Book Report, Chapter 1

I am reading a book at my husband’s suggestion that more than lives up to his praises. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People sounds, by title alone, like something that a salesperson should be required to read their first week on the job. While I’ve been selling for five years now, this is the first time I have picked it up.

I’m happy to report that several of the items Carnegie suggests I’m already incorporating into my life both professionally and socially. I will admit, however, that I’m not using the techniques to their fullest potential.

With this in mind I’m going to take some time to journal about these principles for the mutual benefit of my readers and I – for me so that I can remember them and consider ways to use them more fully and for my readers here who might not have time to read the book that but could certainly benefit from it in some small way(s).

Chapter 1 is titled "If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive". The bottom line concept this chapter stresses is that criticizing, condemning and complaining will not get you what you want. The only agenda, according to Carnegie, that people have is their own. If you speak ill of people, whether to their face or not, you are damaging the most important thing in the world to them- their pride. Being critical of others, even if it is justified, will only breed hurt on their part and will not influence them to do what it is you want done.

Let me quote an illustrative story that Carnegie shares on pages 14-15:
Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet in the air both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering he managed to land the plan, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt.

Hoover’s first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane’s fuel. Just as he suspected, the WWII propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.

Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well.

You can imagine Hoover’s anger. One could anticipate the tounge-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn’t scold the mechanic; he didn’t even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man’s shoulder and said, “To show you I’m sure that you’ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.”

The benefit that not criticizing in this or any situation gives in immeasurable compared to the alternative.