How To Win Friends And Influence People

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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.

Over three hundred years ago Galileo said:

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it

within himself.

As Lord Chesterfield said to his son:

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Socrates said repeatedly to his followers in Athens:

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

Well, I can't hope to be any smarter than Socrates, so I have quit

telling people they are wrong. And I find that it pays.

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."

One of our class members who used this approach in dealing with

customers was Harold Reinke, a Dodge dealer in Billings, Montana.

He reported that because of the pressures of the automobile

business, he was often hard-boiled and callous when dealing with

customers' complaints. This caused flared tempers, loss of business

and general unpleasantness.

He told his class: "Recognizing that this was getting me nowhere

fast, I tried a new tack. I would say something like this: 'Our

dealership has made so many mistakes that I am frequently

ashamed. We may have erred in your case. Tell me about it.'

"This approach becomes quite disarming, and by the time the

customer releases his feelings, he is usually much more reasonable

when it comes to settling the matter. In fact, several customers have

thanked me for having such an understanding attitude. And two of

them have even brought in friends to buy new cars. In this highly

competitive market, we need more of this type of customer, and I

believe that showing respect for all customers' opinions and treating

them diplomatically and courteously will help beat the competition."

You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong.

That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just as

fair and open and broad-minded as you are. It will make him want to

admit that he, too, may be wrong.

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If you know positively that a person is wrong, and you bluntly tell

him or her so, what happens? Let me illustrate. Mr. S---- a young

New York attorney, once argued a rather important case before the

United States Supreme Court (Lustgarten v. Fleet Corporation 280

U.S. 320). The case involved a considerable sum of money and an

important question of law. During the argument, one of the Supreme

Court justices said to him: "The statute of limitations in admiralty law

is six years, is it not?"

Mr. S---- stopped, stared at the Justice for a moment, and then said

bluntly: "Your Honor, there is no statute of limitations in admiralty."

"A hush fell on the court," said Mr. S---- as he related his experience

to one of the author's classes, "and the temperature in the room

seemed to drop to zero. I was right. Justice - was wrong. And I had

told him so. But did that make him friendly? No. I still believe that I

had the law on my side. And I know that I spoke better than I ever

spoke before. But I didn't persuade. I made the enormous blunder of

telling a very learned and famous man that he was wrong."

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 their religion or their haircut or communism or their

favorite movie star. So, if you are inclined to tell people they are

wrong, please read the following paragraph every morning before

breakfast. It is from James Harvey Robinson's enlightening book The

Mind in the Making.

We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any

resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are 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 of 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, and "my" God. We not only resent the imputation that

our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of

the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus," of the

medicinal value of salicin, or of the date of Sargon I is subject to

revision. We like to continue to believe what we have been

accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when

doubt 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 socalled reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing

as we already do.

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Carl Rogers, the eminent psychologist, wrote in his book On

Becoming a Person:

I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to

understand the other person. The way in which I have worded this

statement may seem strange to you, Is it necessary to permit

oneself to understand another? I think it is. Our first reaction to most

of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an

evaluation or judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When

someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is

almost immediately to feel "that's right," or "that's stupid," "that's

abnormal," "that's unreasonable," "that's incorrect," "that's not nice."

Very rarely do we permit ourselves to understand precisely what the

meaning of the statement is to the other person. (*)

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Adapted from Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 18ff.

----

I once employed an interior decorator to make some draperies for

my home. When the bill arrived, I was dismayed.

A few days later, a friend dropped in and looked at the draperies.

The price was mentioned, and she exclaimed with a note of triumph:

"What? That's awful. I am afraid he put one over on you."

True? Yes, she had told the truth, but few people like to listen to

truths that reflect on their judgment. So, being human, I tried to

defend myself. I pointed out that the best is eventually the cheapest,

that one can't expect to get quality and artistic taste at bargainbasement prices, and so on and on.

The next day another friend dropped in, admired the draperies,

bubbled over with enthusiasm, and expressed a wish that she could

afford such exquisite creations for her home. My reaction was totally

different. "Well, to tell the truth," I said, "I can't afford them myself.

I paid too much. I'm sorry I ordered them,"

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 broad-mindedness. But not if

someone else is trying to ram the unpalatable fact down our

esophagus.

