How to Win Friends and Influence People: Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

The best way to get anybody to do anything is to make the other person want to do it. Any other tactic—like threatening someone or punishing them—will just cause resentment. Most people want simple things: health, food, sleep, money, sexual gratification, their children’s well-being, and a feeling of importance. The last of these is the most crucial, because it is the one that most often goes unfulfilled. John Dewey, an American philosopher, wrote that this desire to be important is an unfaltering human hunger, and one of the key distinctions between humans and animals.

This desire to be important led an uneducated, poverty-stricken grocery store clerk to study law books—the clerk was named Abraham Lincoln. This desire spurred Charles Dickens to write, John D. Rockefeller to make millions, and average people want to talk about their brilliant children. Carnegie writes that how a person gets their feeling of importance is one of the most significant things about them—whether it’s through charity work like Rockefeller or by being a bank robber like Dillinger.

There are many examples of famous figures struggling for feelings of importance, like Christopher Columbus asking for the title “Admiral of the Ocean and Viceroy of India,” or Mrs. McKinley insisting that her husband remain with her each night while she fell asleep. Carnegie posits that some people even go insane in order to find a feeling of importance in their mind that they are unable to achieve in reality.

Because importance is so crucial for people, being able to give other people that honest appreciation and a feeling of importance goes a long way in winning people over. One of the first people to earn a salary of over a million dollars was Charles Schwab, the first president of the U.S. Steel Company. Schwab was paid this salary because of his ability to deal with people, and he tells Carnegie that his greatest asset is to arouse enthusiasm among his employees. Criticism only kills ambition, and so he praises others instead. Sincere appreciation is a secret skill of many captains of industry.

Lack of appreciation can be detrimental—a study found that it was the main reason why wives leave their husbands. One of Carnegie’s students told a story about his wife, who asked him to give her six ways she could improve as a wife. Instead, the next day he sent her six roses with a note that he couldn’t think of six things to change about her—and when he arrived home, she was in tears of gratitude. Her friends later approached him to say that this was the most considerate thing they ever heard.

Florenz Ziegfeld, the most famous Broadway producer, gained his reputation by transforming girls into glamorous stars. He knew the value of appreciation and gave it in raises and flowers. While people know they can’t go very long without food, they often go extremely long periods without adulation, even though it’s something they crave almost as much.

Carnegie cites a story about a teacher in Detroit, who asked her blind student Stevie to help her find a mouse that was lost in the classroom. Being blind had given him heightened hearing, and this was the first time that anyone showed appreciation for his ears. Years later, Stevie—who became R&B and pop star Stevie Wonder—said that this act of appreciation was the beginning of a new life, as it spurred him to hone that gift of hearing.

Some people might look cynically on flattery. Carnegie therefore makes a distinction between flattery and appreciation—flattery is “shallow, selfish, and insincere." While flattery can sometimes work, appreciation is far more effective because it is sincere and unselfish. Flattery is cheap praise—it is telling the other person exactly what they think about themselves. Carnegie writes that if all people had to do was flatter others, everyone would be experts in human relations.

Instead, Carnegie explains that if people stop thinking about themselves for a time and begin to think truly about another person’s good points, they wouldn’t have to resort to flattery. True appreciation, he writes, is one of the most neglected daily virtues. He recommends praising children when they first succeed in building a birdhouse; complimenting a chef for a good meal; and “leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily trips.”

A woman named Pam had to supervise the janitor in her company, who was doing such a bad job that the other employees would litter the hallways to show how poorly he was doing. Pam tried various ways to motivate him, but what worked the best was making a point to praise him for good work in front of others. Every subsequent day he got better, and soon he started doing all his work efficiently. Honest appreciation worked where criticism failed.

Carnegie quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” This quotation suggests that it’s important to figure out other people’s good points and to give them sincere appreciation for them. People will cherish those words for a lifetime, years after you have forgotten them.