that, and we want to improve them. So we should be deeply obligated to you if you could find time to look them over and give us your ideas about how they can be made more serviceable to your profession. Knowing how occupied you are, I shall be glad to send my car for you at any hour you specify.”

“I was surprised to get that letter,” Dr. L_____ said, as he related the incident before the class. “I was both surprised and complimented. I had never had an X-ray manufacturer seeking my advice before. It made me feel important. I was busy every night that week, but I canceled a dinner appointment in order to look over the equipment. The more I studied it, the more I discovered for myself how much I liked it.

“Nobody had tried to sell it to me. I felt that the idea of buying that equipment for the hospital was my own. I sold myself on its superior qualities and ordered it installed.”

 

Colonel Edward M. House wielded an enormous influence in national and international affairs while Woodrow Wilson occupied the White House. Wilson leaned upon Colonel House for secret counsel and advice even more than he did upon members of his own cabinet.

What method did the Colonel use in influencing the President? Fortunately, we know, for House himself revealed it to Arthur D. Howden Smith, and Smith quoted House in an article in The Saturday Evening Post.

” ‘After I got to know the President,’ House said, ‘I learned the best way to convert him to an idea was to plant it in his mind casually, but so as to interest him in it – so as to get him thinking about it on his own account. The first time this worked it was an accident. I had been visiting him at the White House and urged a policy on him which he appeared to disapprove. But several days later, at the dinner table, I was amazed to hear him trot out my suggestion as his own.’ “

Did House interrupt him and say, “That’s not your idea. That’s mine” ? Oh, no. Not House. He was too adroit for that. He didn’t care about credit. He wanted results. So he let Wilson continue to feel that the idea was his. House did even more than that. He gave Wilson public credit for these ideas.

Let’s remember that the people with whom we come in contact tomorrow will be just as human as Woodrow Wilson. So let’s use the technique of Colonel House.

A man up in New Brunswick used this technique on me a few years ago – and got my patronage. I was planning at the time to do some fishing and canoeing in New Brunswick. So I wrote the tourist bureau for information. My name and address were evidently put on a public list, for I was immediately overwhelmed with scores of letters and booklets and printed testimonials from camps and guides. I was bewildered. I didn’t know which to choose. Then one camp owner did a very clever thing. He sent me the names and telephone numbers of several New York people he had served and invited me to telephone them and discover for myself what he had to offer.

I found to my surprise that I knew one of the men on his list. I telephoned him, found out what his experience had been, and then wired the camp the date of my arrival.

The others had been trying to sell me on their service, but one chap let me sell myself. He won.

 

So if you want to influence people to your way of thinking, Rule 7 is:

LET THE OTHER FELLOW FEEL THAT THE IDEA IS HIS.

 

Twenty-five centuries ago, Lao Tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that readers of this book might use today:

“The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.”

Most people, when trying to win others to their way of thinking, do too much talking themselves. Salesmen, especially, are guilty of this costly error. Let the other man talk himself out. He knows more about his business and his problems than you do. So ask him questions. Let him tell you a few things.

If you disagree with him, you may be tempted to interrupt. But don’t. It is dangerous. He won’t pay attention to you while he still has a lot of ideas of his own crying for expression. So listen patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage him to express his ideas fully.

Does this policy pay in business? Let’s see. Here is the story of a man who was forced to try it.

A few years ago, one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the United States was negotiating for a year’s requirements of upholstery fabrics. Three important manufacturers had worked up fabrics in sample bodies. These had all been inspected by the executives of the motor company, and notice had been sent to each manufacturer saying that, on a certain day, his representative would be given an opportunity of making his final plea for the contract.

G. B. R., a representative of one manufacturer, arrived in town with a severe attack of laryngitis. “When it came my turn to meet the executives in conference,” Mr. R. said as he related the story before one of my classes, “I had lost my voice. I could hardly whisper. I was ushered into a’ room and found myself face to face with the textile engineer, the purchasing agent, the director of sales, and the president of the company. I stood up and made a valiant effort to speak, but I couldn’t do anything more than squeak.

“They were all seated around a table, so I wrote on a pad of paper: ‘Gentlemen, I have lost my voice. I am speechless.’

“ ‘I’ll do the talking for you,’ the president said. He did. He exhibited my samples and praised their good points. A lively discussion arose about the merits of my goods, And the president, since he was talking for me, took my side during the discussion. My sole participation consisted of smiles, nods, and a few gestures.

“As a result of this unique conference, I was awarded the contract, which called for over half a million yards of upholstery fabrics at an aggregate value of $1,600,000—the biggest order I ever received.

“I know I should have lost that contract if I hadn’t lost my voice, because I had the wrong idea about the whole proposition. I discovered, quite by accident, how richly it sometimes pays to let the other fellow do the talking.”

 

Joseph S. Webb of the Philadelphia Electric Company made the same discovery. Mr. Webb was making a rural inspection trip through a district of prosperous Pennsylvania Dutch farmers.

“Why aren’t those people using electricity?” he asked the district representative as they passed a well-kept farmhouse.

