How to Win Friends and Influence People

"Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself." The person you blame doesn't hear your correction — he hears a threat, and "Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain — and most fools do." Carnegie argues that even convicted killers considered themselves justified, and "Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment." The correction you wanted to deliver is now behind a wall of self-defense you built yourself. His prescription: "Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them, and to figure out why they do what they do."

There is one burning desire shared by every person you'll ever meet: "the desire to be important," which Carnegie calls "a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger." The winning move is "honest and sincere appreciation," and the losing move is flattery: "One comes from the heart out; the other comes from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned." He sharpens the difference — "Flattery is telling the other person precisely what he thinks about himself" — and gives the rule behind it: "talk to people about themselves and they will listen for hours."

"The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it." Before every request, do the translation: find the connection between your ask and their eager want, then present the ask entirely in their terms. Carnegie gives the field case: a man who couldn't sell his car to a neighbor for $100 — "it wouldn't do any good to tell him all the things I wanted; he wasn't interested in me or what I wanted" — realized the neighbor wanted a garage, and offered him the car so he'd have "something to put in the garage" — sold instantly. The principle: "arouse in the other person an eager want."

The book's six likability techniques are one mechanism wearing six outfits: make the other person the subject. "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." The cluster: become genuinely interested, smile, remember their name ("the sweetest and most important sound in any language"), be a good listener, talk in terms of their interests, and make them feel important. The listener version is sharpest: "To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments."

"Many people calling for an interview, seeking an audience with a person in authority, do not want anything except a sympathetic ear — someone who will listen to them while they unburden themselves. It seems that no one wants sympathy so much as do these hard-boiled businessmen." The listener's job during the vent is to do almost nothing: "Listen patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage the expression of the other person's ideas." Carnegie's case: an insurance company defused an indignant policyholder not by arguing but by letting him talk for hours — "When the storm blew over, the adjuster offered to do what was obviously right."

"Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right." The scoreboard is rigged: "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." Winning costs you the person's goodwill — which was the actual prize — and the loser "will resent your triumph." The corollary is absolute: "never say 'You're wrong'" — even to a customer, even when you're right. The replacement move is respect for the other opinion and an instant, honest admission when you err.

"When we are wrong, we may admit it to ourselves; and if we are handled gently and tactfully, we may admit it to others and even take pride in our frankness and broadmindedness; but not if someone else is trying to ram the unpalatable fact down our throats." The move is preemptive: "If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically." Carnegie's field case is literal — accused by a policeman of walking his dog off-leash, he condemned himself before the officer could: "You're absolutely right. It's inexcusable" — and the officer, with nothing left to prosecute, dropped it. The mechanism: "By fighting, you never get enough, but by yielding, you get more than you expected."

"Get the other person saying 'yes, yes' immediately if you can." Start from points of agreement — keep the other person answering yes to small truths until the psychology of agreement makes the final yes feel like continuity. Then hand over the ownership: "let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers." Carnegie credits the method to Socrates, who "asked questions with which his opponent would have to agree. He kept on winning one admission after another until he had an armful of yeses. He kept on asking questions until finally, almost without realizing it, his opponents found themselves embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly denied a few minutes previously."

Correction has a delivery protocol: "Begin with praise and honest appreciation," then "call attention to people's mistakes indirectly," then "talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person." The but-to-and swap is the precision instrument: "Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word 'but' and ending with a critical statement... Once 'but' is used, the praise is canceled." Swap "but" for "and" and the praise survives the correction. Asking questions instead of giving orders completes the protocol — it makes the corrected person a collaborator in their own fix. And the smallest unit of the method: "Let the other person save face."

"Give a dog a good name" — attribute a virtue to someone and they will work to deserve it. "Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to, and he will make prodigious efforts rather than see you disillusioned." Carnegie gives the field case of a father who praised his misbehaving son as a good boy: "That was the turning point in the boy's life." The mechanism generalizes: "praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be 'hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.'" The final instrument is encouragement framed as ease: "Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct" — people live up to the difficulty level you imply.