My niece, Josephine Carnegie, had come to New York
to be my secretary. She was nineteen, had graduated
from high school three years previously, and her business
experience was a trifle more than zero. She became
one of the most proficient secretaries west of Suez, but
in the beginning, she was - well, susceptible to improvement.
One day when I started to criticize her, I
said to myself: “Just a minute, Dale Carnegie; just a
minute. You are twice as old as Josephine. You have had
ten thousand times as much business experience. How
can you possibly expect her to have your viewpoint, your
judgment, your initiative - mediocre though they may
be?
And just a minute, Dale, what were you doing at
nineteen? Remember the asinine mistakes and blunders
you made? Remember the time you did this . . . and
that?"
After thinking the matter over, honestly and impartially,
I concluded that Josephine’s batting average at
nineteen was better than mine had been - and that, I’m
sorry to confess, isn’t paying Josephine much of a compliment.
So after that, when I wanted to call Josephine’s attention
to a mistake, I used to begin by saying, “You have
made a mistake, Josephine, but the Lord knows, it’s no
worse than many I have made. You were not born with
judgment. That comes only with experience, and you are
better than I was at your age. I have been guilty of so
many stupid, silly things myself, I have very little incliion
to criticize you or anyone. But don’t you think it
would have been wiser if you had done so and so?"
It isn’t nearly so difficult to listen to a recital of your
faults if the person criticizing begins by humbly admitting
that he, too, is far from impeccable.
E. G. Dillistone, an engineer in Brandon, Manitoba,
Canada, was having problems with his new secretary.
Letters he dictated were coming to his desk for signature
with two or three spelling mistakes per #. Mr. Dillistone
reported how he handled this:
“Like many engineers, I have not been noted for my
excellent English or spelling. For years I have kept a
little black thumb - index book for words I had trouble
spelling. When it became apparent that merely pointing
out the errors was not going to cause my secretary to do
more proofreading and dictionary work, I resolved to
take another approach. When the next letter came to my
attention that had errors in it, I sat down with the typist
and said:
" ‘Somehow this word doesn’t look right. It’s one of
the words I always have had trouble with. That’s the reason
I started this spelling book of mine. [I opened
the book to the appropriate #.] Yes, here it is. I’m
very conscious of my spelling now because people do
judge us by our letters and misspellings make us look
less professional.
"I don't know whether she copied my system or not,
but since that conversation, her frequency of spelling
errors has been significantly reduced.”
The polished Prince Bernhard von Bülow learned the
sharp necessity of doing this back in 1909. Von Bülow
was then the Imperial Chancellor of Germany, and on
the throne sat Wilhelm II-Wilhelm, the haughty; Wilhelm
the arrogant; Wilhelm, the last of the German Kaisers,
building an army and navy that he boasted could
whip their weight in wildcats
Then an astonishing thing happened. The Kaiser said
things, incredible things, things that rocked the continent
and started a series of explosions heard around the
world. To make matters infinitely worse, the Kaiser
made silly, egotistical, absurd announcements in public,
he made them while he was a guest in England, and he
gave his royal permission to have them printed in the
Daily Telegraph. For example, he declared that he was
the only German who felt friendly toward the English;
that he was constructing a navy against the menace of
Japan; that he, and he alone, had saved England from
being humbled in the dust by Russia and France; that it
had been his campaign plan that enabled England’s
Lord Roberts to defeat the Boers in South Africa; and so
on and on.
No other such amazing words had ever fallen from the
lips of a European king in peacetime within a hundred
years. The entire continent buzzed with the fury of a
hornet’s nest. England was incensed. German statesmen
were aghast. And in the midst of all this consternation,
the Kaiser became panicky and suggested to Prince von
Bülow, the Imperial Chancellor, that he take the blame.
Yes, he wanted von Bülow to announce that it was all
his responsibility, that he had advised his monarch to
say these incredible things.
“But Your Majesty,” von Bülow protested, “it seems
to me utterly impossible that anybody either in Germany
or England could suppose me capable of having advised
Your Majesty to say any such thing.”
The moment those words were out of von Bülow's
mouth, he realized he had made a grave mistake. The
Kaiser blew up.
“You consider me a donkey,” he shouted, “capable of
blunders you yourself could never have committed!”
Von Bülow's knew that he ought to have praised before
he condemned; but since that was too late, he did the
next best thing. He praised after he had criticized. And
it worked a miracle.
"I'm far from suggesting that,” he answered respectfully.
“Your Majesty surpasses me in many respects; not
only of course, in naval and military knowledge but
above all, in natural science. I have often listened in
admiration when Your Majesty explained the barometer,
or wireless telegraphy, or the Roentgen rays. I am
shamefully ignorant of all branches of natural science,
have no notion of chemistry or physics, and am quite
incapable of explaining the simplest of natural phenomena.
But,” von Büllow continued, “in compensation, I
possess some historical knowledge and perhaps certain
qualities useful in politics, especially in diplomacy.”
The Kaiser beamed. Von Bulow had praised him. Von
Bülow had exalted him and humbled himself. The Kaiser
could forgive anything after that. “Haven’t I always
told you," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, “that we complete
one another famously? We should stick together,
and we will!"
He shook hands with von Bülow, not once, but several
times. And later in the day he waxed so enthusiastic that
he exclaimed with doubled fists, “If anyone says anything
to me against Prince von Bülow, I shall punch him
in the nose.”
Von Bülow saved himself in time - but, canny diplomat
that he was, he nevertheless had made one error: he
should have begun by talking about his own shortcomings
and Wilhelm’s superiority - not by intimating that
the Kaiser was a half-wit in need of a guardian.
If a few sentences humbling oneself and praising the
other party can turn a haughty, insulted Kaiser into a
staunch friend, imagine what humility and praise can do
for you and me in our daily contacts. Rightfully used,
they will work veritable miracles in human relations.
Admitting one’s own mistakes - even when one hasn’t
corrected them - can help convince somebody to change
his behavior. This was illustrated more recently by Clarence
Zerhusen of Timonium, Maryland, when he discovered
his fifteen-year-old son was experimenting with
cigarettes.
“Naturally, I didn’t want David to smoke,” Mr. Zerhusen
told us, “but his mother and I smoked cigarettes;
we were giving him a bad example all the time. I explained
to Dave how I started smoking at about his age
and how the nicotine had gotten the best of me and now
it was nearly impossible for me to stop. I reminded him
how irritating my cough was and how he had been after
me to give up cigarettes not many years before.
"I didn’t exhort him to stop or make threats or warn
him about their dangers. All I did was point out how I
was hooked on cigarettes and what it had meant to me.
“He thought about it for a while and decided he
wouldn’t smoke until he had graduated from high
school. As the years went by David never did start smoking
and has no intention of ever doing so.
“As a result of that conversation I made the decision
to stop smoking cigarettes myself, and with the support oof my family, I have succeeded.”
