Let’s continue our journey about learning how to win friends and influence people. Until now we discovered 3 Fundamental Techniques In Handling People and 6 ways to make people like us.

Now it is the moment to learn how to win people on our way of thinking.

💡1 – You can’t win an argument

✔️Principle 1 – The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

“Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”

Welcome the disagreement. Remember the slogan “when two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary.” If there is some point you haven’t thought about, be thankful if it is brought to your attention. Perhaps this disagreement is your opportunity to be corrected before you make serious mistake.

Distrust your first instinctive impression. Our first natural reaction in disagreeable situation is to be defensive. Be careful. Keep calm and watch out for your first reaction. It may be you at your worst, not your best.

Control your temper. Remember you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.

Listen first. Give your opponents a chance to talk. Let them finish. Do not resist, defend or debate. This only raises barriers. Try to build bridges of understanding. Don’t build higher barriers of misunderstanding.

Look for areas of agreement. When you have heard your opponents out, dwell first on the points and areas on which you agree.

Be honest. Look for areas where you can admit error and say so. Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm your opponents and reduce defensiveness.

Promise to think over your opponents’ ideas and study them carefully. And mean it. Your opponents may be right. It is a lot easier at this stage to agree to think about their points than to move rapidly ahead and find yourself in a position where your opponents can say: “we tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest. Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are. Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into friends.

Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem. Suggest that a new meeting be held later that day or the next day, when all the facts may be brought to bear. In preparation for this meeting, ask yourself some hard questions: could my opponents be right ? Is my reaction one that will relieve the problem, or will it just relieve any frustration ? Will my reaction drive my opponents further away or draw them closer to me ? Will I win or lose ? What price will I have to pay if I win ? If I am quiet about it, will the disagreement blow over ?

Opera tenor Jan Peerce, after he was married nearly fifty years, once said: “My wife and I made a pact long time ago, and we’ve kept it no matter how angry we’ve grown with each other. When one yells, the other should listen because when two people yell, there is no communication, just noise and bad vibrations.”

💡2 – A sure way of making enemies – and how to avid

✔️Principle 2 – Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”

You can tell people they are wrong by a look or an intonation or a gesture just as eloquently as you can in words- and if you tell them they are wrong, do you make them want to agree with you? Never! For you have struck a direct blow at their intelligence, judgement, pride and self-respect. That will make them want to strike back. But it will never make them want to change their minds. You may then hurl at them all the logic of Plato or an Immanuel Kant, but you will not alter their opinions, for you have hurt their feelings.

Never begin by announcing “I am going to prove so-and-so to you.” That’s bad. That’s tantamount to saying: “I’m smarter than you are, I’m going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind.” That is a challenge. It arouses opposition and makes the listener want to battle with you before you even start. It is difficult, under even the most benign conditions, to change people’s minds. So why make it harder? Why handicap yourself? If you are going to prove anything, don’t let anybody know it. Do it so subtly, so adroitly, that no one will feel that you are doing it.

If a person makes a statement that you think is wrong – yes, even that you know is wrong – isn’t it better to begin by saying: “Well, now look, I thought otherwise, but I may be wrong. I frequently am. And if I am wrong, I want to be put right. Let’s examine the facts.” There’s magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: “I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.” Nobody in the heavens above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will ever object to your saying: “I may be wrong. Let’s examine the facts.”

Few people are logical. Most of us are prejudiced and biased. Most of us are blighted with preconceived notions, with jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy and pride. And most citizens don’t want to change their minds about heir religion or their haircut or communism or their favorite movie star.

We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we re told we are wrong, we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us from their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened. The little word “my” is the most important one in human affairs, and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the same force whether it is “my” dinner, “my” dog, and “my” house, or “my” father, “my” country. We not only resent the imputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of the canals of Mars. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when double is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to it. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

In other words, don’t argue with your customer or your spouse or your adversary. Don’t tell them they are wrong, don’t get them stirred up. Use a little diplomacy.

💡3 – If you’re wrong, admit it

✔️Principle 3 – If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes – and most fools do – but it raises one above the herd and gives one feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes.