“They’re tightwads. You can’t sell them anything,” the district man answered in disgust. “And, besides, they’re sore at the company. I’ve tried. It’s hopeless.”

Maybe it was, but Webb decided to try anyway, so he knocked at the farmhouse door. The door opened by a narrow crack, and old Mrs. Druckenbrod peered out.

“As soon as she saw the company representative,” said Mr. Webb, as he related the story, “she slammed the door in our faces. I knocked again, and again she opened the door; and this time she began to tell us what she thought of us and our company.

“ ‘Mrs. Druckenbrod,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry we’ve troubled you. But I didn’t come here to sell you electricity. I merely wanted to buy some eggs.’

“She opened the door wider and peered out at us suspiciously.

“‘I noticed your fine flock of Dominicks,’ I said, ‘and I should like to buy a dozen fresh eggs.’

“The door opened a little wider. ‘How’d you know my hens were Dominicks?’ she inquired, her curiosity piqued.

“ ‘I raise chickens myself,’ I replied. ‘And I must say, I’ve never seen a finer flock of Dominicks.’

“ ‘Why don’t you use your own eggs then? she demanded, still somewhat suspicious.

“ ‘Because my Leghorns lay white eggs. And naturally, being a cook yourself, you know white eggs can’t compare to brown eggs when it comes to making cake. And my wife prides herself on her cakes.’

“By this time, Mrs. Druckenbrod ventured out on to the porch in a much more amiable frame of mind. Meantime, my eyes had been wandering around and I had discovered that the farm was equipped with a fine-looking dairy.

“ ‘As a matter of fact, Mrs. Druckenbrod,’ I continued, ‘I’ll bet you make more money from your hens than your husband makes with his dairy.’

“Bang! She was off! Sure she did! And she loved to tell me about it. But, alas, she couldn’t make her old husband, the blockhead, admit it.

“She invited us down to see her poultry house; and on our tour of inspection I noticed various little contraptions that she had built, and I was ‘hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise’. I recommended certain feeds and certain temperatures; and asked her advice on several points; and soon we were having a good time swapping experiences.

“Presently, she remarked that some of her neighbours had put electric lights in their hen-houses and they claimed they had got excellent results. She wanted my honest opinion as to whether or not it would pay her to do the same thing….

“Two weeks later, Mrs. Druckenbrod’s Dominick hens were clucking and scratching contentedly in the encouraging glow of electric lights. I had my order; she was getting more eggs; everyone was satisfied; everyone had gained.

“But—and this is the point of the story—I should never have sold electricity to this Pennsylvania Dutch farm-wife, if I had not first let her talk herself into it!

“Such people can’t be sold. You have to let them buy.”

 

A large advertisement appeared recently on the financial page of the New York Herald Tribune calling for a man with unusual ability and experience. Charles T. Cubellis answered the advertisement, sending his reply to a box number. A few days later, he was invited by letter to call for an interview. Before he called, he spent hours in Wall Street finding out everything possible about the man who had founded the business. During the interview, he remarked: “I should be mighty proud to be associated with an organization with a record like yours. I understand you started twenty-eight years ago with nothing but desk room and one stenographer. Is that true?”

Almost every successful man likes to reminisce about his early struggles. This man was no exception. He talked for a long time about how he had started with four hundred and fifty dollars in cash and an original idea. He told how he had fought against discouragement and battled against ridicule, working Sundays and holidays, twelve to sixteen hours a day; how he had finally won against all odds until now the biggest men in Wall Street were coming to him for information and guidance. He was proud of such a record.

He had a right to be, and he had a splendid time telling about it. Finally, he questioned Mr. Cubellis briefly about his experience, then called in one of his vice-presidents and said : “I think this is the man we are looking for.”

Mr. Cubellis had taken the trouble to find out about the accomplishments of his prospective employer. He showed an interest in the other man and his problems, He encouraged the other man to do most of the talking—and made a favourable impression.

The truth is that even our friends would far rather talk to us about their achievements than listen to us boast about ours.

La Rochefoucauld, the French philosopher, said: “If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.”

Why is that true? Because when our friends excel us, that gives them a feeling of importance; but when we excel them, that gives them a feeling of inferiority and arouses envy and jealousy.

The Germans have a proverb: “Die reinste Freude ist die Schadenfreude”, which, being interpreted, goes something like this: “The purest joy is the malicious joy we take in the misfortunes of those we have envied.” Or, to put it another way: “The purest joy is the joy we take in other people’s troubles.”

Yes, some of your friends probably get more satisfaction out of your troubles than out of your triumphs.

So, let’s minimize our achievements. Let’s be modest. That always makes a hit. Irvin Cobb had the right technique. A lawyer once said to Cobb on the witness stand : “I understand, Mr. Cobb, that you are one of the most famous writers in America, Is that correct?”

“I have probably been more fortunate than I deserve,” Cobb replied.