Horace Greeley, the most famous editor in America during the time

of the Civil War, disagreed violently with Lincoln's policies. He

believed that he could drive Lincoln into agreeing with him by a

campaign of argument, ridicule and abuse. He waged this bitter

campaign month after month, year after year. In fact, he wrote a

brutal, bitter, sarcastic and personal attack on President Lincoln the

night Booth shot him.

But did all this bitterness make Lincoln agree with Greeley? Not at

all. Ridicule and abuse never do. If you want some excellent

suggestions about dealing with people and managing yourself and

improving your personality, read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography -

one of the most fascinating life stories ever written, one of the

classics of American literature. Ben Franklin tells how he conquered

the iniquitous habit of argument and transformed himself into one of

the most able, suave and diplomatic men in American history.

One day, when Ben Franklin was a blundering youth, an old Quaker

friend took him aside and lashed him with a few stinging truths,

something like this:

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Ben, you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for

everyone who differs with you. They have become so offensive that

nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves

better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can

tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would

lead only to discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to

know any more than you do now, which is very little.

One of the finest things I know about Ben Franklin is the way he

accepted that smarting rebuke. He was big enough and wise enough

to realize that it was true, to sense that he was headed for failure

and social disaster. So he made a right-about-face. He began

immediately to change his insolent, opinionated ways.

"I made it a rule," said Franklin, "to forbear all direct contradiction to

the sentiment of others, and all positive assertion of my own, I even

forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language

that imported a fix'd opinion, such as 'certainly,' 'undoubtedly,' etc.,

and I adopted, instead of them, 'I conceive,' 'I apprehend, ' or 'I

imagine' a thing to be so or so, or 'it so appears to me at present.'

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny'd

myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing

immediately some absurdity in his proposition: and in answering I

began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion

would be right, but in the present case there appear'd or seem'd to

me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change

in my manner; the conversations I engag'd in went on more

pleasantly. The modest way in which I propos'd my opinions procur'd

them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less

mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily

prevaile'd with others to give up their mistakes and join with me

when I happened to be in the right.

"And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural

inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that

perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a

dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my

character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had earned so

much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new

institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public

councils when I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker,

never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words,

hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points."

How do Ben Franklin's methods work in business? Let's take two

examples.

Katherine A, Allred of Kings Mountain, North Carolina, is an industrial

engineering supervisor for a yarn-processing plant. She told one of

our classes how she handled a sensitive problem before and after

taking our training:

"Part of my responsibility," she reported, "deals with setting up and

maintaining incentive systems and standards for our operators so

they can make more money by producing more yarn. The system we

were using had worked fine when we had only two or three different

types of yarn, but recently we had expanded our inventory and

capabilities to enable us to run more than twelve different varieties.

The present system was no longer adequate to pay the operators

fairly for the work being performed and give them an incentive to

increase production. I had worked up a new system which would

enable us to pay the operator by the class of yam she was running at

any one particular time. With my new system in hand, I entered the

meeting determined to prove to the management that my system

was the right approach. I told them in detail how they were wrong

and showed where they were being unfair and how I had all the

answers they needed. To say the least, I failed miserably! I had

become so busy defending my position on the new system that I had

left them no opening to graciously admit their problems on the old

one. The issue was dead.

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"After several sessions of this course, I realized all too well where I

had made my mistakes. I called another meeting and this time I

asked where they felt their problems were. We discussed each point,

and I asked them their opinions on which was the best way to

proceed. With a few low-keyed suggestions, at proper intervals, I let

them develop my system themselves. At the end of the meeting

when I actually presented my system, they enthusiastically accepted

it.

"I am convinced now that nothing good is accomplished and a lot of

damage can be done if you tell a person straight out that he or she is

wrong. You only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and

making yourself an unwelcome part of any discussion."

Let's take another example - and remember these cases I am citing

are typical of the experiences of thousands of other people. R. V.

Crowley was a salesman for a lumber company in New York. Crowley

admitted that he had been telling hard-boiled lumber inspectors for

years that they were wrong. And he had won the arguments too. But

it hadn't done any good. "For these lumber inspectors," said Mr.

Crowley, "are like baseball umpires. Once they make a decision, they

never change it,"

Mr. Crowley saw that his firm was losing thousands of dollars

through the arguments he won. So while taking my course, he

resolved to change tactics and abandon arguments. With what

results? Here is the story as he told it to the fellow members of his

class:

"One morning the phone rang in my office. A hot and bothered

person at the other end proceeded to inform me that a car of lumber

we had shipped into his plant was entirely unsatisfactory. His firm

had stopped unloading and requested that we make immediate

arrangements to remove the stock from their yard. After about onefourth of the car had been unloaded, their lumber inspector reported

that the lumber was running 55 percent below grade. Under the

circumstances, they refused to accept it.

