A Formula That Will Work Wonders for You

Try instead to understand them. There is a reason why the other person thinks and acts as they do; ferret out that reason, and you have the key to their actions and personality.

He offered a simple, transformative habit: before any difficult conversation, stop and ask yourself, "How would I feel, how would I react, if I were in their shoes?" Spend that minute getting the other person's point of view, and you will save yourself hours of friction. Success in dealing with people, Carnegie said, depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person's viewpoint.

He quoted Kenneth Goode's book How to Turn People Into Gold: "Stop a minute to contrast your keen interest in your own affairs with your mild concern about anything else. Realize then that everybody else in the world feels exactly the same way. Then, along with Lincoln and Roosevelt, you will have grasped the only solid foundation for interpersonal relationships; namely, that success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of the other person's viewpoint."

Carnegie was emphatic that this is not mere courtesy but raw effectiveness. People do things for their own reasons, and unless you can see the situation through their eyes, you cannot find the lever that moves them. The whole machinery of persuasion — arousing an eager want, appealing to motives, framing benefits — depends on first seeing the world as the other person sees it.

He framed a useful self-test: would you rather have the other person's hearty cooperation, or their grudging compliance won by force? The cooperation is available only to the person who has taken the trouble to understand. Seeing from the other's viewpoint also tempers your certainty — you discover the reasonableness in positions that looked merely obstinate from your side of the table.

The application is to make perspective-taking a deliberate ritual, not an afterthought. Before you ask, persuade, or criticize, write or say to yourself what the situation looks like from the other person's chair — their pressures, fears, and wants. Then build your approach from there. This one formula, Carnegie promised, will work wonders in your relationships, because it turns every interaction from a contest into a collaboration.