Finished re-skimming Dale Carnegie’s 1920’s era meisterwerk, How to Win Friends and Influence People”. Like I said, I had read it before (Sioux Falls, SD on a February, 2-week business trip) and thought I might benefit from a re-read. I ended up skimming it. Probably read 60% of it but I reviewed the stuff I wanted to. Mrs. Pinetar makes fun of me for “skimming” certain (not all) books and I say that it’s just time-management. By skipping (and not suffering) certain lame parts of books that don’t interest me, or don’t apply to me, I get through more material that DOES. Nothing wrong with that.
I thought I needed the re-read because lately I’ve found that I have been wasting time getting drawn into stupid arguments. (Spoiler alert!)(If you can have a spoiler for a book written in 1927) One of Carnegie’s big tenets in the book is that you don’t argue: almost never; with anyone. It’s a losing proposition. He says, and I mostly agree, that even if you win, you have only won a small, academic point and yet in the bigger picture, you have antagonized the man you beat and lost him. He goes on that there is a way to point things out to folks who need learnin’, but do it right or you gain nothing.
I find myself arguing too much. It’s not good. Most people are not even considering your ideas in the typical argument IN GOOD FAITH. You may THINK your ideas are having their day in court, but the other person is not even considering them–not giving them a chance. He’s waiting for you to take a breath, so he can dazzle you with his stuff…long story short, you’re both wasting your time–get back to work.
Other gems in the book are the idea that to “Win friends” and “Influence People”, you need to be a smiling, active, engaged LISTENER. Carnegie says that people don’t care about YOU at all. They only care about themselves and if you let them bloviate on about themselves, they’ll walk away from that lecture (Carnegie says “let it BE a lecture”) LIKING you. That’s it. That’s all. Shutupayourmouth and listen. Be genuinely intersted; ask engaged questions but SHUT UP and let THEM talk.
I never did sales, but imagine that lots of this Carnegie stuff is now long-boilerplate in the sales-force-training manual; particularly the part that says: “NEVER argue with a customer!” In fact, if the customer says that the competitor’s product is great, you are supposed to AGREE with that immediately! Yikes. But really, anything else you say devolves into an argument and you are then DEFENDING your own product instead of selling it. Carnegie was big on the sales stuff, so if you are a sales person and you haven’t read this book, shame on you.
In fact, I’m throwing a big “shame on anyone” who hasn’t read this book. It’s that core. It’s basic. It’s worth it. You might learn something about yourself that you can tweak. I know of a person who holds a big government job (where else?) and he is NOT liked by his charges. They gave him this book anonymously for Christmas one year to send a message. If your employees send you this book anonymously, they are trying to tell you something, but STILL, you should read it and think it over.
Where I work, I have a guy reading a book I thought was great, “Baseball Between the Numbers”. He’s reading it reluctantly but has a real attitude about it BEFORE even reading the ideas presented. And he was telling me basically that I’m going to be the one DEFENDING the Baseball Prospectus guys’ work. I told him “no, I’m not”. If you don’t like a piece, email the author! I’m not going to be put in that position. I enjoyed the book, and I hope that you do too, but if you can’t accept the fact that they found no mathematical evidence to support ‘hitting protection’ in the lineup, or that they found most sac bunts, stolen bases and hit-and-runs to be HURTING the team that does it, then it isn’t my fault.
What it does mean is that people, for the most part, are not objective. They get an emotional attachment to an IDEA and to do that you must SURRENDER ALL OBJECTIVITY. That’s why you don’t argue with anyone. Because most people get emotionally attached to ideas and can NOT stand off and be a passive, truly objective observer; which is what you need for a true “debate” to have meaning, and not just be two guys shouting their “stuff” at each other.
I’m sure I’m guilty of it too, but I try to look at objective facts and evidence on its merit and incorporate that info into my view. I think my ability to do that, to the extent that I can, reflects my education in Accounting and Computer Science. I also have always loved Science and read every bit of non-fiction science-history that I can get my hands on.
The Accounting and Comp-Sci trains you to be objective and look at measures and build up assumptions off of them. I carry this out even in an emotional avocation like fantasy baseball–building spreadsheets and then trusting what those numbers tell me. For many, a thing like baseball is a very emotional, seat-0f-the-pants thing. Don’t go showing those guys any numbers that say the way their daddy or their high school coach showed them was wrong–it only gets them mad. They are totally convinced that they KNOW, so don’t go showing them anything else–it’s noise. If it’s numbers, there’s a built in prejudice that, well, “…you cooked those numbers to have them say what you wanted”.
Reading Science-history books (there are so few good ones) is the other thing that I think helps me to be more objective at times. It always fascinated me how certain really brilliant things came to be. We always take for granted that a telephone or a computer or transistor, just WORKS. But I always think that at some point in the past, some person had to MAKE it work for the first time.
And so you read about these people and it seems that the ones who succeed and make the breakthrough are ALWAYS the ones who question the current state of the art. They question the conventional wisdom.
