Book Review: How to Win Friends & Influence People

How to Win Friends & Influence People (hereafter, HWFIP) is one of the many bestselling books by renowned American writer Dale Carnegie. Dale is known to be a pioneer in the field of self-development and has summarized his courses and experiences in a collection of his widely acclaimed books.

I, being a novice in book-reading, happened to come across HWFIP in the list of books suggested in a solicited recommendation. Personally, I have never been a fan of self-help books because I always had a notion that these books are only for those who are naive in dealing with day to day chores of the world and that I couldn’t possibly learn much by reading them. But I gladly admit that this book successfully broke my false pre-conception and I’m now looking forward to read more such books.

The objective of this book is to make one deal with most of the real-world issues quickly and conveniently. By ‘most’, I mean all those that involve humans and perhaps most issues in this world involve humans (Right?). This point makes it a must-read book for any person who is or is aspiring to be a manager. Even those who have nothing to do with managerial responsibilities will gain a lot by reading it because everyone has to deal with people in their life whether they like it or not. And the crux of the entire three hundred something paged book is having a genuine likeness for people, understanding things from their point of view and keeping one’s ego down. It may sound simple and you make think that you already apply it in your life, yet you’ll learn many nuances of dealing with people that you never knew or observed.

The book has four major sections, namely:

1. Fundamental techniques in handling people

2. Ways to make people like you

3. Winning people to your way of thinking

4. Changing people without arousing resentment

Numerous techniques or principles have been given under each section to help the reader achieve the objective and frankly, they make real sense! The author did not write something that one does not know already, but explicitly mentioning an implicit observation and substantiating it with countless real-life examples leaves a greater impact on the readers’ minds. Apart from real stories, the book also takes excerpts from various researches done by renowned psychologists which makes it more scientifically convincing. The Reinforcement Theory of B. F. Skinner, for instance, has been beautifully used in the chapters to say that any kind of bad behaviour can be changed without criticism or rebuke.

As with most other books, the chances of this book being liked depends a lot on the readers’ existing beliefs, background and phase of life. But I’d like to mention beforehand that the book has enough content to hurt the pride of those that have a little extra of it than required. Anyone with an inherent hatred for people, their intentions and behaviour is going to face a lot of contradictions to his/her beliefs and ways of living while reading it. Also, some suggestions might appear completely unrealistic. The way some tense situations changed completely to the protagonist’s benefit in few examples just by applying the author’s suggestions make them look equivalent to black magic potions and raise doubt on their relevance in real life. Moreover, while the book clearly mentions at various places that everything suggested in it must be applied whole-heartedly and with a genuine intention, few principles seem to be advocating manipulative behaviour to excel in life. But I guess this is the part where the reader’s judgement and perception take the front seat.

Acknowledging that nothing is perfect, this book along with its little flaws is an absolute work of beauty. It gives a new perspective to look at and a new approach to adopt in handling various seemingly adverse situations. Many books are expensive to buy first-hand but this one is really economical if its utility and future benefits are taken into account. All humans are good at heart but the scarcity of resources sometimes makes some of them defensive to their needs, which takes the form of rudeness, selfishness and ungrateful behaviour. This book makes one realise this fact rather clearly, and that makes it easy to win people. And the one who has won his fellow humans has won this short yet long race called life.

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