The key to understanding Carnegie's strategies is the understanding that everything can be broken down into bite-sized pieces. In a cataloguing and listing format often used in post-modern fiction, such as Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, readers are taught to further comprehend their surroundings and their interactions by viewing them as small chunks of material that should each be individually analyzed and then responded to in kind.
The simplicity of Carnegie's approach is glossed over by most, but this, in and of itself, is the ingenuity of its content. In a structure that more than slightly resembles that of a junior high school writing teacher—introduction: tell me what you are going to tell me, body: tell me, conclusion: tell me what you told me—the author prefaces each section with a heading that tells the reader what to look forward to. This method, although it now appears elementary, is the method almost all self-help books use to this day. Best of all, it still works.
Without treating his audience like juveniles, exuding obvious guidance to the text, each chapter subtly ends with a fundamental principle or rule of thumb that can sum up the material discussed and give readers something small and concise to remember. For instance, each of Carnegie's three "Fundamental Techniques in Handling People" is summarized into a short phrase at the end of a chapter for readers to ponder briefly, tuck into their back pockets, and move on.
One of Dale Carnegie's professional ideas, which is still used in business environments today, rings more true in this book than you might imagine. It was his belief that 15% of financial success was found in professional and business knowledge or comprehension, where the other 85% was due to "the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people." What better way to do this than to write a book about implementing these interpersonal skills using that same skill set?
Carnegie's book succeeds as a personable and personal approach because he utilized his own techniques in writing it. For instance, Principle five in his "Six Ways to Make People Like You" is revealed in a chapter entitled "How to Interest People." So the author does exactly that. He writes a chapter concluding with the principle, "Talk in terms of the other person's interests," by telling an entertaining story about Theodore Roosevelt where the president learned to be interesting, himself.
Dale Carnegie's strategies for building relationships and gaining influence among colleagues is not just brilliant in its approach but timeless. Read it now and read it again in 10 years. It will still work for you and your business interactions.
