How To Win Friends And Influence People

People often tell me to read How To Win Friends And Influence People in order to improve my social skills. I have, in fact, read the book. Here are my thoughts:

• I liked the lesson about admitting things are your fault, particularly as it relates to Roosevelt and Taft.  Their divide was, of course, split along ideology and policy, so each had their supporters and detractors.  By neither man backing down out of pride and a quixotic attitude, they both lost the election and incalculably damaged their our causes.  Admitting when things are your fault is an important thing to do, but I contend that there is a reason people don’t do it and that is that their honesty and humility when they do so is often unappreciated.  Instead, it is often used to attack them, and because of that, I tend to only admit when things are my fault if I trust the person I’m admitting that to will not use that information against me. 
• I liked the story about Lincoln writing that letter to the incompetent general and then not mailing it.  Though I fully understand the message that sends, that criticism of that nature, particularly after the fact, does little good, I also find myself curious as to how Lincoln did handle the situation.  While he may have been sympathetic to the horrors of battle, he must also have known that that general had ensured the prolonging of his own participation in the theatre of war.  Firing the general as tactfully as possible, or perhaps transferring him to a less strategically important front, would be vital to acting as a responsible wartime president, in my opinion.
• I liked the overall point that everyone desires a feeling of importance.  It’s another way of saying that everyone wants to feel useful.  Pocky and Granny wanting to help their grandchildren despite being near death and less than physically capable is a prime example of this.  Corporate attempts to apply this principle often fail because they usually don’t make employees feel genuinely important.  Being able to decide what to wear on casual day, being able to use any color of ink you like, or getting to dunk the boss in a dunk tank at a party are kind of fun distractions, but they don’t inspire genuine feelings of importance.  You must feel that what you do actually matters to someone because it affects them in ways that they would not be without you there.  For me, that would be kids learning things they wouldn’t with another teacher because I’m their teacher.

• Okay, on the guy with the six roses to his wife instead of six things he’d like to change about her, I think that’s a load of horse dung.  It’s romantic, it’s sweet, it’s charming, but it’s also a terrible lie.  Of course there are things he’d like to change about her and things she’d like to change about him.  Nobody’s freaking perfect, after all, and we can all improve.  There are a ton of relationship books out there and they’ll all tell you that open and honest communication is absolutely vital to a relationship and I can attest to that because the lack of it on my part destroyed mine with Marie.  If she did not want to know those things, she shouldn’t have asked, and if he did not want to tell her those things he should have said so.  This is a prime example of how I fundamentally disagree with certain things in this book. 
• I liked the story about how they got the little boy to be excited about going to kindergarten.  Admittedly, similar tactics probably would’ve worked on me, at least initially, because St. John’s had been an okay experience.  It’s an old lesson though and one Mark Twain taught years earlier when Tom Sawyer huckstered his friends into whitewashing a fence using essentially the same methodology. 
• I liked all the examples of talking about what the other person wants as applied to a business context.  This is a point that my marketing classes dealt with over and over again.  The concept is that they are not buying a product or service they are buying a benefit to them.  People don’t buy beer, they buy a night out with the boys, feeling sexy when dancing, or feeling worldly in the case of European lagers.  So in anything, you must sell the benefit to them instead of the product, because the product is your focus and their benefit is theirs.  It’s a good sound marketing principle. 

