I read Scott Adams‘ blog daily.   First, it is funny.   Second, he is thoughtful.   Third, he is unfailingly positive and uplifting.  Today he wrote a blog discussing his experience with a Dale Carnegie course.  He summarizes what he learned in a concise paragraph or two, so I thought I would re-post it here for your benefit. You can read the entire post here.

From Scott Adams:

…The local director for Dale Carnegie went onstage. He had no Powerpoint presentation. After introducing himself, his entire sales presentation went like this: “I’d like to ask two of your coworkers who took the course to come on stage and tell you about it.”

The ex-students were brief. They were persuasive. They were animated. They were spontaneous. They used no notes. They prowled the stage. They owned it. But most important, and the dealmaker for me, was that they so obviously enjoyed doing it. I signed up.

I think there were about 25 people in the class. On day one, our instructor described the method he would use. It was simple to the point of making me think it couldn’t work. The Dale Carnegie approach to teaching public speaking is to compliment the speaker for whatever he or she does well, and never mention any flaws.

That’s it. That’s the entire technique.

The theory is that when you focus on flaws, you don’t address the underlying problem of being uncomfortable in front of people. If you tell someone to take his hands out of his pockets, he will, but he’ll transfer his nervous habit to some other mannerism. At best, you end up with robotic speakers afraid to do something wrong. I had already taken a few public speaking classes that focused on flaws, and I can confirm that the successful graduates were a bit like R2D2.

Most of my classmates in the Dale Carnegie course were basket cases when it came to public speaking. Some knew they had a serious problem and others were forced by their bosses to attend. The first day was grim. One woman stood frozen in front of the group, unable to generate an intelligible word. Beads of sweat literally dripped off her chin. It was horrible to watch. She choked out a few words and returned to her seat, defeated. Our instructor came to the front of the room and said, “Wow. That was really brave.”

And it was. We all knew it was true. This woman had put her head in the lion’s mouth. Suddenly we all realized we had witnessed something important. We applauded. And it changed her. Each week, she managed a little bit more. And each week the instructor and the class recognized her achievement. By the end of the course, everyone in the class was an exceptional speaker, and we all looked forward to our few minutes in front of the class. It was like witnessing a frickin’ miracle.

There were side exercises, designed to get us out of our shells. And we learned some tricks for making conversation that added immensely to my social wellbeing. But the most fascinating exercise involved compliments. Compliments were the only tool the instructor used to turn a room full of bad speakers into a room full of pros. And he demonstrated the power of compliments with a little exercise.

He asked us to write a brief compliment on a piece of paper for every other student. Keep in mind that we didn’t know each other. Coming up with a compliment for each of 25 strangers is no easy task. You had to dig deep. Perhaps you noticed how well someone dressed, or how much progress he made in the class, or her cheerful disposition. We each wrote our compliments and handed them in. The instructor sorted them by student and mailed them to our homes a few weeks later.

I remember opening my little package of compliments. Like everything else in the Dale Carnegie course, it seemed silly at first. How much impact would a bunch of mandated compliments from strangers have on me? Surely they would seem insincere to the point of humorous. I started to read them, one by one, and they blew me away. It was a powerful experience, and that was the point of the exercise. When we compared notes later, we all had the same experience. Compliments are powerful things, even from strangers who barely know you.

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