We ought to be modest, for neither you nor I amount to much. Both of us will pass on and be completely forgotten a century from now. Life is too short to bore other people with talk of our petty accomplishments. Let’s encourage them to talk instead. Come to think about it, you haven’t much to brag about anyhow. Do you know what keeps you from becoming an idiot? Not much. Only a nickel’s worth of iodine in your thyroid glands. If a physician were ‘to open the thyroid gland in your neck and take out a little iodine, you would become an idiot. A little iodine that can be bought at a corner drugstore for five cents is all that stands between you and an institution for the mentally ill. A nickel’s worth of iodine! That isn’t much to be boasting about, is it?

 

So, if we want to win people to our way of thinking, Rule 6 is:

LET THE OTHER MAN DO A GREAT DEAL OF THE TALKING.

In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing – and keep on emphasizing – the things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing – if possible – that you are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is one of method and not of purpose.

Get the other person saying: “Yes, yes” at the outset. Keep him, if possible, from saying “No.”

“A ‘No’ response [says Professor Overstreet in his book, influencing Human Behavior] is a most difficult handicap to overcome. When a person has said “No”, all his pride of personality demands that he remain consistent with himself. He may later feel that the ‘No’ was ill-advised; nevertheless, there is his precious pride to consider! Once having said a thing, he must stick to it. Hence it is of the very greatest importance that we start a person in the affirmative direction.”

The skillful speaker gets –

“at the outset, a number of ‘Yes responses’. He has thereby set the psychological processes of his listeners moving in the affirmative direction. It is like the movement of a billiard ball. Propel it in one direction, and it takes some force to deflect it; far more force to send it back in the opposite direction.

The psychological patterns here are quite clear. When a person says ‘No’ and really means it, he is doing far more than saying a word of two letters. The entire organism – glandular, nervous, muscular -gathers itself together into a condition of rejection. There is, usually in minute but sometimes in observable degree, a physical withdrawal, or readiness for withdrawal. The whole neuro-muscular system, in short, sets itself on guard against acceptance. Where, on the contrary, a person says ‘Yes’, none of the withdrawing activities take place. The organism is in a forward-moving, accepting, open attitude. Hence the more ‘Yeses’ we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.

It is a very simple technique – this yes response. And yet how much neglected! It often seems as if people get a sense of their own importance by antagonizing at the outset. The radical comes into a conference with his conservative brethren; and immediately he must make them furious! What, as a matter of fact, is the good of it? If he simply does it in order to get some pleasure out of it for himself, he may be pardoned. But if he expects to achieve something, he is only psychologically stupid.

Get a student to say ‘No’ at the beginning, or a customer, child, husband, or wife, and it takes the wisdom and the patience of angels to transform that bristling negative into an affirmative.”

 

The use of this “yes, yes” technique enabled James Eberson, teller for the Greenwich Savings Bank, New York City, to save a prospective customer who might otherwise have been lost.

“This man came in to open an account,” said Mr. Eberson, “and I gave him our usual form to fill out. Some of the questions he answered willingly, but there were others he flatly refused to answer.”

“Before I began the study of human relations, I should have told this prospective depositor that if he refused to give the bank this information, we should have to refuse to accept his account. I am ashamed that I have been guilty of doing that very thing in the past. Naturally, an ultimatum like that made me feel good. I had shown who was boss, that the bank’s rules and regulations couldn’t be flouted. But that sort of attitude certainly didn’t give a feeling of welcome and importance to the man who had walked in to give us his patronage.

“I resolved this morning to use a little horse sense. I resolved not to talk about what the bank wanted but about what the customer wanted. And above all else, I was determined to get him saying “yes, yes” from the very start. So I agreed with him. I told him the information he refused to give was not absolutely necessary.

” ‘However,’ I said, ‘suppose you have money in this bank at your death. Wouldn’t you like to have the bank transfer it to your next of kin, who is entitled to it according to law?’

” ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied.

” ‘Don’t you think,’ I continued, ‘that it would be a good idea to give us the name of your next of kin so that, in the event of your death, we could carry out your wishes without error or delay?’

“Again he said, ‘Yes.’

“The young man’s attitude softened and changed when he realized that we weren’t asking for this information for our sake but for his sake. Before leaving the bank, this young man not only gave me complete information about himself, but he opened, at my suggestion, a trust account naming his mother as the beneficiary for his account, and he had gladly answered all the questions concerning his mother also.

“I found that by getting him to say ‘yes, yes’ from the start, he forgot the issue at stake and was happy to do all the things I suggested.”

“There was a man on my territory that our company was most eager to sell,” said Joseph Allison, salesman for Westinghouse. “My predecessor had called on him for ten years without selling anything. When I took over the territory, I called steadily for three years without getting an order. Finally, after thirteen years of calls and sales talk, we sold him a few motors. If these proved to be all right, I felt sure of an order for several hundred more. Such was my expectation.

“Right? I knew they would be all right. So when I called three weeks later, I was stepping high.

“But I didn’t step high very long, for the chief engineer greeted me with this shocking announcement: ‘Allison, I can’t buy the remainder of the motors from you.’

” ‘Why?’ I asked in amazement. ‘Why?’

