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that I had been fair to her and receptive to her needs.
Inasmuch as she was a friend as well as an employee, I
probably had taken her too much for granted and maybe
was even more demanding of her than of other employees.
"I could not, of course, accept this resignation without
some explanation. I took her aside and said,  Paulette,
you must understand that I cannot accept your resignation
You mean a great deal to me and to this company,
and you are as important to the success of this restaurant
as I am. I repeated this in front of the entire staff, and I
invited her to my home and reiterated my confidence in
her with my family present.
 Paulette withdrew her resignation, and today I can
rely on her as never before. I frequently reinforce this
by expressing my appreciation for what she does and
showing her how important she is to me and to the restaurant.
 Talk to people about themselves, said Disraeli, one
of the shrewdest men who ever ruled the British Empire.
 Talk to people about themselves and they will
listen for hours ."
PRINCIPLE 6
Make the other person feel important-and
do it sincerely.
In a Nutshell
SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU
PRINCIPLE 1
Become genuinely interested in other people.
PRINCIPLE 2
Smile.
PRINCIPLE 3
Remember that a person s name is to that person the
sweetest and most important sound in any language.
PRINCIPLE 4
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about
themselves.
PRINCIPLE 5
Talk in terms of the other person s interests.
PRINCIPLE 6
Make the other person feel important-and do it
sincerely.
Part THREE
How to Win People to
Your
Way of Thinking
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 festive occasion, my dear
Dale. Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to
make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He
didn t ask for your opinion. He didn t want it. Why argue
with him? Always avoid the acute angle. The man who
said that taught me a lesson I ll never forget. I not
only had made the storyteller uncomfortable, but had
put my friend in an embarrassing situation. How much
better it would have been had I not become argumentative.
It was a sorely needed lesson because I had been an
inveterate arguer. During my youth, I had argued with
my brother about everything under the Milky Way.
When I went to college, I studied logic and argumentation
and went in for debating contests. Talk about being
from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown.
Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New
York; and once, I am ashamed to admit, I planned to
write a book on the subject. Since then, I have listened
to, engaged in, and watched the effect of thousands of
arguments. As a result of all this, I have come to the
conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven
to get the best of an argument - and that is to
avoid it .
Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.
Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of
the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he
is absolutely right.
You can t win an argument. You can t because if you
lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why?
Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot
his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos
mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what
about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have
hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And -
A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.
Years ago Patrick J. O Haire joined one of my classes.
He had had little education, and how he loved a scrap!
He had once been a chauffeur, and he came to me because
he had been trying, without much success, to sell
trucks. A little questioning brought out the fact that he
was continually scrapping with and antagonizing the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]