Do you have the strength…

to ignore your instinctive first impulse?

Do you consider yourself a person of discipline, logic and professionalism? Here’s a challenge: “Ignore your instinctive first impulse,” Dale Carnegie wrote in in How to Win Friends and Influence People.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’d gotten geared up for a contentious conversation with someone by preparing the precise words, tone and expressions I need to use in order to most clearly and concisely share with them some version of:

a) how wrong they are, and why;

b) how stupid they are for thinking that way;

c) how much smarter I am, and how much better my proposed solution.

Probably you can imagine how well those conversations go, how productive they are and how exactly the end result mirrors my desired objective. Well, actually, they always end up being complete catastrophes. I have that part figured out, at last.

There is an alternative, a technique that is in all likelihood the 180-degree opposite of your instinctive first impulse, and which is virtually guaranteed to get a better result than your natural instinct. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.

Now, whenever I catch myself looking for evidence of someone else’s past mistakes or impending failure, I try to stop and think: “What can I say about this person that is positive, and true, and likely to bring them onside instead of driving them away?”

Surprisingly, it is usually quite easy. In one conversation I’d been particularly dreading with a very argumentative man, I opened by saying, “I know this is a difficult discussion and I really appreciate that you set aside time to have it with me. I can see why people are motivated to work with you.”

“Hey, this is going better than I expected already!” he replied. The rest of the conversation went OK — not great, but not catastrophic, either.

On another occasion I needed a business owner to volunteer for the Business Association. He was a cranky fellow and not inclined to volunteer work; but if I could get him onside, dozens of other business owners would vote to approve the new budget with little or no argument.

“Bill,” I said, completely truthfully, “you’ve got 20 years experience in retail, running one of the most successful stores on the street. Your input and advice is far more valuable than a storeowner who just opened for the first time last month.”

I watched his chest puff out like a peacock’s as he replied, “That’s true, you DO need me!” he agreed magnanimously.

“If you want to improve a person in a certain respect, act as though that particular trait were already one of his or her outstanding characteristics,” Carnegie wrote. “Shakespeare wrote, ‘Assume a virtue, if you have it not.’ And it might be well to assume and state openly that other people have the virtue you want them to develop. Give them a fine reputation to live up to, and they will make prodigious efforts rather than see you disillusioned.”

What a brilliant piece of advice! When you open your mouth, describe the kind of person you want them to be and hope them to be, and they will “make prodigious efforts rather than see you disillusioned.”

How much more productive than opening your mouth and describing a person who is wrong and ill-informed.

If you’re going to motivate someone to make the prodigious efforts you need, describe what you want to see in the positive rather than accusing them of being what you don’t want to see.

Use Principle #28, “Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.” It works.

—Rita Smith