When “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was published, in 1936, unemployment in America was at 16.9 per cent. It was the tail end of the Great Depression, and virtually no one was hiring. Those with jobs were frantic to hold onto them, and Carnegie’s book included some sound advice for those trying not to get fired. Among its first lessons, for instance, is don’t “criticize, condemn, or complain.” Carnegie offers six rules for getting people to like you, and they all encourage flattery and pleasantries. Rule #1: “Become genuinely interested in other people.” Rule #2: “Smile!” He has twelve additional rules for “winning people to your way of thinking.” Rule #1: “The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.” Rule #7: “Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.” Carnegie advised that people aspire to be—to borrow Chesterfield’s favorite adjective—“easy”; that they learn to blend in.
Carnegie’s book is a compendium of case studies of great men and their achievements, men like Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Lloyd George, Great Britain’s Prime Minister during the First World War. He writes that true leaders tread softly. They ask questions and never bark orders; they heap praise upon their employees and never dwell on their mistakes; they are self-effacing and encouraging and never imperious or cruel. They are authoritative but gentle. His book argues that kindness, often considered a liability in the workplace, is actually an asset. Carnegie had found that men were socialized to think that being brutish and loud was the only way to demonstrate readiness for power. Offices functioned like one perpetual rush session, like laboratories of aggressive showmanship. He argues, instead, that politeness is the most effective tactic for getting ahead. “Why, I wonder, don’t we use the same common sense when trying to change people that we use when trying to change dogs?” he writes. “Why don’t we use praise instead of condemnation?”
While Carnegie writes about great men, his book is largely intended for their employees. And although Carnegie’s advice was applicable to the fearful workers of the Great Depression, the book does not read as if it was written during a difficult or dire moment. It is a happy book.