How to win friends and Influence people

Book Reviewed by  Sahil Sunil Devdas MBA II,Gokhale Education Society’s J.D.C. Bytco Institute of Management Studies and Research, Nashik

I’ve read a lot of self-development books,but this book has a deep impact on me and have really helped me to improve my communication and influence people.The book tells us about the effective ways to communicate with people whether they are your friends or strangers. Book includes some tips and successful practices of making any conversation fruitful in your favour. It focuses on developing interpersonal skills, communication skills and leadership skills.The book consists of 5 major parts namely –

Part 1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People.

Part 2. Ways to Make People Like You.

Part 3. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking.

Part 4. Be a Leader – How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment.

Part 5. Seven Rules for Making your Home Life Happier

The purpose of this review is to participate in book review competition in collaboration with Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune.

Talking about strengths in the book, Dale Carnegie had perfectly explained his principles of effective communication which are easy to understand.

1. Practical implementation –The principles stated in the book and the techniques explained are easy to understand and implement in day-to-day life. Ex: ‘Give honest and sincere appreciation’, this technique is very easy to implement in our daily conversation. Likewise ‘smile’, ‘remember names’, ‘be a good listener’, ‘begin in a friendly way’ – these are some techniques which we usually take for granted or casual, but the book shows us that these are some powerful ways in which you may get things done from others.
2. Real-Life Examples –There are many real-life examples of some great businessmen and successful personalities discussed in this book which helps us to relate to the principles and demonstrates the effectiveness of those techniques.The small stories discussed in the book shows us how the reaction and behavior of the person in front of you can be influenced in your favor.
3. Timeless Relevance – Though the book has been published in 1936, it still has relevance in today’s world where the technology and trends have largely changed. It shows us that though the trends have changed but the basic human behavior does not change at all and the psychological remains the same. One may implement these techniques in 2025 also and in 2100 also.

I can’t say that these are the weaknesses,but I think if we revise these points still the depth of the book would remain same.

1. Repeating same examples – There are some places where either there are too many examples stated for a single principle, or the conversation discussed is too lengthy. Also some of the principles are also repeated many times. As I said earlier,it can’t be called as weakness because this repetition reinforces the concept of the book in one’s mind and helps him to recall and implement those techniques whenever possible.
2. Simple Human Behavior – The book assumes a very simple human behavior when it comes to implementation of techniques. We can face some issue when the person in front of us is a stubborn and don’t want to listen to us at all.

After reading the book I’ve started using the techniques in my daily conversation and carefully observed the reaction of other people. I can say that the techniques helped me a lot to have an effective communication in my favour and to influence people around me. I learnt to avoid arguments and calmly convinced people to do things I wanted. I was handling 100-150 customers daily on my café and now I was able to communicate smartly with them and influence them to buy more products from me. I also suggested this book to one of my friends who is a fitness coach, and he was also able to convert more clients for his personal training sessions.

I would like to recommend this book to every individual but mostly to those who have a direct interaction with clients of customers whether they run their own business or work with some organisation.

To conclude I would say that this book is a must-read book to every individual because, as humans, we have to get things done from others and influence them with good communication skills. Read, apply and see the magic of good communication.