Lee was so saddened, so shocked, that he sent in his
resignation and asked Jefferson Davis, the president of
the Confederacy, to appoint “a younger and abler man.”
If Lee had wanted to blame the disastrous failure of
Pickett’s charge on someone else, he could have found a
score of alibis. Some of his division commanders had
failed him. The cavalry hadn’t arrived in time to support
the infantry attack. This had gone wrong and that had
gone awry.
But Lee was far too noble to blame others. As Pickett’s
beaten and bloody troops struggled back to the Confederate
lines, Robert E. Lee rode out to meet them all
alone and greeted them with a self-condemnation that
was little short of sublime. “All this has been my fault,”
he confessed. “I and I alone have lost this battle.”
Few generals in all history have had the courage and
character to admit that.
Michael Cheung, who teaches our course in Hong
Kong, told of how the Chinese culture presents some
special problems and how sometimes it is necessary to
recognize that the benefit of applying a principle may be
more advantageous than maintaining an old tradition.
He had one middle-aged class member who had been
estranged from his son for many years. The father had
been an opium addict, but was now cured. In Chinese
tradition an older person cannot take the first step. The
father felt that it was up to his son to take the initiative
toward a reconciliation. In an early session, he told the
class about the grandchildren he had never seen and
how much he desired to be reunited with his son. His
classmates, all Chinese, understood his conflict between
his desire and long-established tradition. The father felt
that young people should have respect for their elders
and that he was right in not giving in to his desire, but to
wait for his son to come to him.
Toward the end of the course the father again addressed
his class. “I have pondered this problem,” he
said. “Dale Carnegie says, ‘If you are wrong, admit it
quickly and emphatically.’ It is too late for me to admit
it quickly, but I can admit it emphatically. I wronged my
son. He was right in not wanting to see me and to expel
me from his life. I may lose face by asking a younger
person’s forgiveness, but I was at fault and it is my responsibility
to admit this.” The class applauded and
gave him their full support. At the next class he told how
he went to his son’s house, asked for and received forgiveness
and was now embarked on a new relationship
with his son, his daughter-in-law and the grandchildren
he had at last met.
Elbert Hubbard was one of the most original authors
who ever stirred up a nation, and his stinging sentences
often aroused fierce resentment. But Hubbard with his
rare skill for handling people frequently turned his enemies
into friends.
For example, when some irritated reader wrote in to
say that he didn’t agree with such and such an article
and ended by calling Hubbard this and that, Elbert Hubbard
would answer like this:
Come to think it over, I don’t entirely agree with it myself.
Not everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am
glad to learn what you think on the subject. The next time
you are in the neighborhood you must visit us and we’ll get
this subject threshed out for all time. So here is a handclasp
over the miles, and I am,
Your sincerely,
What could you say to a man who treated you like
that?
When we are right, let’s try to win people gently and
tactfully to our way of thinking, and when we are wrong
– and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest
with ourselves – let’s admit our mistakes quickly and
with enthusiasm. Not only will that technique produce
astonishing results; but, believe it or not, it is a lot more
fun, under the circumstances, than trying to defend oneself.
Remember the old proverb: “By fighting you never
get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.”
PRINCIPLE 3
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and
emphatically.
4
A DROP OF HONEY
If your temper is aroused and you tell ‘em a thing or two,
you will have a fine time unloading your feelings. But
what about the other person? Will he share your pleasure?
Will your belligerent tones, your hostile attitude,
make it easy for him to agree with you?
“If you come at me with your fists doubled,” said
Woodrow Wilson, “I think I can promise you that mine
will double as fast as yours; but if you come to me and
say, ‘Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if
we differ from each other, understand why it is that we
differ, just what the points at issue are,’ we will presently
find that we are not so far apart after all, that the
points on which we differ are few and the points on
which we agree are many, and that if we only have the
patience and the candor and the desire to get together,
we will get together.”