” ‘Because your motors are too hot. I can’t put my hand on them,’

“I knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue, I had tried that sort of thing too long. So I thought of getting the ‘yes, yes’ response.

” ‘Well, now look, Mr. Smith,’ I said. ‘I agree with you a hundred percent; if those motors are running too hot, you ought not to buy any more of them. You must have motors that won’t run any hotter than standards set by the regulations of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association. Isn’t that so?’

“He agreed it was. I had got my first ‘yes.’

” ‘The Electrical Manufacturers Association regulations say that a properly designed motor may have a temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit above room temperature. Is that correct?’

” ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That’s quite correct. But your motors are much hotter.’

“I didn’t argue with him. I merely asked: ‘How hot is the mill room?’

” ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘about 75 degrees Fahrenheit.’

” ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘if the mill room is 75 degrees and you add 72 to that, that makes a total of 147 degrees Fahrenheit. Wouldn’t you scald your hand if you held it under a spigot of hot water at a temperature of 147 degrees Fahrenheit?’

Again he had to say yes.

” ‘Well,’ I suggested, ‘wouldn’t it be a good idea to keep your hands off those motors?’

” ‘Well, I guess you’re right,’ he admitted. We continued to chat for a while. Then he called his secretary and lined up approximately $35,000 worth of business for the ensuing month.

“It took me years and cost me countless thousands of dollars in lost business before I finally learned that it doesn’t pay to argue, that it is much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things from the other man’s viewpoint and try to get him saying ‘yes, yes.’ ”

 

Socrates, “the gadfly of Athens”, was a brilliant old boy in spite of the fact that he went barefooted and married a girl of nineteen when he was bald-headed and forty. He did something that only a handful of men in all history have been able to do: he sharply changed the whole course of human thought; and now, twenty-three centuries after his death, he is honored as one of the wisest persuaders who ever influenced this wrangling world.

His method? Did he tell people they were wrong? Oh, no, not Socrates. He was far too adroit for that. His whole technique, now called the “Socratic method,” was based upon getting a “yes, yes” response. He asked questions with which his opponent would have to agree. He kept on winning one admission after another until he had an armful of yeses. He kept on asking questions until finally, almost without realizing it, his opponent found himself embracing a conclusion he would have bitterly denied a few minutes previously.

The next time we are smarting to tell a man he is wrong, let’s remember barefooted old Socrates and ask a gentle question – a question that will get the “yes, yes” response.

The Chinese have a proverb pregnant with the age-old wisdom of the changeless East: “He who treads softly goes far.”

They have spent five thousand years studying human nature, those cultured Chinese, and they have garnered a lot of perspicacity: “He who treads softly goes far.”

 

If you want to win people to your way of thinking, Rule 5 is:

GET THE OTHER PERSON SAYING “YES, YES” IMMEDIATELY.

If your temper is aroused and you tell ’em a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other fellow? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with you?

“If you come at me with your fists doubled,” said Woodrow Wilson, “I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and say, ‘Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from one another, understand why it is that we differ from one another, just what the points at issue are,’ we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candour and the desire to get together, we will get together.”

Nobody appreciated the truth of Woodrow Wilson’s statement more than John D, Rockefeller, Jr. Back in 1915, Rockefeller was the most fiercely despised man in Colorado. One of the bloodiest strikes in the history of American industry had been shocking the state for two terrible years. Irate, belligerent miners were demanding higher wages from the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company; and Rockefeller controlled that company. Property had been destroyed, troops had been called out. Blood had been shed. Strikers had been shot, their bodies riddled with bullets.

At a time like that, with the air seething with hatred, Rockefeller wanted to win the strikers to his way of thinking. And he did it. How? Here’s the story. After weeks spent in making friends, Rockefeller addressed the representatives of the strikers. This speech, in its entirety, is a masterpiece. It produced astonishing results. It calmed the tempestuous waves of hate that threatened to engulf Rockefeller. It won him a host of admirers. It presented facts in such a friendly manner that the strikers went back to work without saying another word about the increase in wages for which they had fought so violently.

Here is the opening of that remarkable speech. Note how it fairly glows with friendliness.

Remember Rockefeller is talking to men who, a short time ago, wanted to hang him by the neck to a sour-apple tree; yet he couldn’t have been more gracious, more friendly if he had addressed a group of medical missionaries, His speech is radiant with such phrases as I am proud to be here, having visited in your homes, met many of your wives and children, we meet here not as strangers, but as friends, spirit of mutual friendship, our common interests, it is only by your courtesy that I am here.

“This is a red-letter day in my life,” Rockefeller began. “It is the first time I have ever had the good fortune to meet the representatives of the employees of this great company, its officers and superintendents, together, and I can assure you that I am proud to be here, and that I shall remember this gathering as long as I live. Had this meeting been held two weeks ago, I should have stood here a stranger to most of you, recognizing a few faces. Having had the opportunity last week of visiting all the camps in the southern coalfields and of talking individually with practically all of the representatives, except those who were away; having visited in your homes, met many of your wives and children, we meet here not as strangers, but as friends, and it is in that spirit of mutual friendship that I am glad to have this opportunity to discuss with you our common interests.

