We should be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize that this single item is wholly and completely owned by the person with whom we are dealing and nobody else. The name sets the individual apart; it makes him or her unique among all others. The information we are imparting or the request we are making takes on a special importance when we approach the situation with the name of the individual. From the waitress to the senior executive, the name will work magic as we deal with others.
Questions1) How did Jim Farley reach his status?
2) How many people did Jim Farley remember by their first names?
3) For what purpose did Jim Farley remember the first names of the people?
4) How many letters did he write a day? How were these letters signed?
5) Why is the average person very interested in his or her own name?
6) How did Andrew Carnegie going business matters using psychological methods?
7) Is D. Carnegie right when he says that many richest collections of libraries and museums owe to people who want to preserve their names in the memory of their nations?
8) Describe the episode when President Roosevelt was delivered a special car.
9) What is one of the first lessons of a politician?
10) What is the technique Napoleon the Third, Emperor of France, used for remembering names?
11) Is the importance of remembering and using names just prerogative of kings and corporate executives? Why?
12) What does the name mean for a person?
IV
An easy way to become a good conversationalist
Some time ago, I attended a bridge party. I dont play bridge and there was a woman there who didnt play bridge either. She had discovered that I had once been Lowell Thomas manager before he went on the radio and that I had traveled in Europe a great deal while helping him prepare the illustrated travel talks he was then delivering. So she said: Oh, Mr. Carnegie, I do want you to tell me about all the wonderful places you have visited and the sights you have seen.
As we sat down on the sofa, she remarked that she and her husband had recently returned from a trip to Africa. Africa! I exclaimed. How interesting! Ive always wanted to see Africa, but I never got there except for a twenty-four-hour stay once in Algiers. Tell me, did you visit the big-game country? Yes? How fortunate. I envy you. Do tell me about Africa.
That kept her talking for forty-five minutes. She never again asked me where I had been or what I had seen. She didnt want to hear me talk about my travels. All she wanted was an interested listener, so she could expand her ego and tell about where she had been.
Was she unusual? No. Many people are like that.
For example, I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given by a New York book publisher. I had never talked with a botanist before, and I found him fascinating. I literally sat on the edge of my chair and listened while he spoke of exotic plants and experiments in developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and even told me astonishing facts about the humble potato). I had a small indoor garden of my own and he was good enough to tell me how to solve some of my problems.
As I said, we were at a dinner party. There must have been a dozen other guests, but I violated all the canons of courtesy, ignored everyone else, and talked for hours to the botanist.
Midnight came. I said good night to everyone and departed. The botanist then turned to our host and paid me several flattering compliments. I was most stimulating. I was this and I was that, and he ended by saying I was a most interesting conversationalist.
An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at all. I couldnt have said anything if I had wanted to without changing the subject, for I didnt know any more about botany than I knew about the anatomy of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened intently. I had listened because I was genuinely interested. And he felt it. Naturally that pleased him. That kind of listening is one of the highest compliments we can pay anyone. Few human beings, wrote Jack Woodford in Strangers in Love, few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention. I went even further than giving him rapt attention. I was hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.
I told him that I had been immensely entertained and instructed and I had. I told him I wished I had his knowledge and I did. I told him that I should love to wander the fields with him and I have. I told him I must see him again and I did.
And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him to talk.
What is the secret, the mystery, of a successful business interview? Well, according to former Harvard president Charles W. Eliot, There is no mystery about successful business intercourse Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important. Nothing else is so flattering as that.
Eliot himself was a past master of the art of listening. Henry James, one of Americas first great novelists, recalled: Dr. Eliots listening was not mere silence, but a form of activity. Sitting very erect on the end of his spine with hands joined in his lap, making no movement except that he revolved his thumbs around each other faster or slower, he faced his interlocutor and seemed to be hearing with his eyes as well as his ears. He listened with his mind and attentively considered what you had to say while you said it At the end of an interview the person who had talked to him felt that he had had his say.