That is so good, I want to repeat it: “If there is any one
secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other
person’s point of view and see things from that person’s
angle as well as from your own.”
That is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see
the truth of it at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people
on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time.
An example? Look at the letters that come across your
desk tomorrow morning, and you will find that most of
them violate this important canon of common sense.
Take this one, a letter written by the head of the radio
department of an advertising agency with offices scattered
across the continent. This letter was sent to the
managers of local radio stations throughout the country.
(I have set down, in brackets, my reactions to each paragraph.)
Mr. John Blank,
Blankville,
Indiana
Dear Mr. Blank:
The —— company desires to retain its position in advertising
agency leadership in the radio field.
[Who cares what your company desires? I am worried
about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the
mortage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks,
the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed
the eight-fifteen this morning, I wasn’t invited to the
Jones’s dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high
blood pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what
happens? I come down to the office this morning worried,
open my mail and here is some little whippersnapper
off in New York yapping about what his company
wants. Bah! If he only realized what sort of impression
his letter makes, he would get out of the advertising
business and start manufacturing sheep dip.]
This agency’s national advertising accounts were the
bulwark of the network. Our subsequent clearances of
station time have kept us at the top of agencies year after
year.
[You are big and rich and right at the top, are you? So
what? I don’t give two whoops in Hades if you are as big
as General Motors and General Electric and the General
Staff of the U.S. Army all combined. If you had as much
sense as a half-witted hummingbird, you would realize
that I am interested in how big I am – not how big you
are. All this talk about your enormous success makes me
feel small and unimportant.]
We desire to service our accounts with the last word on
radio station information.
[You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass. I’m not
interested in what you desire or what the President of
the United States desires. Let me tell you once and for
all that I am interested in what I desire – and you
haven’t said a word about that yet in this absurd letter of
yours .]
Will you, therefore, put the ———- company on your
preferred list for weekly station information – every single
detail that will be useful to an agency in intelligently booking
time.
[“Preferred list.” You have your nerve! You make me
feel insignificant by your big talk about your company
– nd then you ask me to put you on a “preferred” list,
and you don’t even say “please” when you ask it.]
A prompt acknowledgment of this letter, giving us your
latest “doings,” will be mutually helpful.
[You fool! You mail me a cheap form letter – a letter
scattered far and wide like the autumn leaves – and you
have the gall to ask me, when I am worried about the
mortgage and the hollyhocks and my blood pressure, to
sit down and dictate a personal note acknowledging your
form letter – and you ask me to do it “promptly.” What
do you mean, “promptly”.? Don’t you know I am just as
busy as you are – or, at least, I like to think I am. And
while we are on the subject, who gave you the lordly
right to order me around? . . . You say it will be “mutually
helpful.” At last, at last, you have begun to see my
viewpoint. But you are vague about how it will be to my
advantage.]
Very truly yours,
John Doe
Manager Radio Department
P.S. The enclosed reprint from the Blankville Journal will
be of interest to you, and you may want to broadcast it over
your station.
[Finally, down here in the postscript, you mention
something that may help me solve one of my problems.
Why didn’t you begin your letter with – but what’s the
use? Any advertising man who is guilty of perpetrating
such drivel as you have sent me has something wrong
with his medulla oblongata. You don’t need a letter giving
our latest doings. What you need is a quart of iodine
in your thyroid gland.]
Now, if people who devote their lives to advertising
and who pose as experts in the art of influencing people
to buy – if they write a letter like that, what can we expect
from the butcher and baker or the auto mechanic?
Here is another letter, written by the superintendent
of a large freight terminal to a student of this course,
Edward Vermylen. What effect did this letter have on
the man to whom it was addressed? Read it and then I’ll
tell you.
A. Zerega’s Sons, Inc.
28 Front St.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201
Attention: Mr. Edward Vermylen
Gentlemen:
The operations at our outbound-rail-receiving station are
handicapped because a material percentage of the total
business is delivered us in the late afternoon. This condition
results in congestion, overtime on the part of our forces,
delays to trucks, and in some cases delays to freight. On
November 10, we received from your company a lot of 510
pieces, which reached here at 4:20 P.M.
We solicit your cooperation toward overcoming the undesirable
effects arising from late receipt of freight. May we
ask that, on days on which you ship the volume which was
received on the above date, effort be made either to get the
truck here earlier or to deliver us part of the freight during
the morning?
The advantage that would accrue to you under such an
arrangement would be that of more expeditious discharge
of your trucks and the assurance that your business would
go forward on the date of its receipt.
Very truly yours,
J—– B —– Supt.
After reading this letter, Mr. Vermylen, sales manager
for A. Zerega’s Sons, Inc., sent it to me with the following
comment:
This letter had the reverse effect from that which was
intended. The letter begins by describing the Terminal’s
difficulties, in which we are not interested, generally speaking.
Our cooperation is then requested without any thought
as to whether it would inconvenience us, and then, finally,
in the last paragraph, the fact is mentioned that if we do
cooperate it will mean more expeditious discharge of our
trucks with the assurance that our freight will go forward on
the date of its receipt.
In other words, that in which we are most interested is
mentioned last and the whole effect is one of raising a spirit
of antagonism rather than of cooperation.
Let’s see if we can’t rewrite and improve this letter.
Let’s not waste any time talking about our problems. As
Henry Ford admonishes, let’s “get the other person’s
point of view and see things from his or her angle, as
well as from our own.”
Here is one way of revising the letter. It may not be
the best way, but isn’t it an improvement?
Mr. Edward Vermylen
% A. Zerega’s Sons, Inc.
28 Front St.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201
Dear Mr. Vermylen:
Your company has been one of our good customers for
fourteen years. Naturally, we are very grateful for your patronage
and are eager to give you the speedy, efficient service
you deserve. However, we regret to say that it isn’t
possible for us to do that when your trucks bring us a large
shipment late in the afternoon, as they did on November
10. Why? Because many other customers make late afternoon
deliveries also. Naturally, that causes congestion. That
means your trucks are held up unavoidably at the pier and
sometimes even your freight is delayed.
That’s bad, but it can be avoided. If you make your deliveries
at the pier in the morning when possible, your trucks
will be able to keep moving, your freight will get immediate
attention, and our workers will get home early at night to
enjoy a dinner of the delicious macaroni and noodles that
you manufacture.