The book of the month is…

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a self-help book and perhaps the first best-selling self-help books ever published.

The book provides principles to engage people. Thanks to different anecdotes, it gave instruction in handling people, bringing people to your way of thinking, being a great leader and winning friends.

Dale spent more than two years writing this text by interviewing and studying the biographies of many members of each category, listing the 30 principles to be put into practice to be accepted by their colleagues/friends  as well as their clients.

 

The book is splitted in 4 sections with different principles:

  1. PART ONE – Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
    1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain
    2. Give honest and sincere appreciation
    3. Arouse in the other person
  2. PART TWO – Six Ways to Make People Like You
    1. Become genuinely interested in other people
    2. Smile
    3. Remember that a person name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language
    4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves
    5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests
    6. Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely
  3. PART THREE – How To Win People To Your Way of Thinking
    1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it
    2. Show respect for the other person’s opinion. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
    3. If you are wrong admit it quickly and emphatically
    4. Begin in a friendly manner
    5. Get the other person saying “Yes, Yes”
    6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking
    7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers
    8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view
    9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires
    10. Appeal to the nobler motives
    11. Dramatize your ideas
    12. Throw down a challenge
  4. PART FOUR – Be a Leader: How To Change People
    1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation
    2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly
    3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person
    4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
    5. Let the other person save face
    6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “Hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise”.
    7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
    8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct
    9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest

 

What to say, thanks to Dale Carnegie for this amazing book, which is like a manual to read and browse when you need it.