How to get Co-operation

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  • DON’T YOU HAVE much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in

ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn’t it bad judgement to

try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people? Isn’t it wiser to make

suggestions – and let the other person think out the conclusion?

Adolph Seltz of Philadelphia, sales manager in an automobile showroom

and a student in one of my courses, suddenly found himself confronted with the

necessity of injecting enthusiasm into a discouraged and disorganised group of

automobile salespeople. Calling a sales meeting, he urged his people to tell him

exactly what they expected from him. As they talked, he wrote their ideas on the

blackboard. He then said: ‘I’ll give you all these qualities you expect from me.

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Now I want you to tell me what I have a right to expect from you.’ The replies

came quick and fast: loyalty, honesty, initiative, optimism, teamwork, eight

hours a day of enthusiastic work. The meeting ended with a new courage, a new

inspiration – one salesperson volunteered to work fourteen hours a day – and Mr.

Seltz reported to me that the increase of sales was phenomenal.

‘The people had made a sort of moral bargain with me,’said Mr. Seltz, ‘and

as long as I lived up to my part in it, they were determined to live up to theirs.

Consulting them about their wishes and desires was just the shot in the arm they

needed.’

No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold something or told to do a

thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own accord or acting on

our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our wishes, our wants, our

thoughts.

Take the case of Eugene Wesson. He lost countless thousands of dollars in

commissions before he learned this truth. Mr. Wesson sold sketches for a studio

that created designs for stylists and textile manufacturers. Mr. Wesson had called

on one of the leading stylists in New York once a week, every week for three

years. ‘He never refused to see me,’ said Mr. Wesson, ‘but he never bought. He

always looked over my sketches very carefully and then said: “No, Wesson, I

guess we don’t get together today.”’

After 150 failures, Wesson realised he must be in a mental rut, so he

resolved to devote one evening a week to the study of influencing human behaviour, to help him develop new ideas and generate new enthusiasm.

He decided on this new approach. With half a dozen unfinished artists’

sketches under his arm, he rushed over to the buyer’s office. ‘I want you to do

me a little favour, if you will,’ he said. ‘Here are some uncompleted sketches.

Won’t you please tell me how we could finish them up in such a way that you

could use them?’

The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without uttering a word.

Finally he said: ‘Leave these with me for a few days, Wesson, and then come

back and see me.’

Wesson returned three days later, got his suggestions, took the sketches

back to the studio and had them finished according to the buyer’s ideas. The

result? All accepted.

After that, this buyer ordered scores of other sketches from Wesson, all

drawn according to the buyer’s ideas. ‘I realised why I had failed for years to sell

him,’ said Mr. Wesson. ‘I had urged him to buy what I thought he ought to have.

Then I changed my approach completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This

made him feel that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t have to sell

him. He bought.’

Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or hers not only works in

business and politics, it works in family life as well. Paul M. Davis of Tulsa,

Oklahoma, told his class how he applied this principle:

‘My family and I enjoyed one of the most interesting sightseeing vacation

trips we have ever taken. I had long dreamed of visiting such historic sites as the

Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and our

nation’s capital. Valley Forge, Jamestown and the restored colonial village of

Williamsburg were high on the list of things I wanted to see.

‘In March my wife, Nancy, mentioned that she had ideas for our summer

vacation which included a tour of the western states, visiting points of interest in

New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. She had wanted to make this trip

for several years. But we couldn’t obviously make both trips.

‘Our daughter, Anne, had just completed a course in U.S. history in junior

high school and had become very interested in the events that had shaped our

country’s growth. I asked her how she would like to visit the places she had

learned about on our next vacation. She said she would love to.

‘Two evenings later as we sat around the dinner table, Nancy announced

that if we all agreed, the summer’s vacation would be to the eastern states, that it

would be a great trip for Anne and thrilling for all of us. We all concurred.’

This same psychology was used by an X-ray manufacturer to sell his

equipment to one of the largest hospitals in Brooklyn. This hospital was building an addition and preparing to equip it with the finest X-ray department in

America. Dr. L – , who was in charge of the X-ray department, was

overwhelmed with sales representatives, each caroling the praises of his own

company’s equipment.

One manufacturer, however, was more skilful. He knew far more about

handling human nature than the others did. He wrote a letter something like this:

Our factory has recently completed a new line of X-ray equipment.

The first shipment of these machines has just arrived at our office.

They are not perfect. We know that, and we want to improve

them. So we should be deeply obligated to you if you could find

time to look them over and give us your ideas about how they can

be made more serviceable to your profession. Knowing how

occupied you are, I shall be glad to send my car for you at any

hour you specify.

‘I was surprised to get that letter,’ Dr. L – said as he related the incident before

the class. ‘I was both surprised and complimented. I had never had an X-ray

manufacturer seeking my advice before. It made me feel important. I was busy

every night that week, but I cancelled a dinner appointment in order to look over

the equipment. The more I studied it, the more I discovered for myself how

much I liked it.

‘Nobody had tried to sell it to me. I felt that the idea of buying that

equipment for the hospital was my own. I sold myself on its superior qualities

and ordered it installed.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay ‘Self-Reliance’stated: ‘In every work of

genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a

certain alienated majesty.’

Colonel Edward M. House wielded an enormous influence in national and

international affairs while Woodrow Wilson occupied the White House. Wilson

leaned upon Colonel House for secret counsel and advice more than he did upon

even members of his own cabinet.

What method did the Colonel use in influencing the President? Fortunately,

we know, for House himself revealed it to Arthur D. Howden Smith, and Smith

quoted House in an article in The Saturday Evening Post.

‘“After I got to know the President,” House said, “I learned the best way to

convert him to an idea was to plant it in his mind casually, but so as to interest

him in it – so as to get him thinking about it on his own account. The first time

this worked it was an accident. I had been visiting him at the White House and urged a policy on him which he appeared to disapprove. But several days later, at

the dinner table, I was amazed to hear him trot out my suggestion as his own.”’

Did House interrupt him and say, ‘That’s not your idea. That’s mine’? Oh,

no. Not House. He was too adroit for that. He didn’t care about credit. He

wanted results. So he let Wilson continue to feel that the idea was his. House did

even more than that. He gave Wilson public credit for these ideas.

Let’s remember that everyone we come in contact with is just as human as

Woodrow Wilson. So let’s use Colonel House’s technique.

A man up in the beautiful Canadian province of New Brunswick used this

technique on me and won my patronage. I was planning at the time to do some

fishing and canoeing in New Brunswick. So I wrote the tourist bureau for

information. Evidently my name and address were put on a mailing list, for I was

immediately overwhelmed with scores of letters and booklets and printed

testimonials from camps and guides. I was bewildered. I didn’t know which to

choose. Then one camp owner did a clever thing. He sent me the names and

telephone numbers of several New York people who had stayed at his camp and

he invited me to telephone them and discover for myself what he had to offer.

I found to my surprise that I knew one of the men on his list. I telephoned

him, found out what his experience had been, and then wired the camp the date

of my arrival.

Thank you for read this content

The others had been trying to sell me on their service, but one let me sell

myself. That organisation won.

Twenty-five centuries ago, Lao-tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that

readers of this book might use today:

‘The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain

streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the

mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below

them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though

his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before

them, they do not count it an injury.’

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