"I immediately started for his plant and on the way turned over in

my mind the best way to handle the situation. Ordinarily, under such

circumstances, I should have quoted grading rules and tried, as a

result of my own experience and knowledge as a lumber inspector,

to convince the other inspector that the lumber was actually up to

grade, and that he was misinterpreting the rules in his inspection.

However, I thought I would apply the principles learned in this

training.

"When I arrived at the plant, I found the purchasing agent and the

lumber inspector in a wicked humor, both set for an argument and a

fight. We walked out to the car that was being unloaded, and I

requested that they continue to unload so that I could see how

things were going. I asked the inspector to go right ahead and lay

out the rejects, as he had been doing, and to put the good pieces in

another pile.

"After watching him for a while it began to dawn on me that his

inspection actually was much too strict and that he was

misinterpreting the rules. This particular lumber was white pine, and

I knew the inspector was

thoroughly schooled in hard woods but not a competent,

experienced inspector on white pine. White pine happened to be my

own strong suit, but did I offer any objection to the way he was

grading the lumber? None whatever. I kept on watching and

gradually began to ask questions as to why certain pieces were not

satisfactory. I didn't for one instant insinuate that the inspector was

wrong. I emphasized that my only reason for asking was in order

that we could give his firm exactly what they wanted in future

shipments. wanted in future shipments.

"By asking questions in a very friendly, cooperative spirit, and

insisting continually that they were right in laying out boards not

satisfactory to their purpose, I got him warmed up, and the strained

relations between us began to thaw and melt away. An occasional

carefully put remark on my part gave birth to the idea in his mind

that possibly some of these rejected pieces were actually within the

grade that they had bought, and that their requirements demanded

a more expensive grade. I was very careful, however, not to let him

think I was making an issue of this point.

"Gradually his whole attitude changed. He finally admitted to me that

he was not experienced on white pine and began to ask me

questions about each piece as it came out of the car, I would explain

why such a piece came within the grade specified, but kept on

insisting that we did not want him to take it if it was unsuitable for

their purpose. He finally got to the point where he felt guilty every

time he put a piece in the rejected pile. And at last he saw that the

mistake was on their part for not having specified as good a grade as

they needed.

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"The ultimate outcome was that he went through the entire carload

again after I left, accepted the whole lot, and we received a check in

full.

"In that one instance alone, a little tact, and the determination to

refrain from telling the other man he was wrong, saved my company

a substantial amount of cash, and it would be hard to place a money

value on the good will that was saved."

Martin Luther King was asked how, as a pacifist, he could be an

admirer of Air Force General Daniel "Chappie" James, then the

nation's highest-ranking black officer. Dr. King replied, "I judge

people by their own principles - not by my own."

In a similar way, General Robert E. Lee once spoke to the president

of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, in the most glowing terms about

a certain officer under his command. Another officer in attendance

was astonished. "General," he said, " do you not know that the man

of whom you speak so highly is one of your bitterest enemies who

misses no opportunity to malign you?" "Yes," replied General Lee,

"but the president asked my opinion of him; he did not ask for his

opinion of me."

By the way, I am not revealing anything new in this chapter. Two

thousand years ago, Jesus said: "Agree with thine adversary

quickly."

And 2,200 years before Christ was born, King Akhtoi of Egypt gave

his son some shrewd advice - advice that is sorely needed today. "Be

diplomatic," counseled the King. "It will help you gain your point."

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.

• Principle 2 - Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never

say, "You're wrong."

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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.

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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 to it. I said: "Officer, you've caught me redhanded. I'm guilty. I have no alibis, no excuses. You warned me last

week that if I brought the dog out here again without a muzzle you

would fine me."

"Well, now," the policeman responded in a soft tone. "I know it's a

temptation to let a little dog like that have a run out here when

nobody is around."

"Sure it's a temptation," I replied, "but it is against the law."

"Well, a little dog like that isn't going to harm anybody," the

policeman remonstrated.

"No, but he may kill squirrels," I said.

"Well now, I think you are taking this a bit too seriously," he told me.

"I'll tell you what you do. You just let him run over the hill there

where I can't see him - and we'll forget all about it."