• I liked the story about the magician.  His success does indeed come from being genuinely interested in other people but it seemed a lot more authentic and logical for him to be interested in his audience.  It is logical for him to appreciate and be interested in his audience because they not only are vital for him to make a living, but they are obviously people who like magic and therefore share his interests.  Practical application of the principles espoused usually has more to do with simply paying attention to what other people are interested in and playing to that in order to get them to like you, but the magician’s case is one where being interested in other people is actually genuine and I’m not suspicious about motivation on everybody’s part. 
• I liked the overall point about smiling.  Certainly, I’ve been told to smile throughout my life through song, in pictures, and just about in any area of life.  What’s interesting is little comment is made about the smile being genuine or not, and I think that’s because it need not be.  We’ve all got muscles in our face that, when activated, can send out little beams of positivity whether we feel rotten or not.  To argue otherwise is completely illogical.  From the sales clerk having the bad day, to the cover model who’s actually feeling quite bad from vomiting up her lunch, to the tired parent putting on a brave face for their child, who has woken them up to protect them from imaginary threats, smiling in society is typically as genuine as a crocodile’s tears. 
• I liked the point about remembering people’s names, because it’s certainly true.  However, I’d heard this one before.  Bill Clinton apparently remembers everyone he’s ever met as just something he has a natural knack for.  This was responsible for him seeming so warm to people.  Remembering people’s names seems to indicate to me that you’re paying attention and making someone a priority, but not necessarily that you care about them.  Out of my graduating class, I probably remember pretty much everyone’s names, but look how much I actually like them.

• I liked the point of how important a person’s name being remembered after they are dead can be to them.  Living in Springfield for 8 years certainly gave me an education in that.  John Q. Hammons loves his buildings with his name on them.  Of course, this is just another way of saying how important it is to remember people’s names, and it’s a valid point.  However, you can get stuck in an awkward situation if you go too long without asking.  This can happen easily too.  There’s a guy who works at Conoco near Drury and students know him as Conoco guy.  Nobody I know, including myself, knows his real name.  He’s mentioned that he likes being called Conoco guy before, but it does make you think.
• I liked the overall point of finding out what other people are interested in and then proceeding to talk about that.  Certainly, I recognize that this is an area you’ve been picking away at me to improve on for several years.  However, I find it difficult to fake interest in what other people are interested in and my interests are not similar to other people’s interests, generally speaking.  This is, I believe, part of why normalcy is so important, because it allows for great possibility that you will share the interests of others.
• I liked the general point of acknowledging another person’s importance.  This is slightly different than talking about what they’re interested in or stroking their ego.  It’s much more individualized and not as readily apparent.  It is always about how one feeds one’s sense of self-esteem.  Also, it seems to me that with this sincerity is of even greater importance.  Pretty much the only time I’ll try and do this is if I do have something good to say about whatever it is I think would work on the individual in question.

• I liked the overall point about how nobody wins arguments.  An argument is often not even about what it is about, but about the people involved.  Back in college when I would argue about poverty with poor students, they’d have their sense of pride tied in with their position that it was other people’s fault and I’d have my lack of feeling guilty about the poor tied in with the idea that it was their own fault.  Logic was only garnish to the argument, because it was really about emotions.  
• I liked Ben Franklin’s story and how he learned not to contradict other people.  Certainly, I already realized this is always the more diplomatic approach, but this is yet another area that is difficult for me.  What restraint I have learned comes from Just For Him, which is a place of big men with big opinions.  The best example I have is a man who ran the local gaming convention was talking with me about Star Trek one day.  My favorite of the films, and my favorite film of all time, was the eighth, called Star Trek: First Contact.  An important character was played by an actress named Alice Krige, and this man claimed to have met the actress who played her.  Now it turned out he had met Kyra Sedgwick, wife of Kevin Bacon and star of the hit series The Closer.  I knew he was mistaken, but I let it go by because I knew how much of a part of his pride rested in his knowledge of the same kind of thing I have knowledge of.  In this case, my capacity for empathy was sharper because I knew how I’d feel if I made a mistake like that.
• I liked the overall point of admitting one’s mistakes and when one is wrong.  When done correctly and in the right circumstances, this can defuse confrontations just as the book claims.  However, I think judicious application is mandatory when it comes to this.  Admitting my mistakes to Marie only gave her more fuel to use against me.  Also, admitting I’m not very good at music to her family led to a loss of respect from the clan of musical geniuses that was the Peseks.  In terms of work situations, admitting you’re wrong is only a good idea if you know you can correct the situation in the future and are dealing with your superior while he or she is in a good and rational mood.