“Since this is a meeting of the officers of the company and the representatives of the employees, it is only by your courtesy that I am here, for I am not so fortunate as to be either one or the other; and yet I feel that I am intimately associated with you men, for, in a sense, I represent both the stockholders and the directors.”

Isn’t that a superb example of the fine art of making friends out of enemies?

Suppose Rockefeller had taken a different tack. Suppose he had argued with those miners and hurled devastating facts in their faces. Suppose he had told them by his tones and insinuations that they were wrong. Suppose that, by all the rules of logic, he had proved that they were wrong? What would have happened? More anger would have been stirred up, more hatred, more revolt.

If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change their minds. They can’t be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.

Lincoln said that, in effect, almost a hundred years ago. Here are his words:

“It is an old and true maxim ‘that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall. So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart; which, say what you will, is the great high road to his reason.”

Business-men are learning that it pays to be friendly to strikers. For example, when 2,500 employees in the White Motor Company’s plant struck for higher wages and a union shop, Robert F. Black, the president, didn’t wax wroth and condemn, and threaten and talk of tyranny and Communists. He actually praised the strikers. He published an advertisement in the Cleveland papers, complimenting them on “the peaceful way in which they laid down their tools’. Finding the strike pickets idle, he bought them a couple of dozen baseball bats and gloves, and invited them to play ball on vacant lots. For those who preferred bowling, he rented a bowling alley.

This friendliness on President’s Black’s part did what friendliness always does: it begot friendliness. So the strikers borrowed brooms, shovels and rubbish carts, and began picking up matches, papers, cigarette stubs, and cigar butts around the factory. Imagine it! Imagine strikers tidying up the factory grounds while battling for higher wages and recognition of the union. Such an event had never been heard of before in the long, tempestuous history of American labour wars. That strike ended with a compromise settlement within a week—ended without any ill feeling or rancour.

Daniel Webster, who looked like a god and talked like Jehovah, was one of the most successful advocates who ever pleaded a cause; yet he ushered in his most powerful arguments with such friendly remarks as: “It will be for the jury to consider”, “This may, perhaps, be worth thinking of, gentlemen”, “Here are some facts that I trust you will not lose sight of, gentlemen”, or “You, with your knowledge of human nature, will easily see the significance of these facts”. No bulldozing. No high-pressure methods. No attempt to force his opinions on other men. Webster used the soft spoken, quiet, friendly approach, and it helped to make him famous.

You may never be called upon to settle a strike or address a jury, but you may want to get your rent reduced. Will the friendly approach help you then? Let’s see.

O. L, Straub, an engineer, wanted to get his rent reduced. And he knew his landlord was hard-boiled. “I wrote him,” Mr. Straub said in a speech before the class, “notifying him that I was vacating my apartment as soon as my lease expired. The truth was I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay if I could get my rent reduced. But the situation seemed hopeless. Other tenants had tried—and failed. Everyone told me that the landlord was extremely difficult to deal with. But I said to myself: ‘I am studying a course in how to deal with people, so I’ll try it on him—and see how it works.’

“He and his secretary came to see me as soon as he got my letter. I met him at the door with a regular Charlie Schwab greeting. I fairly bubbled with good will and enthusiasm. I didn’t begin talking about how high the rent was. I began talking about how much I liked his apartment house. Believe me, I was ‘hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise’. I complimented him on the way he ran the building, and told him I should like so much to stay for another year but I couldn’t afford it.

“He had evidently never had such a reception from a tenant. He hardly knew what to make of it.

“Then he started to tell me his troubles. Complaining tenants. One had written him fourteen letters, some of them positively insulting. Another threatened to break his lease unless the landlord kept the man on the floor above from snoring. ‘What a relief it is,’ he said, ‘to have a satisfied tenant like you.’ And then without my even asking him to do it, he offered to reduce my rent a little. I wanted more, so I named the figure I could afford to pay, and he accepted without a word.

“As he was leaving, he turned to me and asked: ‘What decorating can I have done for you?’

“If I had tried to get the rent reduced by the methods the other tenants were using, I am positive I should have met with the same failure they encountered. It was the friendly, sympathetic, appreciative approach that won.”

Let’s take another illustration. We’ll take a woman this time—a woman from the Social Register—-Mrs. Dorothy Day of Garden City on the sandy stretches of Long Island.

“I recently gave a luncheon to a small group of friends,” said Mrs, Day. “It was an important occasion for me. Naturally, I was most eager to have everything go off smoothly. Emil, the maitre d’hotel, is usually my able assistant in these matters. But on this occasion he let me down. The luncheon was a failure. Emil was nowhere to be seen. He sent only one waiter to take care of us. This waiter hadn’t the faintest conception of first-class service. He persisted in serving my guest of honour last. Once he served her one miserable little piece of celery on a large dish. The meat was tough; the potatoes greasy. It was horrible. I was furious. With considerable effort, I smiled through the ordeal, but I kept saying to myself: ‘Just wait until I see Emil. I’ll give him a piece of my mind all right.’

