IF YOU MUST FIND FAULT, THIS IS
THE WAY TO BEGIN
A friend of mine was a guest at the White House for a
weekend during the administration of Calvin Coolidge.
Drifting into the President’s private office, he heard
Coolidge say to one of his secretaries, “That’s a pretty
dress you are wearing this morning, and you are a very
attractive young woman.”
That was probably the most effusive praise Silent Cal
had ever bestowed upon a secretary in his life. It was so
unusual, so unexpected, that the secretary blushed in
confusion. Then Coolidge said, “Now, don’t get stuck
up. I just said that to make you feel good. From now on,
I wish you would be a little bit more careful with your
Punctuation.”
His method was probably a bit obvious, but the psychology
was superb. It is always easier to listen to unpleasant
things after we have heard some praise of our
good points.
A barber lathers a man before he shaves him; and that
is precisely what McKinley did back in 1896, when he
was running for President. One of the prominent Republicans
of that day had written a campaign speech that he
felt was just a trifle better than Cicero and Patrick Henry
and Daniel Webster all rolled into one. With great glee,
this chap read his immortal speech aloud to McKinley.
The speech had its fine points, but it just wouldn’t do. It
would have raised a tornado of criticism. McKinley
didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings. He must not kill
the man’s splendid enthusiasm, and yet he had to say
“no.” Note how adroitly he did it.
“My friend, that is a splendid speech, a magnificent
speech,” McKinley said. “No one could have prepared a
better one. There are many occasions on which it would
be precisely the right thing to say, but is it quite suitable
to this particular occasion? Sound and sober as it is from
your standpoint, I must consider its effect from the
party’s standpoint. Now you go home and write a speech
along the lines I indicate, and send me a copy of it.”
He did just that. McKinley blue-penciled and helped
him rewrite his second speech, and he became one of
the effective speakers of the campaign.
Here is the second most famous letter that Abraham
Lincoln ever wrote. (His most famous one was written to
Mrs. Bixby, expressing his sorrow for the death of the
five sons she had lost in battle.) Lincoln probably dashed
this letter off in five minutes; yet it sold at public auction
in 1926 for twelve thousand dollars, and that, by the
way, was more money than Lincoln was able to save
during half a century of hard work. The letter was written
to General Joseph Hooker on April 26, 1863, during
the darkest period of the Civil War. For eighteen
months, Lincoln’s generals had been leading the Union
Army from one tragic defeat to another. Nothing but futile,
stupid human butchery. The nation was appalled.
Thousands of soldiers had deserted from the army, and
en the Republican members of the Senate had revolted
and wanted to force Lincoln out of the White House.
“We are now on the brink of destruction,” Lincoln
said. It appears to me that even the Almighty is
against us. I can hardly see a ray of hope.” Such was the
black sorrow and chaos out of which this letter
came.
I am printing the letter here because it shows how
Lincoln tried to change an obstreperous general when
the very fate of the nation could have depended upon
the general’s action.
This is perhaps the sharpest letter Abe Lincoln wrote
after he became President; yet you will note that he
praised General Hooker before he spoke of his grave
faults.
Yes, they were grave faults, but Lincoln didn’t call
them that. Lincoln was more conservative, more diplomatic.
Lincoln wrote: “There are some things in regard
to which I am not quite satisfied with you.” Talk about
tact! And diplomacy!
Here is the letter addressed to General Hooker:
I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac.
Of course, I have done this upon what appears to me to be
sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know
that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite
satisfied with you.
I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of
course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with
your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence
in yourself, which is a valuable if not an indispensable
quality.
You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds,
does good rather than harm, But I think that during General
Burnside’s command of the army you have taken counsel of
your ambition and thwarted him as much as you could, in
which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most
meritorious and honorable brother officer.
I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently
saying that both the army and the Government
needed a dictator. Of course, it was not for this, but in spite
of it, that I have given you command.
Only those generals who gain successes can set up as
dictators. What I now ask of you is military success and I
will risk the dictatorship.
The Government will support you to the utmost of its
ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and
will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which
you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their
commander and withholding confidence from him, will
now turn upon you. I shall assist you, as far as I can, to put
it down.
Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could
get any good out of an army while such spirit prevails in it,
and now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with
energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.
You are not a Coolidge, a McKinley or a Lincoln. You
want to know whether this philosophy will operate for
you in everyday business contacts. Will it? Let’s see.
Let’s take the case of W. P. Gaw of the Wark Company,
Philadelphia.