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. Not only will that technique produce astonishing results; but, believe it or not, it is a lot more fun, under the circumstances, than trying to defend oneself.

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

💡4 – A drop of honey

✔️Principle 4 – Begin in a friendly way.

If your temper is aroused and you tell them a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other person? 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, 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 each other understand why it is that we differ, 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 candor and the desire to get together, we will get together.”

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.

Aesop was a Greek slave who lived at the court of Croesus, yet the truths he taught about human nature are just as true in Boston and Birmingham now as they were twenty-six 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 buster and storming in the world.

💡5 – The secret of Socrates

✔️Principle 5 – Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.

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 purpose.

Get the other person saying “Yes, yes” at the outset. Keep your opponent, if possible, from saying “No”. A “No” response, is a most difficult handicap to overcome. When you have said “No”, all your pride of personality demands that you remain consistent with yourself. You may later feel that the “No” was ill-advised; nevertheless, there is your precious pride to consider! Once having said a thing, you feel you must stick to it. Hence it is of they very greatest importance that a person be started in the affirmative direction.

Get a student to say “Not” at the beginning, or a customer, a child, husband, or wife, and it takes the wisdom and the patience of angels to transform that bristling negative into an affirmative.

“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 person’s viewpoint and try to get that person saying ‘yes, yes’.” – Dale Carnegie

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

💡6 – The safety valve in handling complaints

✔️Principle 6 – Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

Most people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too much talking themselves. Let the other people talk themselves out. They know more about their business and problems than you do. So ask them questions. Let them tell you a few things. If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But don’t. It is dangerous. They won’t pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage them to express their ideas fully.

“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, they feel important; but when we excel them, they – or at least some of them – will feel inferior and envious.

💡7 – How to get cooperation

✔️Principle 7 – Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.

Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handled 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? Isn’t it wiser to make suggestions – and let other person think about the conclusion?

💡8 – A formula that will work wonders for you

✔️Principle 8 – Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don’t think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to do that.

There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does. Ferret out that 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 yourself 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 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 interpersonal relationships; namely, that success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other persons’ viewpoint.”

“Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own. Starting your conversation by giving the other person the purpose or direction of your conversation, governing what you say by what you would want to hear if you were the listener, and accepting his or her viewpoint will encourage the listener to have an open mind to your ideas.”

I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview than step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that person – from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives – was likely to answer.

💡9 – What everybody wants

✔️Principle 9 – Be sympathetic with the other person’s idea and desires.

Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feeling, create good will, and make the other person listen attentively ? Here it is: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would 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 percent sincere, because if you were the other person you, of course, would feel just as he does. You deserve very little credit for being what you are – and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.

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

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, illness, especially details of surgical operations. ‘Self-pity’ for misfortunes real or imaginary is in some measure, practically a universal practice.

💡10 – An appeal that everybody likes

✔️Principle 10 – Appeal to the nobler motives.

The fact is that all people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be fine and unselfish in their own estimation. A person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one.

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

People are honest and want to discharge their obligations. The exceptions to that rule are comparatively few, and the individuals who are inclined to chisel will in most cases react favorably if you make them feel that you consider them honest, upright and fair.

💡11 – The movies do it. Tv does it. Why don’t you do it ?

✔️Principle 11 – Dramatize your ideas.

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. Television does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.

💡12 – When nothing else works, try this

✔️Principle 12 – Throw down a challenge.

The way to get things done is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel. An infallible way of appealing to people of spirit.

The major factor that motivates peoples is the work itself. If the work was exciting and interesting, the worker looked forward to doing it and was motivated to do the good job.

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

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🎓Summary

Win people to your way of thinking:

✔️Principle 1 – The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
✔️Principle 2 – Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
✔️Principle 3 – If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
✔️Principle 4 – Begin in a friendly way.
✔️Principle 5 – Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
✔️Principle 6 – Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
✔️Principle 7 – Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
✔️Principle 8 – Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
✔️Principle 9 – Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
✔️Principle 10 – Appeal to the nobler motives.
✔️Principle 11 – Dramatize your ideas.
✔️Principle 12 – Throw down a challenge.