How to win people to your way of Thinking
1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it: Why prove to man/women is wrong? Is that going to make them like you? Why not let them try to save their face? “Always try to avoid the acute angle.” There is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument-and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattle snakes and earthquakes. One can’t win an argument. Because if they lose it, they lose it; and if they win, they lose it!! Why? With the win you may feel fine, but what about the other? You have made him feel inferior and hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. Also if you argue, rankle and contradict, you may achieve victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory as you will never get the opponents good will. Buddha said: ‘Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love,’ and a misunderstanding is never ended by an argument but by tact, diplomacy, conciliation and a sympathetic desire to see the other person’s viewpoint.
In an article in “Bits and pieces” (Economic press), decent suggestions are made on keeping a disagreement from becoming an argument:
a) Welcome the disagreement: Disagreement is your opportunity to be corrected before you make a serious mistake.
b) Distrust your first instinctive impression: At times of disagreeable situation, keep calm and watch out for your first reaction. It may be your worst, not the best.
c) Control your temper: Remember, you can measure the size of a person by what makes him or her angry.
d) Listen First: Give your opponents a chance to talk and finish. Do not resist. Try to build bridges of understanding not the higher barriers of misunderstanding.
e) Look for areas of agreement
f) Be Honest: Apologize for your mistakes. It will help disarm the opponent’s defensiveness.
g) Promise to think over your opponents ideas and study them carefully: Because they may be right sometimes and they may say-“we tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.”
h) Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest: Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are.
i) Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem: Ask yourself some hard questions- could my opponent be right? Is there truth or merit in their position or argument? Is my reaction relieves the problem and draw the opponents closer or keep away from me? What price will I have to pay if I win? Is this difficult situation an opportunity for me?
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong”: Theodore Roosevelt once confessed that if he could be right 75% of the time, he would reach the highest measure of his expectation. If you can be right 55% the time, then you can make million dollars in Wall Street! If you can’t be sure of being right even 55% of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong? You can tell people they are wrong by a look or intonation or a gesture. In that case, do you make them want to agree with you? Never!
Never begin by announcing “I am going to prove so-and-so to you.” That’s tantamount to saying: “I’m smarter than you are. I’m going to tell you a thing or two and make you change your mind.” It arouses opposition and makes the listener want to battle with you before you even start. If you are going to prove anything, don’t let anyone know it. Do it so subtly, so adroitly that no one will feel you are doing it. There are famous adages- “You can’t teach a person anything, you can only help him to find within himself.” And “Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.” There is a positive magic in the phrase: I may be wrong. I frequently am. Let’s examine the facts. By telling the other person that he is wrong- you only succeed in stripping that person of self-dignity and making you an unwelcome part of any discussion, instead use little diplomacy.
Few books of your interest- Carl Rogers “On Becoming a Person” and “Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, Yogoda Satsanga Societies lessons have some excellent points/ techniques to adapt in life.
3. If you are wrong, admit quickly and emphatically: When we are right, let’s try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking and when we are wrong- and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves- let’s admit our mistake with enthusiasm. Let’s remember the old proverb: “By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.”
4. Begin in a friendly way: If your temper is aroused and you tell them a thing or two, you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other person? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, hostile attitude, makes it easy for him to agree with you? If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change their minds. They can’t be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possible be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly. It is a true maxim that “a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.” So with humans, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.
5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately: In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which you differ. Begin by emphasizing- and keep on emphasizing- the things on which you agree. Keep your opponent from saying ‘No’. A NO response is the most difficult handicap to overcome. When you have said ‘no’, all your pride of personality demands that you remain consistent with yourself. Once having said a thing, you feel you must stick to it. Hence it is of the greatest importance that a person be started in the affirmative direction. The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “yes” responses. This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the affirmative direction.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking (A safety valve in handling complaints): Most people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too much talking. Let the other people talk them out. Ask them questions; let them tell you a few things. If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But don’t it is dangerous. They won’t pay attention to you while they still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen patiently with an open mind. But be sincere about it. A French philosopher, La Rochefoucauld said: “If you want enemies, excel your friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.”
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers (how to get cooperation): Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn’t it wiser to make suggestions-and let the other person think out the conclusion? One of the sales managers of an automobile showroom spoke about how he infused enthusiasm in sales people- he urged his people to tell him exactly what they expected from him. As they talked, he wrote their ideas on a black board and then said: I’ll give you all these qualities you expect from me. Now I want you to tell me what I have a right to expect from you.” The replies came quick and fast. The result- sales was phenomenal.
A Chinese sage, Lao-tse said: - “The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, put himself below them; wishing to be before them, he put himself behind them. Thus, though his place is above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place is before them, they do not count it an injury.”
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view (A formula that works wonders for you): Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don’t think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to do that. There is a key to handle his personality and actions: try honestly to put yourself in his place. If you say to yourself, “How would I feel, how would I react if I were in his shoes?” You will save yourself time and irritation, “by becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the effect.” In addition you will sharply increase your skill in human relationships. One can observe from the lives of Lincoln and Roosevelt that, success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person’s viewpoint. Dr. Gerald S. Nirenberg commented: “Cooperativeness in conversation is achieved when you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as important as your own.”
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires: Wouldn’t you like to have a magic phrase that would stop arguments, eliminate ill feeling, create good will and make the other person listen attentively? YES? Here it is: “I don’t blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you I would undoubtedly feel just as you do.” Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them and they will love you.
Dr. Arthur I. Gates said in his book Educational psychology: “Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults...show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness especially details of surgical operations. ‘Self-pity’ for misfortunes real or imaginary is in some measures, practically a universal practice.”
10. Appeal to the nobler motives
11. Dramatize your ideas: This is the day of dramatization. Merely stating a truth isn’t enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting and dramatic. You have to show showmanship. The movies, TV does it. And you will have to do it if you want attention.
12. Throw down a challenge (when nothing else works, try this): Charles Schwab says- “the way to get things done is to stimulate competition. I don’t mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel.” The desire to excel! The challenge! Throwing down the gauntlet! An infallible way of appealing to people of spirit. “All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory”. What greater challenge can be offered than the opportunity to overcome those fears? The chance for self-expression is what every successful person loves. The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel to win.
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