Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #625664 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

The Guardian
'the granddaddy of all management books'

Synopsis
Provides suggestions for successfully dealing with people both in social and business situations.

From the Publisher
The most famous confidence-boosting book ever published; with sales of over 16 million copies worldwide

Customer Reviews

It won me over.
A classic (originally published in the 30's) and a must-have, this timeless piece of work can help just about anybody get along better with others and win them over to their way of thinking. Don't have a lot of time to spare? Don't worry. The book is divided into short sections, each one devoted to a particular principle that is well illustrated with many practical examples. In this way, you can read a chapter quickly, stop and do other things you have to do if necessary, and get back to the book when you have time- all without losing continuity.

Thoroughly entertaining by using fun and interesting examples, I don't think many readers will regret checking this one out and I like to think of this book as a kind of Human Relations 101 of sorts. Also recommend The Sixty-Second Motivator for further reading on motivational principles.

A classic masterpiece read by an EXCELLENT narrator
This is an exceptional book. It helped with my personal life as well as my business life. It should be a required reading for anyone who wants to improve his/her life.

I would recommend the audio book edition since anyone must return from time to time to the readings of this excellent book, and it helped me in my driving hours to be reminded of the hundreds of values it teaches but are hard to make part of ourselves with one reading.

Wise words, despite being long in the tooth
For a number of years I passed on reading Carnegie's work. The primary reason being that having dealt with a few people who did things the 'Carnegie way' I felt very uncomfortable with the kind of people they had become. One could easily argue they would have been those kinds of people with or without a Carnegie course and a paperback, and that's a reasonably sustainable argument. The problem really is though, that this book was clearly written by an American for an American audience (in 1936!); I know that is not the sales line but it is the truth. Henceforth, when the 'techniques' are applied to just about every culture outside of the United States then they have all the uncomfortableness of a brash woman wearing too much make-up, they ring too false and look too ridiculous. Maybe my comments will be seem by some as 'European elitism', but it's not that at all, it's simply a point of appropriation. A good number of what Carnegie talks about would simply laughed off in Europe as utterly banal and superficially repulsive - even if it were said or done with all sincerity. In my experience the over-use of names, the false enquiring of one's health, the formulaic compassion, the absurdity of remembering that your prospect ate chicken for dinner when you last met; and doesn't even remember that himself etc. is just too feigned and fictitious as to become repulsive. Likewise the whole notion that you can ask someone to do something if you simply spin them round, or that you should never berate people is poor psychology indeed. I agree that ONLY beration is unproductive but to motivate and challenge people of substance you need to raise the bar and use BOTH the twin tools of carrot AND the stick. Psychologically the practice of praising errors is utterly ridiculous, all it does is register in the brain that bad results equal rewards and therefore offers no need to adopt correct procedure. When finally the employer/owner feels the necessity to berate (i.e. when behaviour, attitude or errors were not corrected) then must harsher correction is needed to gain lesser effect. This is simple behavioural psychology at work. I recommend Col. Konrad Most's 'Training Dogs' for an excellent explanation of this idea. As a footnote, chapter 11 'Dramatise your ideas' is singularly laughable, I'm surprised that wasn't edited out of the latest edition.

That said, I feel that what Carnegie himself began to discover was, that in order to be a better person one must embody the 'techniques' offered in the book, so that they become you. You must fully internalise the ideas, living and breathing them so the radiate forth with utmost clarity and sincerity. I dare say that when Carnegie first set out he wasn't that way inclined. However as he practised his Way longer and harder and underwent his spiritual and personal growth then he became to realise that in order to REALLY 'Win Friends and Influence People' it is the heart and soul of the individual that is of importance. Any fool can (and does) go through the motions, but it is humanity and deepest sincerity that connects human beings together; and if they happen to be seller/buyer then that's just the way things are. What we are effectively presented with here here is one man's personal spiritual journey, the memoirs of one man's route up the Path of life and in that regard this book is a gem.

Ultimately this is an admirable piece of work that has stood well against the shifting sands of time and should simple be one of a NUMBER of books the enquiring mind should be reading; simply being one piece of the jigsaw. Once you have read and digested this then I thoroughly recommend the next level, Dr. Covey's '7 Habits of Highly Effective People', though that work (and many others) clearly benefited enormous from the early groundwork done by Carnegie, it is in a different league altogether; highly recommended.