Pages 151 – 163

Carnegie 11.3.2, Pt 3 – PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.” – A Sure Way of Making Enemies—and How to Avoid It

Best Quote

An adult to young Ben Franklin:

Ben, you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so offensive that nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would lead only to discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to know any more than you do now, which is very little.”

Page by Page

151

“You can tell people they are wrong by a look or an intonation or a gesture just as eloquently as you can in words—and if you tell them they are wrong, do you make them want to agree with you? Never!”

152

Over three hundred years ago Galileo said: You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself.

As Lord Chesterfield said to his son: Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

153

There’s magic, positive magic, in such phrases as: “I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts.”

Harold, ‘Our dealership has made so many mistakes that I am frequently ashamed. We may have erred in your case. Tell me about it.’

“You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong.”

154

Mr S and the Justice, “I made the enormous blunder of telling a very learned and famous man that he was wrong.”

155

Carl Rogers, the eminent psychologist, wrote in his book On Becoming a Person:

“Our first reaction to most of the statements (which we hear from other people) is an evaluation or judgment, rather than an understanding of it.”

156

Drapes – friend lags a compliment (call back to ___)

“Well, to tell the truth,” I said, “I can’t afford them myself. I paid too much. I’m sorry I ordered them.”

157

To Franklin

“Ben, you are impossible. Your opinions have a slap in them for everyone who differs with you. They have become so offensive that nobody cares for them. Your friends find they enjoy themselves better when you are not around. You know so much that no man can tell you anything. Indeed, no man is going to try, for the effort would lead only to discomfort and hard work. So you are not likely ever to know any more than you do now, which is very little.”

158

Franklin “And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at length so easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me.

159

“I am convinced now that nothing good is accomplished and a lot of damage can be done if you tell a person straight out that he or she is wrong.”

160

Lumber sales, “Mr. Crowley saw that his firm was losing thousands of dollars through the arguments he won.”

If winning costs you money, then you aren’t really winning.

161

“And at last he saw that the mistake was on their part for not having specified as good a grade as they needed.” All made possible by gentle questions, without objection.

162

Dr. King replied, “I judge people by their own principles—not by my own.”

“General,” he said, “do you not know that the man of whom you speak so highly is one of your bitterest enemies who misses no opportunity to malign you?” “Yes,” replied General Lee, “but the president asked my opinion of him; he did not ask for his opinion of me.”

PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”