It is quite amazing in this age of the Internet and social media how everything has to be new and modern or it doesn’t seem to count. It’s only the latest blog or theory that appears to have any profound validity. Any media product or management process that is more than 10 years old is ancient history.
And yet this just isn’t true. I have finally got around to reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - which was first published in 1937 – when the Z1, originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room, was built and is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer. A far cry from today where we all have by contrast extraordinary computing power in the smart phones in our pockets.
The latest edition brings the book more up to date, but the essential message is the same, and is as true today as it was before the Second World War. Whether in the context of professional or personal life there are three central tenets and one overriding lesson. The broad theme is the capability of individuals to improve whoever they may be and whatever their position in society. Within that there are three fundamental principles:
1 Don’t criticise. “I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody.” – Benjamin Franklin.
2 Provide sincere appreciation. “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” - William James the American philosopher.
3 Understand what other people want. “If there is one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as your own.” - Henry Ford.
Abraham Lincoln said in the context of the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865: "Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged."
Maybe it is just professional and management theory that is to blame. As the author Morgen Witzel commented in his book A History of Management Thought: Of all the sciences and social sciences, management is the one that most deliberately turns its back on the past. Yet management as we know it today did not spring into life fully formed. Management has more than just a present; it also has a past, and a future, and all three are inextricably linked.
Personally, I think it is simpler and that in our professional and personal lives we are seduced by the latest thinking into believing that we are learning it all for the first time, especially if it has some foundation in technology or artificial intelligence or something similar.
And yet this just isn’t true. I have finally got around to reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - which was first published in 1937 – when the Z1, originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room, was built and is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer. A far cry from today where we all have by contrast extraordinary computing power in the smart phones in our pockets.
The latest edition brings the book more up to date, but the essential message is the same, and is as true today as it was before the Second World War. Whether in the context of professional or personal life there are three central tenets and one overriding lesson. The broad theme is the capability of individuals to improve whoever they may be and whatever their position in society. Within that there are three fundamental principles:
1 Don’t criticise. “I will speak ill of no man and speak all the good I know of everybody.” – Benjamin Franklin.
2 Provide sincere appreciation. “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” - William James the American philosopher.
3 Understand what other people want. “If there is one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as your own.” - Henry Ford.
Abraham Lincoln said in the context of the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865: "Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged."
Maybe it is just professional and management theory that is to blame. As the author Morgen Witzel commented in his book A History of Management Thought: Of all the sciences and social sciences, management is the one that most deliberately turns its back on the past. Yet management as we know it today did not spring into life fully formed. Management has more than just a present; it also has a past, and a future, and all three are inextricably linked.
Personally, I think it is simpler and that in our professional and personal lives we are seduced by the latest thinking into believing that we are learning it all for the first time, especially if it has some foundation in technology or artificial intelligence or something similar.
RSS Feed