Nobody appreciated the truth of Woodrow Wilson’s
statement more than John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Back in
1915, Rockefeller was the most fiercely despised man in
Colorado, One of the bloodiest strikes in the history of
American industry had been shocking the state for two
terrible years. Irate, belligerent miners were demanding
higher wages from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company;
Rockefeller controlled that company. Property had
been destroyed, troops had been called out. Blood had
been shed. Strikers had been shot, their bodies riddled
with bullets.
At a time like that, with the air seething with hatred,
Rockefeller wanted to win the strikers to his way of
thinking. And he did it. How? Here’s the story. After
weeks spent in making friends, Rockefeller addressed
the representatives of the strikers. This speech, in its
entirety, is a masterpiece. It produced astonishing results.
It calmed the tempestuous waves of hate that
threatened to engulf Rockefeller. It won him a host of
admirers. It presented facts in such a friendly manner
that the strikers went back to work without saying another
word about the increase in wages for which they
had fought so violently.
The opening of that remarkable speech follows. Note
how it fairly glows with friendliness. Rockefeller, remember,
was talking to men who, a few days previously,
had wanted to hang him by the neck to a sour apple tree;
yet he couldn’t have been more gracious, more friendly
if he had addressed a group of medical missionaries. His
speech was radiant with such phrases as I am proud to
be here, having visited in your homes, met many of your
wives and children, we meet here not as strangers, but
as friends . . . spirit of mutual friendship, our common
interests, it is only by your courtesy that I am here.
“This is a red-letter day in my life,” Rockefeller
began. “It is the first time I have ever had the good
fortune to meet the representatives of the employees of
this great company, its officers and superintendents, together,
and I can assure you that I am proud to be here,
and that I shall remember this gathering as long as I live.
Had this meeting been held two weeks ago, I should
have stood here a stranger to most of you, recognizing a
few faces. Having had the opportunity last week of
visiting all the camps in the southern coal field and
of talking individually with practically all of the
representatives, except those who were away; having
visited in your homes, met many of your wives and children,
we meet here not as strangers, but as friends, and
it is in that spirit of mutual friendship that I am glad to
have this opportunity to discuss with you our common
interests.
“Since this is a meeting of the officers of the company
and the representatives of the employees, it is only by
your courtesy that I am here, for I am not so fortunate as
to be either one or the other; and yet I feel that I am
intimately associated with you men, for, in a sense, I
represent both the stockholders and the directors.”
Isn’t that a superb example of the fine art of making
friends out of enemies?
Suppose Rockefeller had taken a different tack. Suppose
he had argued with those miners and hurled devastating
facts in their faces. Suppose he had told them by
his tones and insinuations that they were wrong Suppose
that, by all the rules of logic, he had proved that
they were wrong. What would have happened? More
anger would have been stirred up, more hatred, more
revolt.
If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling
toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking
with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents
and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging
wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change
their minds. They can’t he forced or driven to agree
with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we
are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so
friendly.
Lincoln said that, in effect, over a hundred years ago.
Here are his words:
It is an old and true maxim that “a drop of honey catches
more flies than a gallon of gall.” So with men, if you would
win a man to you cause, first convince him that you are his
sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his
heart; which, say what you will, is the great high road to
his reason.
Business executives have learned that it pays to be
friendly to strikers. For example, when 2,500 employees
in the White Motor Company’s plant struck for higher
wages and a union shop, Robert F. Black, then president
of the company, didn’t lose his temper and condemn and
threaten and talk of tryanny and Communists. He actually
praised the strikers. He published an advertisement
in the Cleveland papers, complimenting them on
“the peaceful way in which they laid down their tools.”
Finding the strike pickets idle, he bought them a couple
of dozen baseball bats and gloves and invited them to
play ball on vacant lots. For those who preferred bowling,
he rented a bowling alley.
This friendliness on Mr. Black’s part did what friendliness
always does: it begot friendliness. So the strikers
borrowed brooms, shovels, and rubbish carts, and began
picking up matches, papers, cigarette stubs, and cigar
butts around the factory. Imagine it! Imagine strikers
tidying up the factory grounds while battling for higher
wages and recognition of the union. Such an event had
never been heard of before in the long, tempestuous
history of American labor wars. That strike ended with a
compromise settlement within a week-ended without
any ill feeling or rancor.