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Notes -
Following Paul Graham's recommendation, I recently finished reading Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Going into it I wasn't sure what to expect, and maybe I'm being overly cynical, but wow is this book ever corny. Every other page contains an anecdote like "I spent ten years trying to land this one particular client, and was met with a door in the face every time. Then I tried this One Weird Trick, and the prospective client immediately opened an account with me, invited me to be his guest at the opera, and urged me to fuck his wife." The whole book is like this.
Maybe it's a book that should be read backwards because its insights are in the water supply. Perhaps in 1938, "start off by praising your employees before offering constructive criticism" was an innovative suggestion, but I've had six permanent office jobs in my life and I'm pretty sure every one of my employers and supervisors had taken this advice onboard years (if not decades) ago. Hence, the general tenor of work is presumably much less confrontational and gladiatorial than it was in the thirties, but everyone's relative position in their ability to effectively deal with people hasn't changed.
I also found it kind of weird how the message of the first chapter is "never criticise people" and then the last six chapters provide techniques and strategies for how to criticise effectively and diplomatically. Which one is it, Dale?
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