That policeman, being human, wanted a feeling of importance; so

when I began to condemn myself, the only way he could nourish his

self-esteem was to take the magnanimous attitude of showing

mercy.

But suppose I had tried to defend myself - well, did you ever argue

with a policeman?

But instead of breaking lances with him, I admitted that he was

absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong; I admitted it quickly,

openly, and with enthusiasm. The affair terminated graciously in my

taking his side and his taking my side. Lord Chesterfield himself

could hardly have been more gracious than this mounted policeman,

who, only a week previously, had threatened to have the law on me.

If we know we are going to be rebuked anyhow, isn't it far better to

beat the other person to it and do it ourselves? Isn't it much easier

to listen to self-criticism than to bear condemnation from alien lips?

Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other

person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say - and say them

before that person has a chance to say them. The chances are a

hundred to one that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and

your mistakes will be minimized just as the mounted policeman did

with me and Rex.

Ferdinand E. Warren, a commercial artist, used this technique to win

the good will of a petulant, scolding buyer of art.

"It is important, in making drawings for advertising and publishing

purposes, to be precise and very exact," Mr. Warren said as he told

the story.

"Some art editors demand that their commissions be executed

immediately; and in these cases, some slight error is liable to occur. I

knew one art director in particular who was always delighted to find

fault with some little thing. I have often left his office in disgust, not

because of the criticism, but because of his method of attack.

Recently I delivered a rush job to this editor, and he phoned me to

call at his office immediately. He said something was wrong. When I

arrived, I found just what I had anticipated - and dreaded. He was

hostile, gloating over his chance to criticize. He demanded with heat

why I had done so and so. My opportunity had come to apply the

self-criticism I had been studying about. So I said: ''Mr. So-and-so, if

what you say is true, I am at fault and there is absolutely no excuse

for my blunder. I have been doing drawings for you long enough to

know bet-ter. I'm ashamed of myself.'

"Immediately he started to defend me. 'Yes, you're right, but after

all, this isn't a serious mistake. It is only -'

"I interrupted him. 'Any mistake,' I said, 'may be costly and they are

all irritating.'

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"He started to break in, but I wouldn't let him. I was having a grand

time. For the first time in my life, I was criticizing myself - and I

loved it.

" 'I should have been more careful,' I continued. 'You give me a lot

of work, and you deserve the best; so I'm going to do this drawing

all over.'

" 'No! No!' he protested. 'I wouldn't think of putting you to all that

trouble.' He praised my work, assured me that he wanted only a

minor change and that my slight error hadn't cost his firm any

money; and, after all, it was a mere detail - not worth worrying

about.

"My eagerness to criticize myself took all the fight out of him. He

ended up by taking me to lunch; and before we parted, he gave me

a check and another commission"

There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to

admit one's errors. It not only clears the air of guilt and

defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the

error.

Bruce Harvey of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had incorrectly

authorized payment of full wages to an employee on sick leave.

When he discovered his error, he brought it to the attention of the

employee and explained that to correct the mistake he would have to

reduce his next paycheck by the entire amount of the overpayment.

The employee pleaded that as that would cause him a serious

financial problem, could the money be repaid over a period of time?

In order to do this, Harvey explained, he would have to obtain his

supervisor's approval. "And this I knew," reported Harvey, "would

result in a boss-type explosion, While trying to decide how to handle

this situation better, I realized that the whole mess was my fault and

I would have to admit I it to my boss.

"I walked into his office, told him that I had made a mistake and

then informed him of the complete facts. He replied in an explosive

manner that it was the fault of the personnel department. I repeated

that it was my fault. He exploded again about carelessness in the

accounting department. Again I explained it was my fault. He blamed

two other people in the office. But each time I reiterated it was my

fault. Finally, he looked at me and said, 'Okay, it was your fault. Now

straighten it out.' The error was corrected and nobody got into

trouble. I felt great because I was able to handle a tense situation

and had the courage not to seek alibis. My boss has had more

respect for me ever since."

Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes - and most fools do -

but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility

and exultation to admit one's mistakes. For example, one of the most

beautiful things that history records about Robert E. Lee is the way

he blamed himself and only himself for the failure of Pickett's charge

at Gettysburg.

Pickett's charge was undoubtedly the most brilliant and picturesque

attack that ever occurred in the Western world. General George E.

