PRINCIPLE 8
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem
easy to correct.
9.
MAKING PEOPLE GLAD TO
DO
WHAT YOU WANT
Back in 1915, America was aghast. For more than a year,
the nations of Europe had been slaughtering one another
on a scale never before dreamed of in all the
bloody annals of mankind. Could peace be brought
about? No one knew. But Woodrow Wilson was determined
to try. He would send a personal representative,
a peace emissary, to counsel with the warlords of Europe.
William Jennings Bryan, secretary of state, Bryan, the
peace advocate, longed to go. He saw a chance to perform
a great service and make his name immortal. But
Wilson appointed another man, his intimate friend and
advisor Colonel Edward M. House; and it was House’s
thorny task to break the unwelcome news to Bryan without
giving him offense.
“Bryan was distinctly disappointed when he heard I
was to go to Europe as the peace emissary,” Colonel
House records in his diary. “He said he had planned to
do this himself .
"I replied that the President thought it would be unwise
for anyone to do this officially, and that his going
would attract a great deal of attention and people
would wonder why he was there.."
You see the intimation? House practically told Bryan
that he was too important for the job - and Bryan was
satisfied.
Colonel House, adroit, experienced in the ways of the
world, was following one of the important rules of
human relations: Always make the other person happy
about doing the thing you suggest.
Woodrow Wilson followed that policy even when inviting
William Gibbs McAdoo to become a member of
his cabinet. That was the highest honor he could confer
upon anyone, and yet Wilson extended the invitation in
such a way as to make McAdoo feel doubly important.
Here is the story in McAdoo's own words: “He [Wilson]
said that he was making up his cabinet and that he would
be very glad if I would accept a place in it as Secretary
of the Treasury. He had a delightful way of putting
things; he created the impression that by accepting this
great honor I would be doing him a favor.”
Unfortunately, Wilson didn’t always employ such taut.
If he had, history might have been different. For example,
Wilson didn’t make the Senate and the Republican
Party happy by entering the United States in the League
of Nations. Wilson refused to take such prominent Republican
leaders as Elihu Root or Charles Evans Hughes
or Henry Cabot Lodge to the peace conference with
him. Instead, he took along unknown men from his own
party. He snubbed the Republicans, refused to let them
feel that the League was their idea as well as his, refused
to let them have a finger in the pie; and, as a result of
this crude handling of human relations, wrecked his own
career, ruined his health, shortened his life, caused
America to stay out of the League, and altered the history
of the world.
Statesmen and diplomats aren’t the only ones who use
this make a person happy yo do things you want them todo
approach. Dale O. Ferrier of Fort Wayne, Indiana,
told how he encouraged one of his young children to
willingly do the chore he was assigned.
“One of Jeff’s chores was to pick up pears from under
the pear tree so the person who was mowing underneath
wouldn’t have to stop to pick them up. He didn’t like
this chore, and frequently it was either not done at all or
it was done so poorly that the mower had to stop and
pick up several pears that he had missed. Rather than
have an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation about it, one
day I said to him: ‘Jeff, I’ll make a deal with you. For
every bushel basket full of pears you pick up, I’ll pay
you one dollar. But after you are finished, for every pear
I find left in the yard, I’ll take away a dollar. How does
that sound?’ As you would expect, he not only picked up
all of the pears, but I had to keep an eye on him to see
that he didn’t pull a few off the trees to fill up some of
the baskets.”
I knew a man who had to refuse many invitations to
speak, invitations extended by friends, invitations coming
from people to whom he was obligated; and yet he
did it so adroitly that the other person was at least contented
with his refusal. How did he do it? Not by merely
talking about the fact that he was too busy and too-this
and too-that. No, after expressing his appreciation of the
invitation and regretting his inability to accept it, he suggested
a substitute speaker. In other words, he didn’t
give the other person any time to feel unhappy about the refusal, He immediately changed the other person’s
thoughts to some other speaker who could accept the
invitation.
Gunter Schmidt, who took our course in West Germany,
told of an employee in the food store he managed
who was negligent about putting the proper price tags
on the shelves where the items were displayed. This
caused confusion and customer complaints. Reminders,
admonitions, confrontations, with her about this did not
do much good. Finally, Mr. Schmidt called her into his
office and told her he was appointing her Supervisor of
Price Tag Posting for the entire store and she would be
responsible for keeping all of the shelves properly
tagged. This new responsibility and title changed her
attitude completely, and she fulfilled her duties satisfactorily
from then on.
Childish? Perhaps. But that is what they said to Napoleon
when he created the Legion of Honor and distributed
15,000 crosses to his soldiers and made
eighteen of his generals “Marshals of France” and called
his troops the “Grand Army.” Napoleon was criticized
for giving “toys” to war-hardened veterans, and Napoleon
replied, “Men are ruled by toys.”
This technique of giving titles and authority worked
for Napoleon and it will work for you. For example, a
friend of mine, Mrs. Ernest Gent of Scarsdale, New
York, was troubled by boys running across and destroying
her lawn. She tried criticism. She tried coaxing. Neither
worked. Then she tried giving the worst sinner in
the gang a title and a feeling of authority. She made him
her “detective” and put him in charge of keeping all
trespassers off her lawn. That solved her problem. Her
“detective” built a bonfire in the backyard, heated an
iron red hot, and threatened to brand any boy who
stepped on the lawn.