The Wark Company had contracted to build and complete
a large office building in Philadelphia by a certain
specified date. Everything was going along well; the
building was almost finished, when suddenly the sub-contractor
making the ornamental bronze work to go on
the exterior of this building declared that he couldn’t
make delivery on schedule. What! An entire building
held up! Heavy penalties! Distressing losses! All because
of one man!
Long-distance telephone calls. Arguments! Heated
conversations! All in vain. Then Mr. Gaw was sent to
New York to beard the bronze lion in his den.
“Do you know you are the only person in Brooklyn
with your name,?” Mr Gaw asked the president of the
subcontracting firm shortly after they were introduced.
The president was surprised. “No, I didn’t know
that.”
“Well,” said Mr. Gaw, “when I got off the train this
morning, I looked in the telephone book to get your
address, and you’re the only person in the Brooklyn
phone book with your name.”
“I never knew that,” the subcontractor said. He
checked the phone book with interest. “Well, it’s an unusual
name,” he said proudly. “My family came from
Holland and settled in New York almost two hundred
years ago. ” He continued to talk about his family and his
ancestors for several minutes. When he finished that,
Mr. Gaw complimented him on how large a plant he had
and compared it favorably with a number of similar
plants he had visited. “It is one of the cleanest and neatest
bronze factories I ever saw,” said Gaw.
“I’ve spent a lifetime building up this business,” the
subcontractor said, “and I am rather proud of it. Would
you like to take a look around the factory?”
During this tour of inspection, Mr. Gaw complimented
the other man on his system of fabrication and
told him how and why it seemed superior to those of
some of his competitors. Gaw commented on some unusual
machines, and the subcontractor announced that
he himself had invented those machines. He spent considerable
time showing Gaw how they operated and the
superior work they turned out. He insisted on taking his
visitor to lunch. So far, mind you, not a word had been
said about the real purpose of Gaw’s visit.
After lunch, the subcontractor said, “Now, to get down
to business. Naturally, I know why you’re here. I didn’t
expect that our meeting would be so enjoyable. You can
go back to Philadelphia with my promise that your material
will be fabricated and shipped, even if other orders
have to be delayed.”
Mr. Gaw got everything that he wanted without even
asking for it. The material arrived on time, and the building
was completed on the day the completion contract
specified.
Would this have happened had Mr. Gaw used the
hammer-and-dynamite method generally employed on
such occasions?
Dorothy Wrublewski, a branch manager of the Fort
Monmouth, New Jersey, Federal Credit Union, reported
to one of our classes how she was able to help one of her
employees become more productive.
“We recently hired a young lady as a teller trainee.
Her contact with our customers was very good. She was
accurate and efficient in handling individual transactions.
The problem developed at the end of the day
when it was time to balance out.
“The head teller came to me and strongly suggested
that I fire this woman. ‘She is holding up everyone else
because she is so slow in balancing out. I’ve shown her
over and over, but she can’t get it. She’s got to go.’
“The next day I observed her working quickly and
accurately when handling the normal everyday transactions,
and she was very pleasant with our customers.
“It didn’t take long to discover why she had trouble
balancing out. After the office closed, I went over to talk
with her. She was obviously nervous and upset. I
praised her for being so friendly and outgoing with the
customers and complimented her for the accuracy and
speed used in that work. I then suggested we review the
procedure we use in balancing the cash drawer. Once
she realized I had confidence in her, she easily followed
my suggestions and soon mastered this function. We
have had no problems with her since then.”
Beginning with praise is like the dentist who begins
his work with Novocain. The patient still gets a drilling,
but the Novocain is pain-killing. A leader will use . . .
PRINCIPLE 1
Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2
HOW TO CRITICIZE-AND NOT BE
HATED FOR IT
Charles Schwab was passing through one of his steel
mills one day at noon when he came across some of his
employees smoking. Immediately above their heads was
a sign that said “No Smoking.” Did Schwab point to the
sign and say, “Can’t you read.? Oh, no not Schwab. He
walked over to the men, handed each one a cigar, and
said, “I’ll appreciate it, boys, if you will smoke these on
the outside.” They knew that he knew that they had
broken a rule – and they admired him because he said
nothing about it and gave them a little present and made
them feel important. Couldn’t keep from loving a man
like that, could you?
John Wanamaker used the same technique. Wanamaker
used to make a tour of his great store in Philadelphia
every day. Once he saw a customer waiting at a
counter. No one was paying the slightest attention to
her. The salespeople? Oh, they were in a huddle at the
far end of the counter laughing and talking among themselves.