If You Must Find Fault, This Is the Way To Begin: The Dale Carnegie Method

Commentary: This is a continuing series of posts reviewing Dale Carnegie's book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. This program is attractive in professional relationships due to it's time tested advice for those moving up the ladder of success. I have been introduced to Dale Carnegie training not once but twice. I attended Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School or AOCS during 1988 through which Dale Carnegie principles were first introduced to me, at least in part. Years later during 1999, I attended the Dale Carnegie school and coursework introducing me again to the Dale Carnegie method and principles. I will be detailing only one principle a week in a shorter post in order to for you to digest the information. This series  may be reviewed at All the Principles in One Post

If You Must Find Fault, This Is the Way To Begin

It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points. When criticizing try to posit the concern with support to improve, a second chance. Offer support to the person yourself; redline, highlight, review, and offer constructive solutions.

One of Carnegie's examples had a Republican speech writer who presented an off topic speech with enormous enthusiasm and glee. The person he was writing for was dismayed at the topic but adroitly expressed his approval of the enthusiasm and glee. He then asked the speech writer to rewrite the speech along the lines he indicated and to send a copy for his review. Once this was done he assisted the speech writer develop the second speech. The speech writer became one of the most effective speech writers in the campaign.

Beginning with praise is like the dentists who begins his work with Novocain. The patient still gets a drilling but the Novocain is pain-killing. If done correctly, you can propel others to greatness. A leader will always;

Principle 22: Begin With Praise and Honest Appreciation