• I liked the story about the man who got his rent reduced.  This, so far, is the principles of this book at their best.  Not a mere buttering up of the landlord, what this man did was prepare for the possibility that showing interest and kindness in the man and his troubles in his role would not work.  He was fully prepared to move out if he had to and left it entirely the decision of the landlord to help him out.  That’s a classy and effective way to handle it and I have found success in my life using this kind of method. 
• I liked the whole yes response thing.  This is the inverse of a common method children use to get their way.  The method involves asking for a series of things that the parent will undoubtedly say no to, concluded with a relatively reasonable request, which was the thing the child wanted all along.  Usually, the parent will be desperate to say yes to something at this point, and will be inclined to finally grant the request.  Instead of relying on a lack of patience and diminishingly disagreeable options, the yes response method relies upon a buildup of positive energy and also a measured amount of creating the illusion that the person is agreeing to the point based on their own reason instead of outside persuasion.  Rarely have I used this method, but it seems to show promise, so I might in the future.
• I liked the idea of letting other people do the talking.  While I grant that my own behavior has been the antithesis of this method that does not mean I do not see its value.  Rarely have you seen me around like-minded individuals, and I can tell you that I love to get them to talk.  This does mean I don’t love to talk a lot myself, even in those situations, but I don’t try and dominate the conversation the way you see me around average people.  Admittedly, the motive for that is to try and steer the conversation towards things I find interesting because I have little tolerance for being bored and my God most people are boring.  Around gamers or smokers, we’re all talking about stuff I find pretty interesting to listen to other people talking about.  Some of my best friendships are rooted in the basis of rants from one another that we both love to hear.  With my best friends, I can even set them off on a particular rant about a thing just by mentioning something tangentially related. 

• I liked the general principle that people desire sympathy.  There is a tendency to respond to tales of woe by speaking of your own.  Particularly with women, this is unwise and counterproductive.  Of the points made in the book, I find this quite workable in my own life.  When I want to, I can be very sympathetic to sufferings others experience.  Sometimes I worry that I will seem disingenuous because I have not suffered the same, but maybe people don’t care if I can relate, just that I sympathize. 
• I liked the story about the guy who dumped all those containers of cold cream on the man’s desk.  Dramatizing one’s points is a piece of advice in this book that has nothing to do with positive thinking and everything to do with entertainment value.  This is one area of influencing people that I actually excel at.  What I say is rarely boring and if it is that is only because the topic carries no interest so inherently that no amount of charming presentation could make it of interest to them.  Interestingly, this has more limits in its application because of this than any other method mentioned so far in the book. 
• I liked the point about saying and instead of but when prefacing a criticism with praise.  Whether the praise is sincere or not, influencing people is all about perception and I appreciated that the book acknowledged that and gave a helpful method of appearing sincere.  It’s the kind of thing that makes the whole concept of the book have a sense of integrity and consistency. 

• I liked the story about how the engineer got the typist to stop her spelling errors.  Often, the best people to help a person with a problem are those individuals who had that problem in the past and somehow overcame it.  That means that they can sincerely sympathize with the difficulty the problem causes and accurately know how best to solve it.  Above all,  it means that the humbling and encouragement that they use in accordance to the principles in this book are more likely to be sincere. 
• I liked the overall point of letting people save face, particularly in a business setting.  This will translate well to the classroom setting I will soon find myself in.  The old way of teaching involves making kids come to the board and show skill or failure at the task at hand in front of everyone.  That is something I will not do.  Tests are to be sacredly private affairs, and problems discussed in private talks that lead to private tutoring.  Maybe that will mean more work for me than if I just called poor performers out in front of everyone, but I bet I will get more cooperation and better grades in the end doing it this way.
• I liked the idea of giving someone an excellent reputation to live up to.  When I got a reputation for always getting my stories in on time in journalism at Drury, I made even more of a point of being on time with them, so I know this technique works.  This is true in the case of my housekeepers as well.  When I said they did things well, they did those things even better, and when I said things that they did poorly, they then did those things even worse.  Expectations play a lot into what we do and there’s evidence of that all around us.