How to Win Friends and Influence People (12 page)

start by using the principles advocated in this chapter.

He left school when he was thirteen and became an

office boy for Western Union, but he didn’t for one moment

give up the idea of an education. Instead, he

started to educate himself, He saved his carfares and

went without lunch until he had enough money to buy

an encyclopedia of American biography - and then he

did an unheard-of thing. He read the lives of famous

people and wrote them asking for additional information

about their childhoods. He was a good listener. He

asked famous people to tell him more about themselves.

He wrote General James A. Garfield, who was then running

for President, and asked if it was true that he was

once a tow boy on a canal; and Garfield replied. He

wrote General Grant asking about a certain battle, and

Grant drew a map for him and invited this fourteen-year

old boy to dinner and spent the evening talking to him.

Soon our Western Union messenger boy was corresponding

with many of the most famous people in the

nation: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes,

Longfellow, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, Louisa May Alcott,

General Sherman and Jefferson Davis. Not only did he

correspond with these distinguished people, but as soon

as he got a vacation, he visited many of them as a welcome

guest in their homes. This experience imbued him

with a confidence that was invaluable. These men and

women fired him with a vision and ambition that shaped

his life. And all this, let me repeat, was made possible

solely by the application of the principles we are discussing

here.

Isaac F. Marcosson, a journalist who interviewed

hundreds of celebrities, declared that many people fail

to make a favorable impression because they don’t listen

attentively. “They have been so much concerned with

what they are going to say next that they do not keep

their ears open. . . . Very important people have told me

that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the

ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good

trait ."

And not only important personages crave a good listener,

 but ordinary folk do too. As the Reader’s Digest

once said: “Many persons call a doctor when all they

want is an audience,”

During the darkest hours of the Civil War, Lincoln

wrote to an old friend in Springfield, Illinois, asking him

to come to Washington. Lincoln said he had some problems

he wanted to discuss with him. The old neighbor

called at the White House, and Lincoln talked to him for

hours about the advisability of issuing a proclamation

freeing the slaves. Lincoln went over all the arguments

for and against such a move, and then read letters and

newspaper articles, some denouncing him for not

freeing the slaves and others denouncing him for fear he

was going to free them. After talking for hours, Lincoln

shook hands with his old neighbor, said good night, and

sent him back to Illinois without even asking for his

opinion. Lincoln had done all the talking himself. That

seemed to clarify his mind. “He seemed to feel easier

after that talk,” the old friend said. Lincoln hadn’t

wanted advice, He had wanted merely a friendly, sympathetic

listener to whom he could unburden himself.

That’s what we all want when we are in trouble. That is

frequently all the irritated customer wants, and the dissatisfied

employee or the hurt friend.

One of the great listeners of modern times was Sigmund

Freud. A man who met Freud described his manner

of listening: “It struck me so forcibly that I shall

never forget him. He had qualities which I had never

seen in any other man. Never had I seen such concentrated

attention. There was none of that piercing ‘soul

penetrating gaze’ business. His eyes were mild and genial.

His voice was low and kind. His gestures were few.

But the attention he gave me, his appreciation of what I

said, even when I said it badly, was extraordinary,

You've no idea what it meant to be listened to like that.”

If you want to know how to make people shun you and

laugh at you behind your back and even despise you,

here is the recipe: Never listen to anyone for long. Talk

incessantly about yourself. If you have an idea while the

other person is talking, don’t wait for him or her to finish:

bust right in and interrupt in the middle of a sentence.

Do you know people like that? I do, unfortunately;

and the astonishing part of it is that some of them are

prominent.

Bores, that is all they are - bores intoxicated with their

own egos, drunk with a sense of their own importance.

People who talk only of themselves think only of

themselves. And “those people who think only of themselves,”

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, longtime president

of Columbia University, said, "are hopelessly uneducated.

They are not educated,” said Dr. Butler, “no matter

how instructed they may be.”

So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an

attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask

questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage

them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.

Remember that the people you are talking to are a

hundred times more interested in themselves and their

wants and problems than they are in you and your problems.

A person’s toothache means more to that person

than a famine in China which kills a million people. A

boil on one’s neck interests one more than forty earthquakes

in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a

conversation.

PRINCIPLE 4

Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk

about themselves.

HOW TO INTEREST PEOPLE

Everyone who was ever a guest of Theodore Roosevelt

was astonished at the range and diversity of his knowledge.

Whether his visitor was a cowboy or a Rough

Rider, a New York politician or a diplomat, Roosevelt

knew what to say. And how was it done? The answer

was simple. Whenever Roosevelt expected a visitor, he

sat up late the night before, reading up on the subject in

which he knew his guest was particularly interested.

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal

road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or

she treasures most.

The genial William Lyon Phelps, essayist and professor

of literature at Yale, learned this lesson early in life.

"When I was eight years old and was spending a

weekend visiting my Aunt Libby Linsley at her home in

Stratford on the Housatonic,” he wrote in his essay on

Human Nature,
“a middle-aged man called one evening,

and after a polite skirmish with my aunt, he devoted his

attention to me. At that time, I happened to be excited

about boats, and the visitor discussed the subject in a

way that seemed to me particularly interesting. After he

left, I spoke of him with enthusiasm. What a man! My

aunt informed me he was a New York lawyer, that he

cared nothing whatever about boats - that he took not

the slightest interest in the subject. ‘But why then did

he talk all the time about boats?’

