How to Win Friends and Influence People By Dale Carnegie (Summary)

The book How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the best book for maintaining a good personal relationship with all the people we meet in a day from the morning newspaper guy to the last guy we meet on our way back home. The author has categorized the book in four sections where he describes how to communicate with people, how to make them like you, how to win their thinking and how to be a leader respectively by giving many examples of people from personalities like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt to the students of his course which show how practical this book is.

1. Handling People. Here Carnegie mentions principles in handling people based on common nature of every life on the planet.

Nobody wants to hear a complain about themselves. Nobody wants to get criticized. This is because everyone is right in their own way of thinking. Everything a person does is always good. Even a gangster thinks high of himself. So do not speak ill of any person, be it your wife, children or any other people. Appreciate everyone. Give an honest appreciation not just common flattery. Everyone want to be praised. Try to understand the other persons point of view. Talk them in their views. Make other people think that your idea is their idea. This way you can make them do what you want. So arouse an eager want in people.

1. Making People Like You. Everyone wants to be loved. Those who know simple things gets loved, those who ignores does not.

Try to be genuinely interested in other person. You can only make other people interest in you if you get interested in them. Analyze the things they say honestly. Listen attentively. Be a good listener and encourage people to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. Don’t interrupt anyone while they are talking. Listen their good as well as bitter experience. Smile every time you greet a person. Smile while eating, speaking, talking. Force yourself to smile. Smile attracts people. Smile shows you are having a good time meeting a person. Call people by their name. One’s name is the sweetest word anyone hears. If you want to talk, then talk in terms of other people’s interest. Talk about what they want not what you want. People don’t like to hear other person’s interest. Another simple thing to do is make other person feel important. Appreciate their work and feel their importance. Make them know their own worth.

These are the simplest thing that everyone know. But no one gives them a try.

1. Winning People Into Your Way Of Thinking Whenever you are in the way of getting into an argument, try to avoid it. Both the party lose in an argument. You may prove you are right, but you cannot change other person’s thinking. Do not say you are wrong to any person. Show respect to their opinions be it right or be it wrong. Be wiser than other people but don’t make the mistake of telling them so. However if you are wrong, then admit it openly and right at the moment. If you admit your mistakes, then you may get mercy however big the mistake be. Begin your speech by talking in a friendly way. Be polite and honest. Respect other. You cannot change other person’s answer to YES once they have said NO. So, try to get YES out of them by using simple questions. Let others talk and you listen. Try to understand their point of view. Show sympathy on other’s problems. Appeal others in a nobler way. Give them your ideas and let them take their own decision by showing they can do it themselves. Dramatize your ideas like the movies do. Sell your idea in a realistic way. If nothing works, then throw down a challenge.

2. Being a leader A leader has to deal lots of difficult situations. One of them is handling the followers in a nobler way and pointing out their mistakes.

If you have to point out the mistakes, then do it indirectly. First praise their good quality. Show them they had done a good work and then show their mistakes. Talk about what you would have done, if you were in their place. Show you would have made bigger mistakes. Do not give orders. That is a strictly NO. Ask questions like what if. Give orders indirectly in form of questions. If a person have made some mistakes, let them save their face. There is nothing bigger than one’s image. Protect that image. Praise anyone in their improvement and success. Make them feel they are important. Make their success their good reputation. Make a fault seem easy to correct however big it may be. Make it seem like a small mistake and easy to correct. Focus on other person’s benefits and make them feel happy to do the thing you suggest. Make them happy to follow you.

As I said earlier, this book contains examples of different situations they face and how they solved it. It is really a practical book. Ever since I read this book, my view of other people has changed. I have seemed to have making progress in communicating with other people. Other people seem to hang around me. I have started to praise everyone in their success and progress. In conclusion, I have had positive effects after reading this book.

I would really suggest everyone who wants to have a good personal relationship and get other people like them or be a leader to read this book.

My rating of this book is

4.5 / 5

Thanks for reading 🙂