“This happened on a Wednesday. The next night I heard a lecture on human relationships. As I listened, I realized how futile it would be to give Emil a dressing down. It would make him sullen and resentful. It would kill all desire to help me in the future. I tried to look at it from his standpoint. He hadn’t bought the food. He hadn’t cooked it. He couldn’t help it because some of his waiters were dumb, Perhaps I had been too severe, too hasty in my wrath. So, in- stead of criticizing him, I decided to begin in a friendly way. I decided to open up on him with appreciation. This approach worked beautifully. I saw Emil the following day. He was defensively angry and spoiling for battle. I said: ‘See here, Emil, I want you to know that it means a great deal to me to have you at my back when I entertain. You are the best maitre d’hotel in New York. Of course, I fully appreciate that you don’t buy the food and cook it. You couldn’t help what happened on Wednesday.’

“The clouds disappeared. Emil smiled, and said: ‘Exactly, Madam. The trouble was in the kitchen. It was not my fault.’

“So F continued: ‘I have planned other parties, Emil, and I need your advice. Do you think we had better give the kitchen another chance?’

“ ‘Oh, certainly, Madam, of course. It might never happen again,”

“The following week I gave another luncheon. Emil and I planned the menu. I cut his tip in half, and never mentioned past mistakes.

“When we arrived, the table was colourful with two dozen American beauty roses. Emil was in constant attendance. He could hardly have showered my party with more attention if I had been entertaining Queen Mary. The food was excellent and hot. The service was perfection. The entrée was served by four waiters instead of one. Emil personally served delicious mints to finish it off.

“As we were leaving, my guest of honour asked: ‘Have you charmed that maitre d’hotel? I never saw such service, such attention.’

“She was right. I had charmed with the friendly approach and sincere appreciation.”

Years ago, when I was a barefooted boy walking through the woods to a country school out in north-west Missouri. I read a fable one day about the sun and the wind. They quarrelled about which was the stronger, and the wind said: “I’ll prove I am. See that old man down there with a coat? I bet I can make him take his coat off quicker than you can?”

So the sun went behind a cloud and the wind blew until it was almost a tornado, but the harder it blew the tighter the old man wrapped his coat about him.

Finally, the wind calmed down and gave up; and then the sun came out from behind the cloud and smiled kindly on the old man. Presently, he mopped his brow and pulled off his coat. The sun then told the wind that gentleness and friendliness were always stronger than fury and force.

Even while I was a boy reading this fable, the truth of it was actually being demonstrated in the far-off town of Boston, an historic centre of education and culture that I never dreamed of ever living to see. It was being demonstrated in Boston by Dr. A. H. B——, a physician, who thirty years later became one of my students. Here is the story as Dr. B—— related it in one of his talks before the class:

The Boston newspapers in those days screamed with fake medical advertising—the ads of professional abortionists and quack physicians who pretended to treat the diseases of men but who really preyed upon many innocent victims by frightening them with talk about “loss of manhood” and other terrible conditions. Their treatment consisted in keeping the victim filled with terror and in giving him no useful treatment at all. The abortionists had caused many deaths, but there were few convictions. Most of them paid small fines or got off through political influence.

The condition became so terrible that the good people of Boston rose up in holy indignation. Preachers pounded their pulpits, condemned the papers, and implored the help of Almighty God to stop this advertising. Civic organizations, business-men, women’s clubs, churches, young people’s societies, damned and denounced—all in vain. A bitter fight was waged in the state legislature to make this disgraceful advertising illegal, but it was defeated by graft and political influence.

Dr. B——— was then chairman of the Good Citizenship Committee of the Great Boston Christian Endeavour Union. His committee had tried everything. It had failed. The fight against these medical criminals seemed hopeless. Then one night, after midnight, Dr. B—— tried something that apparently no one in Boston had ever thought of trying before. He tried kindness, sympathy, appreciation. He tried to make the publishers actually want to stop advertising. He wrote the publisher of The Boston Herald, telling him how much he admired his paper. He had always read it; the news items were clean, not sensational; and the editorials were excellent. It was a splendid family paper. Dr. B declared that it was, in his opinion, the best paper in New England and one of the finest in America. “But,” continued Dr. B——, “ a friend of mine has a young daughter. He told me that his daughter read one of your advertisements aloud to him the other night, the advertisement of a professional abortionist, and then asked him what was meant by some of the phrases. Frankly, he was embarrassed, He didn’t know what to say. Your paper goes into the best homes in Boston. If that happened in the home of my friend, isn’t it probable that it is happening in many other homes also? If you had a young daughter, would you want her to read those advertisements? And if she did read them and ask you about them, how could you explain?

“I am sorry that such a splendid paper as yours—almost perfect in every other way—has this one feature which makes some fathers dread to see their daughters pick it up. Isn’t it probable that thousands of your other subscribers feel about it just as I do?”

Two days later the publisher of The Boston Herald wrote Dr. B—; the doctor kept the letter in his files for a third of a century and gave it to me when he was a member of my course. I have it in front of me now as I write. It is dated October 13, 1904.

