December 2nd, 2009 | by Jack Reichert

I’ve been a huge fan of “How to Win Friends & Influence People” for many, many years. I would say that that book has changed my life. Before I read it I was a very shy teenager but reading it pulled me out of my shell. Since then, I’ve taken several of the Dale Carnegie Training courses and have never been disappointed. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is revered as one of  the top business interpersonal relations book on the market, over 70 years after it was first published. In this article I’d like to share with you some thoughts about the structure of the book to help a reader understand the bigger picture, and internalize the message even better.

Dale Carnegie wrote his book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” as a textbook for his classes at the YMCA in “Effective Communications & Human Relations”. The book is divided into three parts:

I – Become a Friendlier Person

II – Win People to Your Way of Thinking

III – Be a Leader

The book is structured in this way in order to assist the individual reading the book to improve the reader’s inter-personal skills in a progressive manner. Being so, each part contains the same techniques as in the other parts, only written in context of the message of the entire part.

For example:

For the first rule of the first part of the book – “Become a Friendlier Person” – Mr. Carnegie tells us: “Don’t criticize, condemn or complain” But the second rule of the second part – “Win People to Your Way of Thinking” – he says: “Show respect for the other person’s opinion. Never say, “You’re wrong.”” And the second rule of the third part – “Be a Leader” – he suggests: “Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.”

These three rules are essentially the same concept, only presented differently, each written to be relevant for the section of the book in which they appear. “Don’t criticize” is basically the same as saying “Never say,”You’re wrong.”" While the first is ideal for helping a person become more friendly, and the second is a good way to help someone become less bossy, and hence, easier to listen to.

Understanding this makes our task of internalizing Mr. Carnegie’s messages easier. When I have a huge task ahead of me it can overwhelm me. But if I know that the task is not as big as I thought, it gets easier.

If you set out trying to change yourself, by following the lists in the book it can seem too challenging. But if you understand that with every step you are working on the skills for wining friends, wining others to your way of thinking AND being a leader, the task of changing seems all that more doable. Furthermore, one of the benefits of a process like this is that with each stage you go through you are reviewing the skills acquired already. This truly helps you build a solid foundation.

Here’s Mr. Carnegie’s summary of the first section to get you going. The rest can be found in the links below…

Become a Friendlier Person

1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest, sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.
4. Become genuinely interested in other people.
5. Smile.
6. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
8. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
9. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Here’s a start… But I can’t give it ALL away! You can download a pdf of their “Golden Book” which includes a summary of the principals in the book.

Here you can find a great basic summary of How to Win Friends as well.

Image Credit: Lumaxart

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