Pickett himself was picturesque. He wore his hair so long that his

auburn locks almost touched his shoulders; and, like Napoleon in his

Italian campaigns, he wrote ardent love-letters almost daily while on

the battlefield. His devoted troops cheered him that tragic July

afternoon as he rode off jauntily toward the Union lines, his cap set

at a rakish angle over his right ear. They cheered and they followed

him, man touching man, rank pressing rank, with banners flying and

bayonets gleaming in the sun. It was a gallant sight. Daring.

Magnificent. A murmur of admiration ran through the Union lines as

they beheld it.

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Pickett's troops swept forward at any easy trot, through orchard and

cornfield, across a meadow and over a ravine. All the time, the

enemy's cannon was tearing ghastly holes in their ranks, But on they

pressed, grim, irresistible.

Suddenly the Union infantry rose from behind the stone wall on

Cemetery Ridge where they had been hiding and fired volley after

volley into Pickett's onrushing troops. The crest of the hill was a

sheet of flame, a slaughterhouse, a blazing volcano. In a few

minutes, all of Pickett's brigade commanders except one were down,

and four-fifths of his five thousand men had fallen.

General Lewis A. Armistead, leading the troops in the final plunge,

ran forward, vaulted over the stone wall, and, waving his cap on the

top of his sword, shouted: "Give 'em the steel, boys!"

They did. They leaped over the wall, bayoneted their enemies,

smashed skulls with clubbed muskets, and planted the battleflags of

the South on Cemetery Ridge. The banners waved there only for a

moment. But that moment, brief as it was, recorded the high-water

mark of the Confederacy.

Pickett's charge - brilliant, heroic - was nevertheless the beginning of

the end. Lee had failed. He could not penetrate the North. And he

knew it.

The South was doomed.

Lee was so saddened, so shocked, that he sent in his resignation and

asked Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, to appoint

"a younger and abler man." If Lee had wanted to blame the

disastrous failure of Pickett's charge on someone else, he could have

found a score of alibis. Some of his division commanders had failed

him. The cavalry hadn't arrived in time to support the infantry attack.

This had gone wrong and that had gone awry.

But Lee was far too noble to blame others. As Pickett's beaten and

bloody troops struggled back to the Confederate lines, Robert E. Lee

rode out to meet them all alone and greeted them with a selfcondemnation that was little short of sublime. "All this has been my

fault," he confessed. "I and I alone have lost this battle."

Few generals in all history have had the courage and character to

admit that.

Michael Cheung, who teaches our course in Hong Kong, told of how

the Chinese culture presents some special problems and how

sometimes it is necessary to recognize that the benefit of applying a

principle may be more advantageous than maintaining an old

tradition. He had one middle-aged class member who had been

estranged from his son for many years. The father had been an

opium addict, but was now cured. In Chinese tradition an older

person cannot take the first step. The father felt that it was up to his

son to take the initiative toward a reconciliation. In an early session,

he told the class about the grandchildren he had never seen and how

much he desired to be reunited with his son. His classmates, all

Chinese, understood his conflict between his desire and longestablished tradition. The father felt that young people should have

respect for their elders and that he was right in not giving in to his

desire, but to wait for his son to come to him.

帅哥

fficeffice" /> 

Toward the end of the course the father again addressed his class. "I

have pondered this problem," he said. "Dale Carnegie says, 'If you

are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.' It is too late for me to

admit it quickly, but I can admit it emphatically. I wronged my son.

He was right in not wanting to see me and to expel me from his life.

I may lose face by asking a younger person's forgiveness, but I was

at fault and it is my responsibility to admit this." The class applauded

and gave him their full support. At the next class he told how he

went to his son's house, asked for and received forgiveness and was

now embarked on a new relationship with his son, his daughter-inlaw and the grandchildren he had at last met.

Elbert Hubbard was one of the most original authors who ever stirred

up a nation, and his stinging sentences often aroused fierce

resentment. But Hubbard with his rare skill for handling people

frequently turned his enemies into friends.

For example, when some irritated reader wrote in to say that he

didn't agree with such and such an article and ended by calling

Hubbard this and that, Elbert Hubbard would answer like this:

Come to think it over, I don't entirely agree with it myself. Not

everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am glad to learn

what you think on the subject. The next time you are in the

neighborhood you must visit us and we'll get this subject threshed

out for all time. So here is a handclasp over the miles, and I am,

Yours sincerely,

What could you say to a man who treated you like that?

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."

• Principle 3 - If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

~~~~~~~

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.