A. H. B——, M.D.

Boston, Mass.

Dear Sir:

I really feel under an obligation to you for your letter of the 11th inst., addressed to the editor of this paper, inasmuch as it has finally decided me on an action which I have had under contemplation ever since I have been in charge here.

Beginning Monday, I propose to have The Boston Herald absolutely expurgated of all objectionable advertising matter, as far as it is possible to do so. The medical cards, the whirling spray syringe, and like advertising, will be absolutely “killed”, and all other medical advertising, which it is impossible to keep out at this time, will be so thoroughly edited that it will be absolutely inoffensive.

Again thanking you for your kind letter, which has been helpful in this respect, I beg to remain.

Yours sincerely,

W. E. Haskell,

Publisher.

“Esop was a Greek slave who lived at the court of Croesus and spun immortal fables six hundred years before Christ. Yet the truths he taught about human nature are just as true in Boston and Birmingham now as they were twenty-five centuries ago in Athens. The sun can make you take off your coat more quickly than the wind; and kindliness, the friendly approach, and appreciation can make people change their minds more readily than all the bluster and storming in Christendom.

Remember what Lincoln said: “A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”

When you wish to win people to your way of thinking, don’t forget to use Rule 4:

BEGIN IN A FRIENDLY WAY.

I live almost in the geographical centre of greater New York; yet within a minute’s walk of my house there is a wild stretch of virgin timber, where the blackberry thickets foam white in the springtime, where the squirrels nest and rear their young and the horse-weeds grow as tall as a horse’s head. This unspoiled woodland is called Forest Park—and it is a forest, probably not much different in appearance from what it was the afternoon Columbus discovered America. I frequently go walking in this park with Rex, my little Boston bulldog. He is a friendly, harmless little hound; and since we rarely meet anyone in the park, I take Rex along without a leash or a muzzle.

One day we encountered a mounted policeman in the park, a policeman itching to show his authority.

“What do you mean by letting that dog run loose in the park without a muzzle and leash?” he reprimanded me. ‘Don’t you know it is against the law?”

“Yes, I know it is,” I replied softly, “but I didn’t think he would do any harm out here.”

“You didn’t think! You didn’t think! The law doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about what you think. That dog might kill a squirrel or bite a child. Now, I’m going to let you off this time; but if I catch this dog out here again without a muzzle and a leash, you’ll have to tell it to the judge.”

I meekly promised to obey.

And I did obey—for a few times. But Rex didn’t like the muzzle, and neither did I; so we decided to take a chance. Everything was lovely for a while; and then we struck a snag. Rex and I raced over the brow of a hill one afternoon and there, suddenly—to my dismay—I saw the majesty of the law, astride a bay horse. Rex was out in front, heading straight for the officer.

I was in for it. I knew it. So I didn’t wait until the policeman started talking. I beat him to it. I said: “Officer, you’ve caught me red-handed. I’m guilty. I have no alibis, no excuses. You warned me last week that if I brought this dog out here again without a muzzle you would fine me.”

“Well, now,” the policeman responded in a soft tone. “I know it’s a temptation to let a little dog like that have a run out here when nobody is around.”

“Sure it’s a temptation,” I replied, “but it is against the law.”

“Well, a little dog like that isn’t going to harm anybody,” the policeman remonstrated.

“No, but he may kill squirrels,” I said.

“Well, now, I think you are taking this a bit too seriously,” he told me. “I’ll tell you what you do. You just let him run over the hill there where I can’t see him—and we’ll forget all about it.”

That policeman, being human, wanted a feeling of importance; so when I began to condemn myself, the only way he could nourish his self-esteem was to take the magnanimous attitude of showing mercy.

But suppose I had tried to defend myself—well, did you ever argue with a policeman?

But instead of breaking lances with him, I admitted that he was absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong; I admitted it quickly, openly, and with enthusiasm, The affair terminated graciously by my taking his side and his taking my side. Lord Chesterfield himself could hardly have been more gracious than this mounted policeman, who, only a week previously, had threatened to have the law on me.

If we know we are going to get the Old Harry anyhow,isn’t it far better to beat the other fellow to it and do it ourselves? Isn’t it much easier to listen to self-criticism than to bear condemnation from alien lips?

Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say—and say them before he has a chance to say them— and you take the wind out of his sails. The chances are a hundred to one that he will then take a generous, forgiving attitude and minimize your mistakes—just as the mounted policeman did with me and Rex.

 

Ferdinand E. Warren, a commercial artist, used this technique to win the good will of a petulant, scolding buyer of art.

“It is important, in making drawings for advertising and publishing purposes, to be precise and very exact,” Mr. Warren said as he told the story.