I just finished the Wright Brothers book, and they doubted the published, accepted figures for the day for lift and drag on a surface. They built their own wind tunnel and derived their own numbers and when their numbers were far OFF the published, academically-accepted marks, they had the guts to TRUST their own results and proceed from that assumption.
Another example is in the great book “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” ( a must read for anyone–tremendous book). They explain very well how Einstein’s real breakthrough was the simple fact that he was the first to ACCEPT the experimental results that had been accumulating, that said light traveled the SAME speed no matter the speed of the source or, of the observer.
That concept didn’t make sense to people because it is so fantastic; so counter-intuitive to everyday life. People were not willing to ACCEPT that result after experimental result was piling up and confirming this odd “fact”.
Einstein’s genius is that he was just the first person to think,”…ok, let’s assume that is true, where does that lead?”. That’s what led to his theory of relativity–just being WILLING to believe experimental results.
The analogy is a baseball fan when they first hear that the numbers show that hit-and-run, stealing and bunting almost always HURT the team doing it. That’s not what they have been taught all their lives. To accept that means that not only have THEY been wrong their whole lives, but all their peers and teachers (dad) were dead-wrong too. Some are able get past being “wrong” or “fooled”, and say, “thank you very much, I am glad to have this knowledge!”, while others will not yield: “…light speed MUST vary with the speed of the observer or source! It MUST!” (“All those people can’t be wrong!”)
So you read the science history and you see how many times the accepted stuff was WRONG and the challenger was the breakthrough guy. You see it over and over and over. Lister and hospital cleanliness. The Wrights. Edison. Einstein. Heisenberg. And on and on and on.
I’m not saying I’m smart like Einstein or anything dopey like that. I’m saying that I’m working on the Jackie Robinson statue and I’m spending long hours doing that and you end up thinking about prejudice and where it comes from and why and so forth. Prejudice can be about numbers and everyday notions too–work or play, it’s everywhere. It is the human tendency to ASSUME things without looking at evidence; it is the human tendency to get EMOTIONALLY INVESTED in IDEAS for no reason. It’s usually damaging in some way. Some, obviously, more than others. It’s beneficial to try and avoid it for yourself, if you can. (I think this is also why I like Mythbusters so much)
***
For anyone still reading this far, the book we’re reading now is “Patent it Yourself” 13th ed by Patent Attorney David Pressman. I love it! It’s reading like a text book, but it covers Intellectual Property, which is a bigger area than I originally thought: Patents: Utility, Design and Plant; Trademarks/Trade names, Copyrights & Trade Secrets. It is fascinating.
For instance: To get a patent, you apply and pay a fee. There are two levels: one for small guys and one for big institutions. Then, when they grant the patent, if they do, you pay again. This usually takes 3 years. Then, at 3.5 years and 7 and 10 years, you will have to pay “maintenance fees” that add up to more than you lay out to get it or get it issued.
How this jag started was that I have been working on an “invention”, let’s just say, for a few years. It was an idea for a year or two before I built a prototype last January. My nephew and I were having fun dreaming about taking it commercial when I did what I always do, which is, bought a used patent book on Amazon used books. In the first 15 minutes of reading that, I realized, “oh no! If I don’t have a patent for this and I take it out in public or publish it in ANY way, I have one year to file a patent or I LOSE the ability to EVER patent my own idea!”
So that put the breaks on our plans (not that we had time anyway–there were little league games to win). I was amazed at that, but after reading Pressman (a much more in depth book), I understand why it has to be this way. And I’m starting to see what my options are and that is making my planning much easier. It takes the paranoia out of it.
Patent searching, has also never been easier than it is now. You can go to google patents and look to see if anyone has thought of your idea but be careful, these online patent searches are not full. They don’t go all the way back. To do that, you need to go to Alexandria, Virginia, to the PTO library there. Oddly enough, when you look out the front window of the Gaylord National Hotel in Washington, DC, you see Alexandria. So we may be heading over the Potomac River to hit the library. But there’s a lot of work that would have to be done first.
Looking through the patents online is also very entertaining. Check out this one.
Click here to open the patent in google-patents in a new window
One of the big takeaways of looking through the patents is the realization that some pretty dopey stuff gets issued. And that’s not cheap. If you are a small business or individual, you will be paying $1,100 minimum if you patent something COMPLETELY yourself. That’s doing the writeup yourself, the full patent search (Alexandria, VA) yourself as well as filling out all the gov forms and the drawings!
Paying a patent attorney, a searcher and draftsman to do all that typically runs between $5,000 and $15,000, so it makes you wonder who would bother to draw up, search and file a basically frivolous patent. But apparently, some do.
And no, Phil, I’m not looking to patent the bread bowl, although it is a nifty idea…
I’ll end this longest ever post with my favorite Edison quotes:
Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.
I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists – proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.
I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.
I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
I start where the last man left off.
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.
It is astonishing what an effort it seems to be for many people to put their brains definitely and systematically to work.
Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.
There is far more opportunity than there is ability.
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.