Concept
Respecting the Other Person's Opinions
Respecting the Other Person's Opinions is Dale Carnegie's principle of never telling someone directly that they are wrong, because those words close their mind, and of opening a disagreement instead with something like 'I may be wrong; let's look at the facts'.
In How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), Carnegie places this rule straight after his advice to avoid arguments, because it is how arguments are avoided. Telling someone 'you're wrong', in words or with a look, is not a neutral report: it challenges their intelligence and their pride, and from that moment they defend their position instead of examining it. Carnegie's alternative opens the question rather than closing it. Admitting that you may be wrong costs little, since you might be, and it invites the other person to look at the facts alongside you instead of against you. He draws on Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. When Franklin was young, an old friend told him that his habit of contradicting people bluntly was driving them away. Franklin made a rule for himself: no direct contradiction and no confident words such as 'certainly' or 'undoubtedly'; instead 'I imagine' or 'it appears to me at present', and an acknowledgement that the other view could be right in some circumstances. He credited the habit with much of his later influence. Respect here does not mean agreeing. You keep your view and you keep the facts; you give up only the verdict on the other person.
A real-life example
Oğuz is an architect in Konya, and his client insists on a cheaper insulation material for a school extension. The first reply in Oğuz's head is 'that's wrong'. He says instead: 'I may be wrong about this, so let's put both materials side by side with this year's heating costs.' They go through the numbers together. The client sees the payback period for himself, chooses the better material and asks Oğuz to present the comparison to the school's board.
How to use it
- 1Remove 'you're wrong' and 'that's not right' from your next disagreement, in your words and in your tone.
- 2Open with 'I may be wrong; let's look at the facts', and then actually look at them together.
- 3Before you state your view, name one circumstance in which the other person's view would be right.