“Some art editors demand that their commissions be executed immediately; and in these cases some slight error is liable to occur. I knew one art director in particular who was always delighted to find fault with some little thing. I have often left his office in disgust, not because of the criticism, but because of his method of attack. Recently I delivered a rush job to this editor and he phoned me to call at his office immediately. He said something was wrong. When I arrived, I found just what I had anticipated—and dreaded. He was hostile, gloating over his chance to criticize. He demanded with heat why I had done so and so. My opportunity had come to apply the self-criticism I had been studying about. So I said: ‘Mr. So-and-so, if what you say is true, I am at fault and there is absolutely no excuse for my blunder. I have been doing drawings for you long enough to know better. I’m ashamed of myself.’

“Immediately he started to defend me. ‘Yes, you’re right, but after all, this isn’t a serious mistake. It is only——

“I interrupted him, ‘Any mistake,’ I said, ‘may be costly, and they are all irritating.’

“He started to break in; but I wouldn’t let him. I was having a grand time. For the first time in my life, I was criticizing myself—and I loved it.

“ ‘I should have been more careful,’ I continued. ‘You give me a lot of work; and you deserve the best; so I’m going to do this drawing all over again.’

“No! No!’ he protested. ‘I wouldn’t think of putting you to all that trouble.’ He praised my work, assured me that he wanted only a minor change, and that my slight error hadn’t cost his firm any money; and, after all, it was a mere detail—not worth worrying about.

“My eagerness to criticize myself took all the fight out of him. He ended up by taking me to lunch; and before we parted, he gave me a cheque and another commission.”

Any fool can try to defend his mistakes—and most fools do—but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes. For example, one of the most beautiful things that history records about Robert E. Lee is the way he blamed himself and only himself for the failure of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg.

Pickett’s charge was undoubtedly the most brilliant and picturesque attack that ever occurred in the western world. Pickett himself was picturesque. He wore his hair so long that his auburn locks almost touched his shoulders; and, like Napoleon in his Italian campaigns, he wrote ardent love-letters almost daily on the battlefield. His devoted troops cheered him that tragic July afternoon as he rode off jauntily toward the Union lines, with his cap set at a rakish angle over his right ear. They cheered and they followed him, man touching man, rank pressing rank, with banners flying and bayonets gleaming in the sun, It was a gallant sight. Daring. Magnificent. A murmur of admiration ran through the Union lines as they beheld it.

Pickett’s troops swept forward at an easy trot, through orchard and cornfield, across a meadow, and over a ravine. All the time, the enemy’s cannon were tearing ghastly holes in their ranks. But on they pressed, grim, irresistible.

Suddenly the Union infantry rose from behind the stone wall on Cemetery Ridge where they had been hiding, and fired volley after volley into Pickett’s defenceless troops. The crest of the hill was a sheet of flame, a slaughterhouse, a blazing volcano. In a few minutes all of Pickett’s brigade commanders except one were down, and four-fifths of his five thousand men had fallen.

Armistead, leading the troops in the final plunge, ran forward, vaulted over the stone wall, and, waving his cap on the top of his sword, shouted:

“Give ’em the steel, boys!”

They did. They leaped over the wall, bayoneted their enemies, smashed skulls with clubbed muskets, and planted the battle-flags of the South on Cemetery Ridge.

The banners waved there only for a moment. But that moment, brief as it was, recorded the high-water mark of the Confederacy.

Pickett’s charge—brilliant, heroic—was nevertheless the beginning of the end. Lee had failed. He could not penetrate the North. And he knew it.

The South was doomed.

Lee was so saddened, so shocked, that he sent in his resignation and asked Jefferson Davis, the President of the Con- federacy, to appoint “a younger and abler man”. If Lee had wanted to blame the disastrous failure of Pickett’s charge on someone else, he could have found a score of alibis. Some of his division commanders had failed him. The cavalry hadn’t arrived in time to support the infantry attack. This had gone wrong and that had gone awry.

But Lee was far too noble to blame others. As Pickett’s beaten and bloody troops struggled back to the Confederate lines. Robert E. Lee rode out to meet them all alone and greeted them with a self-condemnation that was little short of sublime. “All this has been my fault,” he confessed. “I and I alone have lost this battle.”

Few generals in all history have had the courage and character to admit that.

 

Elbert Hubbard was one of the most original authors who ever stirred up a nation, and his stinging sentences often aroused fierce resentments. But Hubbard, with his rare skill for handling people, frequently turned his enemies into friends.

For example, when some irritated reader wrote in to say that he didn’t agree with such and such an article and ended by calling Hubbard this and that, Elbert Hubbard would answer like this:

Come to think it over, I don’t entirely agree with it myself. Not everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am glad to learn what you think on the subject. The next time you are in the neighbourhood you must visit us and we’ll get this subject threshed out for all time. So here is a handclasp over the miles, and I am

Yours sincerely.

What could you say to a man who treated you like that? When we are right, let’s try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking; and when we are wrong— and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves—let’s admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm. That technique will not only produce astonishing results; but, believe it or not, it is a lot more fun, under the circumstances, than trying to defend one’s self.

Remember the old proverb: “By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.”

 

So if you want to win people to your way of thinking, it would be advisable to remember Rule 3:

IF YOU ARE WRONG, ADMIT IT QUICKLY AND EMPHATICALLY.