Relationships

How to make people like you – and why it is not a trick

The best-selling book about people ever written, from 1936. A walk through the ideas in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People – why criticism does not work, what genuine interest does, and where the line to manipulation runs.

Back to the episode Arrow keys or swipe

What this covers

  1. Why criticism almost never works
  2. Honest appreciation versus flattery
  3. Becoming genuinely interested in other people
  4. Names, listening, and talking about what the other person cares about
  5. Avoiding the argument instead of winning it
  6. Letting the idea become theirs
  7. The criticism of the book, and where the line to manipulation runs

Criticism does not work

What criticism does, and what it does not

What you hope happens

Changed behaviour

  • The person sees the mistake
  • Takes it on board
  • Does it differently next time

What actually happens

Defence

  • The person justifies what they did
  • Looks for reasons you are wrong
  • Likes you slightly less
Carnegie opens with stories of criminals who insisted to the end that they had acted rightly. The point is simple: if they will not take criticism, neither will your colleague.

Appreciation, not flattery

Become interested in others

The most quoted line in the book: you will make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than in two years of trying to get other people interested in you.

The argument you cannot win

The criticism

What holds up

That criticism puts people on the defensive, that people remember how you made them feel, and that genuine interest in others is rarer than it should be – none of that is dated. Read it as a reminder of that, not as a technique.

Key points

  • Criticism puts people on the defensive. It rarely changes behaviour.
  • People remember how you made them feel, not what you said.
  • Interest in others has to be real. Fake interest is noticed, and backfires.
  • The only way to win an argument is to avoid it.

Key points (cont.)

  • The book is from 1936. The examples are dated, the principles are not.

Questions this answers

  • How do you make people like you?
  • Why does criticism not work?
  • What is the difference between appreciation and flattery?
  • How do you become a better listener?
  • Can you win an argument?
  • Is the advice in How to Win Friends manipulation?

Sources

  • Dale Carnegie – How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)

Spørretimen

Read the whole thing at

www.sporretimen.no/en/episodes/how-to-win-friends/