" ‘Because he is a gentleman. He saw you were interested

in boats, and he talked about the things he knew

would interest and please you. He made himself agreeable.’ "

And William Lyon Phelps added: "I never forgot my

aunt’s remark.”

As I write this chapter, I have before me a letter from

Edward L. Chalif, who was active in Boy Scout work.

“One day I found I needed a favor,” wrote Mr. Chalif.

“A big Scout jamboree was coming off in Europe, and I

wanted the president of one of the largest corporations

in America to pay the expenses of one of my boys for the

trip.

“Fortunately, just before I went to see this man, I

heard that he had drawn a check for a million dollars,

and that after it was canceled, he had had it framed.

“So the first thing I did when I entered his office was

to ask to see the check. A check for a million dollars! I

told him I never knew that anybody had ever written

such a check, and that I wanted to tell my boys that I had

actually seen a check for a million dollars. He gladly

showed it to me; I admired it and asked him to tell me

all about how it happened to be drawn.”

You notice, don’t you, that Mr. Chalif didn’t begin by

talking about the Boy Scouts, or the jamboree in Europe,

or what it was he wanted? He talked in terms of what

interested the other man. Here’s the result:

“Presently, the man I was interviewing said: ‘Oh, by

the way, what was it you wanted to see me about?’ So I

told him.

“To my vast surprise,” Mr. Chalif continues, “he not

only granted immediately what I asked for, but much

more. I had asked him to send only one boy to Europe,

but he sent five boys and myself, gave me a letter of

credit for a thousand dollars and told us to stay in Europe

for seven weeks. He also gave me letters of introduction

to his branch presidents, putting them at our service,

and he himself met us in Paris and showed us the town.

Since then, he has given jobs to some of the boys whose

parents were in want, and he is still active in our group.

“Yet I know if I hadn’t found out what he was interested

in, and got him warmed up first, I wouldn’t have

found him one-tenth as easy to approach.”

Is this a valuable technique to use in business? Is it?

Let’s see, Take Henry G. Duvernoy of Duvemoy and

Sons, a wholesale baking firm in New York.

Mr. Duvernoy had been trying to sell bread to a certain

New York hotel. He had called on the manager

every week for four years. He went to the same social

affairs the manager attended. He even took rooms in the

hotel and lived there in order to get the business. But he

failed.

“Then,” said Mr. Duvernoy, “after studying human

relations, I resolved to change my tactics. I decided to

find out what interested this man - what caught his enthusiasm.

“I discovered he belonged to a society of hotel executives

called the Hotel Greeters of America. He not only

belonged, but his bubbling enthusiasm had made him

president of the organization, and president of the International

Greeters. No matter where its conventions were

held, he would be there.

“So when I saw him the next day, I began talking

about the Greeters. What a response I got. What a response!

He talked to me for half an hour about the

Greeters, his tones vibrant with enthusiasm. I could

plainly see that this society was not only his hobby, it

was the passion of his life. Before I left his office, he had

‘sold’ me a membership in his organization.

“In the meantime, I had said nothing about bread. But

a few days later, the steward of his hotel phoned me to

come over with samples and prices.

" ‘I don’t know what you did to the old boy,’ the steward

greeted me, ‘but he sure is sold on you!’

“Think of it! I had been drumming at that man for four

years - trying to get his business - and I’d still be drumming

at him if I hadn’t finally taken the trouble to find

out what he was interested in, and what he enjoyed talking

about.”

Edward E. Harriman of Hagerstown, Maryland, chose

to live in the beautiful Cumberland Valley of Maryland

after he completed his military service. Unfortunately,

at that time there were few jobs available in the area. A

little research uncovered the fact that a number of companies

in the area were either owned or controlled by an

unusual business maverick, R. J. Funkhouser, whose

rise from poverty to riches intrigued Mr. Harriman.

However, he was known for being inaccessible to job

seekers. Mr. Harriman wrote:

"I interviewed a number of people and found that his

major interest was anchored in his drive for power and

money. Since he protected himself from people like me

by use of a dedicated and stern secretary, I studied her

interests and goals and only then I paid an unannounced

visit at her office. She had been Mr. Funkhouser’s orbiting

satellite for about fifteen years. When I told her I

had a proposition for him which might translate itself

into financial and political success for him, she became

enthused. I also conversed with her about her constructive

participation in his success. After this conversation

she arranged for me to meet Mr. Funkhouser.

“I entered his huge and impressive office determined

not to ask directly for a job. He was seated behind a large

carved desk and thundered at me, ‘How about it, young

man?' I said, ‘Mr. Funkhouser, I believe I can make

money for you.’ He immediately rose and invited me to

sit in one of the large upholstered chairs. I enumerated

my ideas and the qualifications I had to realize these

ideas, as well as how they would contribute to his personal

success and that of his businesses.

" 'R. J.,' as he became known to me, hired me at once

and for over twenty years I have grown in his enterprises

and we both have prospered.”

Talking in terms of the other person’s interests pays

off for both parties. Howard Z. Herzig, a leader in the

field of employee communications, has always followed

this principle. When asked what reward he got from it,

Mr. Herzig responded that he not only received a different

reward from each person but that in general the reward

had been an enlargement of his life each time he

spoke to someone.