This is the seventeenth post in a multi-part series where I share the highlights of the sections/subsections of the book How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
Previous: Let the other person feel that the idea is his/hers
How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
Principle 8: Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view
- Only wise, exceptional, tolerant people try to understand the other person.
- Ferret out the reason why the other person does what he does, and you have the key to his actions, perhaps to his personality.
- Stop a minute to contrast your keen interest in your own affairs with your mild concern about anything else.
- Success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint.
- Example: A husband criticized his wife for spending too much time on the yard, and it didn’t look any better for it. He didn’t realize that she did it because she enjoyed it (i.e., their perceived goals were different).
- Before asking anybody to do anything, why not pause and close your eyes and think the whole thing through from another person’s point of view. Why should he/she want to do it?
“I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two hours before an interview than to step into that office without a perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say, and what that person, from my knowledge of his/her interests and motives, was likely to answer.” — Dean Dunham, Harvard Business School
Up Next
Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.