An Appeal That Everybody Likes

The tenth principle is to appeal to the nobler motives. People, Carnegie observed, usually have two reasons for doing a thing: a reason that sounds good, and the real reason. The individual themselves will think of the real reason — you don't need to emphasize that. But all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of the motives that sound good. So to change people, appeal to the nobler motives.

He cited the financier J. Pierpont Morgan, who noted in one of his analytical interludes that a person usually has two reasons for doing a thing: one that sounds good and a real one. Carnegie's counsel was to trust the better self in people — assume they are honest, fair, and want to meet their obligations — and to frame your request so that living up to it is the noble, admirable thing to do.

His classic example was a landlord with a tenant who wanted to break a lease four months early. Instead of threatening, the landlord appealed to the man's sense of being a person of his word: "I've listened to you and I still don't believe you're the kind of man to break a lease. Take a few days to think it over, and if you still want to leave after sleeping on it, I'll accept your decision as final and admit I was wrong about you." The tenant, his nobler self engaged, decided to honor the lease.

The principle assumes the best in people and thereby invites the best from them. When you treat a person as honorable, fair, and reliable, you give them a reputation to live up to — and most people, most of the time, would rather rise to your good opinion than betray it. Cynicism, by contrast, tends to produce exactly the behavior it expects.

Carnegie was candid that this won't work every time — some people have no nobler motive accessible in the moment. But it works often enough, and costs so little, that it is always worth trying first. Even a person inclined to behave badly is given pause when the honorable path is the one held open and expected of them.

The application is to frame every appeal in terms of the person's better self: their integrity, fairness, generosity, reputation, and sense of duty. Assume the noble motive and name it. "I know you're the kind of person who keeps their word / does right by their customers / cares about quality" — and watch how often people step up to meet the standard you've sincerely set for them.