7.How to Get Cooperation

 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? Isn’t it wiser to make suggestions - and let
the other person think out the conclusion?
Adolph Seltz of Philadelphia, sales manager in an automobile showroom and a student
in one of my courses, suddenly found himself confronted with the necessity of injecting
enthusiasm into a discouraged and disorganized group of automobile salespeople.
Calling a sales meeting, he urged his people 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, teamwork, eight hours a day of enthusiastic work, The meeting ended with a
new courage, a new inspiration - one salesperson volunteered to work fourteen hours a
day - and Mr. Seltz reported to me that the increase of sales was phenomenal.
“The people 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 one likes to feel that he or she is being sold some- thing 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, and our thoughts.
Take the case of Eugene Wesson. He lost countless thousands of dollars in commissions
before he learned this truth. Mr. Wesson sold sketches for a studio that created designs

6.The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints

 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.
Does this policy pay in business? Let’s see. Here is the story of a sales representative
who was forced to try it.
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,
a representative from each supplier would be given an opportunity to make a 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

5.The Secret of Socrates

 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 your opponent, if possible,
from saying “No.” A “No” response, according to Professor Overstreet,* 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 the very greatest importance that a
person be started in the affirmative direction.
* Harry A. Overstreet, Influencing Human Behavior (New York: Norton, 1925).
The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “Yes” responses. This sets the
psychological process of the listeners moving in the affirmative direction. It is like the
movement of a billiard ball. Propel 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 or she is doing far more than saying a word of two letters. The entire
organism - glandular, nervous, and 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 neuromuscular system, in short,
sets itself on guard against acceptance. When, to the contrary, a person says “Yes,”

4.A Drop of Honey

 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 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,” 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 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.”
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 and Iron Company; 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

3.If You're Wrong, Admit It

 Within a minute’s walk of my house there was a wild stretch of virgin timber, where

the blackberry thickets foamed white in the springtime, where the squirrels nested and
reared their young, and the horseweeds grew as tall as a horse’s head. This unspoiled
woodland was called Forest Park - and it was a forest, probably not much different in
appearance from what it was when Columbus discovered America. I frequently walked
in this park with Rex, my little Boston bulldog. He was a friendly, harmless little hound;
and since we rarely met anyone in the park, I took 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’s against the law?”
“Yes, I know it is,” I replied softy, “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

2.A Sure Way of Making Enemies - and How to Avoid It

 When Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, he confessed that if he could be

right 75 percent of the time, he would reach the highest measure of his expectation.
If that was the highest rating that one of the most distinguished men of the twentieth
century could hope to obtain, what about you and me?
If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall
Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can’t be sure of being right even 55
percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are 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, judgment, 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 a 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. This was expressed succinctly by
Alexander Pope:
Men must be taught as if you taught them not
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

1.You Can't Win an Argument

 Shortly after the close of World War I, I learned an invaluable lesson one night in

London. I was manager at the time for Sir Ross Smith. During the war, Sir Ross had
been the Australian ace out in Palestine; and shortly after peace was declared, he
astonished the world by flying halfway around it in thirty days. No such feat had ever
been attempted before. It created a tremendous sensation. The Australian government
awarded him fifty thousand dollars; the King of England knighted him; and, for a while,
he was the most talked-about man under the Union Jack. I was attending a banquet one
night given in Sir Ross’s honor; and during the dinner, the man sitting next to me told a
humorous story which hinged on the quotation “There’s a divinity that shapes our
ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
The raconteur mentioned that the quotation was from the Bible. He was wrong. I knew
that, I knew it positively. There couldn’t be the slightest doubt about it. And so, to get a
feeling of importance and display my superiority, I appointed myself as an unsolicited
and unwelcome committee of one to correct him. He stuck to his guns. What? From
Shakespeare? Impossible! Absurd! That quotation was from the Bible. And he knew it.
The storyteller was sitting on my right; and Frank Gammond, an old friend of mine,
was seated at my left. Mr. Gammond had devoted years to the study of Shakespeare, So
the storyteller and I agreed to submit the question to Mr. Gammond. Mr. Gammond
listened, kicked me under the table, and then said: “Dale, you are wrong. The
gentleman is right. It is from the Bible.”
On our way home that night, I said to Mr. Gammond: “Frank, you knew that quotation
was from Shakespeare,”
“Yes, of course,” he replied, "Hamlet, Act Five, Scene Two. But we were guests at a

6.How to Make People Like You Instantly

 I was waiting in line to register a letter in the post office at Thirty-third Street and

Eighth Avenue in New York. I noticed that the clerk appeared to be bored with the job
-weighing envelopes, handing out stamps, making change, issuing receipts - the same
monotonous grind year after year. So I said to myself: "I am going to try to make that
clerk like me. Obviously, to make him like me, I must say something nice, not about
myself, but about him. So I asked myself, ‘What is there about him that I can honestly
admire?’ " That is sometimes a hard question to answer, especially with strangers; but,
in this case, it happened to be easy. I instantly saw something I admired no end.
So while he was weighing my envelope, I remarked with enthusiasm: "I certainly wish I
had your head of hair.”
He looked up, half-startled, his face beaming with smiles. "Well, it isn’t as good as it
used to be,” he said modestly. I assured him that although it might have lost some of its
pristine glory, nevertheless it was still magnificent. He was immensely pleased. We
carried on a pleasant little conversation and the last thing he said to me was: “Many
people have admired my hair.”
I’ll bet that person went out to lunch that day walking on air. I’ll bet he went home that
night and told his wife about it. I’ll bet he looked in the mirror and said: “It is a
beautiful head of hair.”
I told this story once in public and a man asked me afterwards: “What did you want to
get out of him?”
What was I trying to get out of him!!! What was I trying to get out of him!!!
If we are so contemptibly selfish that we can’t radiate a little happiness and pass on a
bit of honest appreciation without trying to get something out of the other person in
return - if our souls are no bigger than sour crab apples, we shall meet with the failure

5.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

4.An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationalist

 Some time ago, I attended a bridge party. I don’t play bridge - and there was a woman

there who didn’t play bridge either. She had discovered that I had once been Lowell
Thomas’ manager before he went on the radio and that I had traveled in Europe a great
deal while helping him prepare the illustrated travel talks he was then delivering. So
she said: “Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do want you to tell me about all the wonderful places
you have visited and the sights you have seen.”
As we sat down on the sofa, she remarked that she and her husband had recently
returned from a trip to Africa. “Africa!” I exclaimed. “How interesting! I’ve always
wanted to see Africa, but I never got there except for a twenty-four-hour stay once in
Algiers. Tell me, did you visit the big-game country? Yes? How fortunate. I envy you.
Do tell me about Africa.”
That kept her talking for forty-five minutes. She never again asked me where I had
been or what I had seen. She didn’t want to hear me talk about my travels. All she
wanted was an interested listener, so she could expand her ego and tell about where
she had been.
Was she unusual? No. Many people are like that.
For example, I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given by a New York
book publisher. I had never talked with a botanist before, and I found him fascinating. I
literally sat on the edge of my chair and listened while he spoke of exotic plants and
experiments in developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and even told
me astonishing facts about the humble potato). I had a small indoor garden of my own -
and he was good enough to tell me how to solve some of my problems.
As I said, we were at a dinner party. There must have been a dozen other guests, but I
violated all the canons of courtesy, ignored everyone else, and talked for hours to the