Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in How to Win Friends and Influence People, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Interest vs. Selflessness
Importance and Humility
Positivity vs. Negativity
Sincerity and Appreciation vs. Insincerity and Flattery
Summary
Analysis
Once, Carnegie visited Jesse James’s farm, where James’s wife told Carnegie how the man robbed trains and held up banks and then gave money to the farmers to pay off their mortgages. Like “Two Gun” Crowley, James probably regarded himself as an idealist—all people have a high regard for themselves and like to be good and unselfish in their eyes.
Here, Carnegie returns to the idea that everyone likes to maintain a good self-image—even people like Jesse James, a notorious bank robber. All people, Carnegie suggests, like to feel important and selfless.
Themes
J.P. Morgan believed that a person usually has two reasons for doing something: one that sounds good and a real one. So, the best way to change people is to appeal to their noble motives. In the case of Hamilton Farrell, he had a disgruntled tenant who threatened to move despite four months left on his lease. Instead of becoming angry and forcing him to pay the rest of the rent, Farrell reasoned with the man. He explains that he took the tenant as a man of his word and asked the tenant to think it over. Appealing to this nobler motive, the tenant decided the honorable thing to do was to keep the lease.
In addition to making others feel important, Carnegie illustrates how useful it is to play on people’s desire to feel important. In this case, Farrell played up the idea that the tenant would be noble and honorable by keeping the lease, which is what the man then did. Farrell used his desire to be important to get what he wanted out of the man.
Themes
This worked for John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who wished to stop newspaper photographers from taking pictures of his children, telling them it’s not good for youngsters to get too much publicity rather than saying that he didn’t want their pictures taken. When Cyrus Curtis, a poor boy from Maine, was starting on a “meteoric” journalism career, he appealed to famous writers’ nobler motives when asking them to write for him. Rather than offering to pay them (much less than what other magazines did), he offered to make a contribution in their names to their favorite charity. Carnegie concedes that this may not work for everyone—some people don’t care as much about seeming virtuous. But it is worth trying if usual methods of persuasion do not work.
Again, Curtis and Rockefeller are both playing on the idea that other people want to be seen as important or virtuous. While this might be seen as cynical, it is still worth noting that the outcome is the same: people are able to do good by contributing to charity, or by preventing children from being unnecessarily photographed. This strategy is predicated on the idea that people do actually want to do good, and Rockefeller and Curtis simply enabled them to do better—even if Rockefeller and Curtis have self-interested motives as well.
Themes
For example, James Thomas, Carnegie’s former student, worked for a car company. When people refused to pay bills for servicing their cars, usually the manager simply argued with them. Instead, Thomas tried a different approach. He asked what the company had done wrong, listened with sympathy, and told him he was the authority. He thanked them for their fairness and patience and asked them to pay what they thought was right. Five of six cases paid in full, and all six bought a new car from the company within the next two years. Thomas found it was best to assume people like to consider themselves sincere, honest, and moral.
This anecdote sums up many of the points that Carnegie has made throughout the book. First, Thomas avoids argument in favor of a more positive approach. He then listens to the customers, making them feel important and expressing his gratitude for their patience. He asked for their input and selflessly agreed to put their needs and perspective on the situation above his own. As a result, he was able to get most of the money that he was owed, kept their goodwill, and maintained his business relationship with them.
Themes
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