Five Books to Read in Your 20's - Book 3

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Picking up from my previous articles, below is the third book that has helped me build my mindset and guiding principles. I mentioned this previously, but I think it's worth addressing again. The parallels and messages of each of these books are incredibly evident. While the topic of each book is different, the overarching concept of studying life, business, human interaction, and experiences through the combination of theory, experiences, stories, and science allows for a diverse but calculated approach to successful living. These books are the art and the science.

This is a book I read just before beginning my career out of college. I was going to be working in a Management Training Program that, after a year, would conclude with me leading 15-20 retail stores and a team of over 200 associates. I was 22 years old, and once graduating from the program, I was the only person in my class; I would be the youngest individual in my position of more than 500 people. I don't say this boastfully. I say it as I think it further emphasizes just how important understanding and practicing the concepts of this book were for me. My success depended on it. Most of my direct reports would be twice my age, some even three times with experience in the business longer than I had been alive. I knew if I had any chance of gaining a following, I had to become an expert in dealing with people.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a book comprised of principles that explore human interaction and working with others. I used this as a handbook to develop my knowledge on working with others, become a leader, and equally as important to learn – what did these two things mean and why they were so important? I've reiterated this time and time, but I will continue to do so. This article is not meant to summarize this book but rather discuss critical concepts that are important to me and the why behind them while also sharing stories of how this book has directly translated to my life and work. I'll frequently use excerpts from the book and break them down with my thoughts and personal stories.

"One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was Charles Schwab. He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in 1921 when Schwab was only 38 years old.

Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than three thousand dollars a day to Charles Schwab? Why? Because Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the manufacturing of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of steel than he did.

Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his ability to deal with people."

This book has four parts. I will very briefly speak on each but will not dive too far into one or get into each element's principles. Instead, I will focus on a few principles that have helped me.

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

2. Six Ways to Make People Like You

3. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

Avoid criticism, give sincere appreciation, inspire want. Let's face it. We are all encouraged and discouraged in very similar ways. Criticism kills motivation, and appreciation builds it. I don't think this needs much explaining. Every person reading this can reflect for themselves with a personal example of a boss, parent, or friend who shared appreciation or criticism and how it made them feel. Inspire want in others. As humans, we are naturally programmed to do things that make us feel good and align with our interests. When working with others, appeal to their interests to get them to align with yours.

When I first took over my district of eighteen stores, we were in the bottom 10% of more than five hundred districts in the company from a sales comp perspective. As I met my team for the first time, there was plenty of criticism to go around. Store's were messy, shelves empty, and associates were not discreet about their displeasure in being there. What appreciation could possibly be deserved for conditions like this? However, I knew I had to do the opposite of what our instinct is to do, which is criticize. I looked for specific examples where appreciation was genuinely warranted and saved the criticism for a more strategic approach. Everyone is in uniform? Great, "Thank you, Store Manager, for ensuring your team is dressed in their company polo's to represent the brand." Imagine the look on their face when I said this. This appreciation was likely the first time something positive had been said to them over the last year. Remember, to add to all this, I am 23 years old, half most of my team's age, with relatively no experience compared to them. While criticism may have been justified, do you think it would inspire motivation? Trust me, people often know when they are failing without us having to remind them. To be continued.

2. Six Ways to Make People Like You

Take a genuine interest in others, listen, make others feel important sincerely. When I first met my team, I prioritized understanding who they were and what was important to them. This was not a ruse. I have always been genuinely interested in others, so it came naturally but needed constant reminding. I did this by asking questions and listening significantly more than I spoke. In our second meeting, I remember a manager commenting that I was quiet, and without thought, my immediate response was, "I have a lot more to hear than to say." I meant it.

"I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions." Lou Holtz.

A couple of weeks passed, and I had now met all my direct reports and had at least two visits with most. I knew I wasn't going to fix these stores overnight. The key to my success was people, so these two weeks focused on the concepts above; appreciation, listening and understanding each individual's motivations and desires. I spoke very little, primarily to ask questions when I did. Specifically, I focused on asking targeted open-ended questions that created a dialogue beyond binary answers. I also spent quite a bit of time learning about each person outside of work. I kept it professional but asked questions like their hobbies, favorite sports team, or show, and what excited them. I was new to the area, so did they have any restaurants they could recommend? I practiced active listening as they shared, and unsurprisingly these simple questions divulged much more than you could imagine. This may sound odd when a store is in shambles to be talking about a sports team, but I knew my team understanding my interest in them translated directly to fixing these stores. I was their leader only in title, worth nothing, and the relationship was developing, but I knew I was still far from my goal of true leadership, influence.

