Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnegie (
November 24 1888 -
November 1 1955) was an
American writer and the developer of famous courses in
self-improvement,
salesmanship,
corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born in poverty on a farm in
Missouri, he was the author of
How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in
1936, which has sold over 30 million copies through many editions and remains popular today. He also wrote a biography of
Abraham Lincoln titled
Lincoln the Unknown and several other books.
Carnegie was an early proponent of what is now called
responsibility assumption, although this only appears minutely in his work. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's reaction to them.
Born in 1888 in
Maryville, Missouri, Carnegie was a poor farmer's boy. In his teens, though still having to get up at 4 a.m. every day to milk his parents' cows, he managed to get educated at the
State Teacher's College in
Warrensburg. His first job after college was selling correspondence courses to ranchers, then he moved on to selling
bacon,
soap, and
lard for
Armour & Company. He was successful to the point of making his sales territory, southern Omaha, the national leader for the firm.
The official word from Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc is that he died of
Hodgkin's disease on November 1, 1955. He is buried in the Belton, Missouri cemetery, Cass County.
The Dale Carnegie Course is a self-improvement program conducted using a standardized curriculum by franchised trainers throughout the world. Several variations on the course exist, including a sales course and a course intended for people who manage others.
The basic course consists of twelve evening sessions lasting three hours each. Courses are scheduled in the evening, one night per week. Typically there are 10-30 attendees in a course. Unpaid assistants, who are "graduates" of the course seeking to meet the experience requirement for becoming an instructor, are on hand to assist with logistics and work with small groups.
Instructors are college graduates who have experience working as managers in a business setting.
Much of the content of the course is derived from the 1981 revision of
How to Win Friends and Influence People and the 1984 revision of
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Participants are expected to read both books as homework over the twelve weeks.
A good deal of the time each evening is spent in short presentations given by each of the participants to the rest of the attendees. Though the format varies slightly from week to week, usually about half of the available time is spent on presentations. Instructors say that this is to improve participants' skill in public speaking. Presentations are always based on personal experience rather than a topic that has been researched.
The remainder of each session is spent in lecture and small group exercises. Lecture topics cover memory techniques, the importance of learning names, conversational techniques, and problem resolution and small group skills.
A great deal of time is spent listening to speeches given by other participants, particularly in classes with larger numbers of participants. Some critics state that this time is not well spent.
Second, there is criticism that some techniques taught are manipulative. In
The Fountainhead,
Ayn Rand included a lengthy subplot where one character feigns an interest in the hobby of another in an effort to become a partner in an architectural firm. This is a direct attack on Carnegie's techniques. The course repeatedly teaches that students should be sincere and "take a
genuine interest in other people" (emphasis added), though some present-day critics consider this a
Band-Aid for a fundamentally manipulative activity.
It can also be argued that the first objective of the Dale Carnegie course is to train people to promote the course itself, rather than to achieve any genuine personal development. After each activity during the course the facilitator leads a discussion about the value of having done the activity. Also, participants are encouraged to invite friends, family and colleagues to the last session of the course, where they are subjected to presentations from all participants on the greatest "breakthrough" that they have achieved while taking the course.
Finally, critics of the philosophy of
responsibility assumption attack that aspect of the program, although some of these critics have been demonstrably involved in other, competing self-help groups -- such as
Scientology.
Public Speaking and Influencing Men In Business.Association Press, 291 Broadway, New York, New York 10012
How to Win Friends and Influence People. The purpose of this book is to help you solve the problem of getting along with and influencing people in your everyday, business and social contacts.Simon and Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. A handbook on conquering work and fears. Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
Lincoln the Unknown by Dale Carnegie. A story of facts and insights about
Abraham Lincoln.Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., 1475 Frankling Avenue, Garden City, New York 11530
The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking. Principles and practical implementation of expressing oneself before groups of people.Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., 1475 Frankling Avenue, Garden City, New York 11530
The Dale Carnegie Scrapbook edited by Dorothy Carnegie. A collection of quotations that Dale Carnegie found inspirational interspersed with excerpts from his own writings. Simon and Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
Don't Grow Old - Grow Up by Dorothy Carnegie. How to stay young in spirit as you grow older. Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., 1475 Frankling Avenue, Garden City, New York 11530
Managing Through People. The application of Dale Carnegie's principles of good human relations to effective management. Simon and Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
Enrich Your Life, The Dale Carnegie Way by
Arthur R. Pell. Tells how a variety of people have applied the principles that Dale Carnegie and his successors have taught.Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., 1475 Frankling Avenue, Garden City, New York 11530
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Dale Carnegie Website with listings and excerpts from his books*
Dale Carnegie Training*
A&E Biography classroom study guide for "Dale Carnegie: Man of Influence" *
Dale Carnegey