"People don't care how you know till they know how much you care," Theodore Roosevelt.

3. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

Let others do most of the talking, help them believe something is their idea, see things from other people's perspectives. People love talking about themselves, ask them questions, and you will learn a lot by letting them do so. People are much more likely to act if they feel the idea is their own. A significant obstacle in driving action is getting the other person to align with the concept. Please don't waste time convincing; help your idea become theirs, and the belief will already be there. Understand that everyone's perspective will be different and is shaped directly by who they are; genetic makeup, experiences, and knowledge. Every individual is unique. Your perspective would be theirs if you had someone else's exact makeup.

I am now a few months into my role and have significantly invested in the concepts above. My rapport with my team is growing, and I am beginning to see some traction. We are still a long way from our goal, but we are on an upward trajectory in specific stores. My team recognizes I am genuinely invested in their success personally and professionally, and my age and experience quickly become non-factors. Since this relationship is established, I am focused on instilling principles and practices that drive effectiveness. However, as called out, this is not done by me telling them directly. I know for these ideas to translate to consistent implementation; each individual must think of them as their own.

A simple example of this was getting stores to stock shelves when they were closed rather than open. I had unsuccessfully seen other leaders try to implement this by simply telling the Store Manager to stock off hours. Many leaders even took it a step further and shared the compelling reasons for doing so to the Store Manager, but the execution still rarely happened. There was always a rebuttal, "I can't get employees in earlier or later, I don't have the hours, I don't think it would improve productivity, etc." Resistance to an idea that wasn't their own continually came up. I decided to use what I had learned in this book and see if I could guide them in concluding that to have fuller shelves, a good solution may be to stock off hours. I asked questions like, "What are some ways your stockers are losing productivity while working?" I'd be met with answers like, "customers asking where something is, getting called to the register, etc." I would then ask something like, "What are some strategies you've used to improve stocking productivity?" By the end of the conversation, it would become transparent they thought stocking off-hours may be a good solution, I would agree. Implementation significantly improved, and shelves were fuller. This is just one example and an abbreviated, simplified model of helping your idea become someone else's, but the difference in execution was measurable. Note: You must avoid being too obvious or belittling by asking questions with obvious answers, actually have the conversation and be open to hearing others ideas as well. You may learn something and be able to put both ideas together. Through continually practicing everything above, my team is beginning to think and work with their teams the way I think and work with them. There is a trickle-down effect.

4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

Lead with praise and appreciation, criticize strategically, give the other person a reputation to live up to. As I first said, I always make it a point to recognize something specific that is being done well and share my appreciation for it, ideally praising publicly. When criticism is delivered, I always do it privately and first recognize where I could have done better as a leader. When a football team performs poorly, who gets fired, the players or the coach? Owning my opportunities and admitting to my mistakes builds a comfort level in others doing so. I also like to ask questions or create a dialogue that allows someone to reach their opportunities without me calling them out directly. Lastly, from day one in my district, I was very vocal that we were the strongest team in the country. While we weren't there, we would have the cleanest stores, friendliest associates, and best metrics in the company. I constantly reinforced this and made it our belief that each individual was the one to do it. Creating this reputation also worked as a great way to weed people out. If they didn't want to live up to the reputation I was giving them and were ok with settling for less; I knew they didn't fit on my team and so did they.

I'm now a year in, and a significant portion of my team has turned over (those who didn't believe or weren't interested in what we were trying to achieve and become). I primarily replaced these individuals with associates promoted from within who received all the same investment and interactions throughout this process. We are inspired, and my influence is evident in each individual and store. We win our first award for the highest sales comp in our region, consisting of fifteen districts across five states. Through year two, we consistently rank top five in the company in comp sales, placing us in the Top 1%. Note: There is significantly more that was done beyond the human interactions to reach these results, with vital investments in processes, systems, products, among countless other investments, and of course, some luck. However, one fact remains the same as it did for Charles Schwab, it was not my genius or knowledge of running retail stores that built our foundation to excel but rather my ability to work with others.

"I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people, said Schwab, the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing that so kills the ambition of a person and criticism from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise."

While I no longer work in multi-unit retail management, I use these same skills daily. These concepts apply not only professionally but also in your personal life. From interactions with family and friends, the power of practicing these ideas carries across all human interactions. What I like most about this book is while there is some strategy and human phycology to these concepts, it is not a game of mental Ju-Jitsu and tricking others. None of this will work if you are not sincere. Appreciate, inspire, ask questions, listen, appeal to interests, help others reach conclusions themselves. None of this is novel. Step back, and you may find you are already applying much of this in your life right now.