Part 45 (1/2)
”The next day, when I walked into my office,” Dr.
Fitzhugh reported, ”My desk had been polished to a mirror-like finish, as had my chair, which I nearly slid out of. When I went into the treatment room I found the s.h.i.+niest, cleanest chrome-plated cup holder I had ever seen nestled in its receptacle. I had given my char-woman a fine reputation to live up to, and because of this small gesture she outperformed all her past efforts.
How much additional time did she spend on this? That's right-none at all .”
There is an old saying: ”Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him.” But give him a good name - and see what happens!
When Mrs. Ruth Hopkins, a fourth-grade teacher in Brooklyn, New York, looked at her cla.s.s roster the first day of school, her excitement and joy of starting a new term was tinged with anxiety. In her cla.s.s this year she would have Tommy T., the school's most notorious ”bad boy.” His third-grade teacher had constantly complained about Tommy to colleagues, the princ.i.p.al and anyone else who would listen. He was not just mischievous; he caused serious discipline problems in the cla.s.s, picked fights with the boys, teased the girls, was fresh to the teacher, and seemed to get worse as he grew older.
His only redeeming feature was his ability to learn rapidly and master the-school work easily.
Mrs. Hopkins decided to face the ”Tommy problem”
immediately. When she greeted her new students, she made little comments to each of them: ”Rose, that's a pretty dress you are wearing,” ”Alicia, I hear you draw beautifully.” When she came to Tommy, she looked him straight in the eyes and said, ”Tommy, I understand you are a natural leader. I'm going to depend on you to help me make this cla.s.s the best cla.s.s in the fourth grade this year.” She reinforced this over the first few days by complimenting Tommy on everything he did and commenting on how this showed what a good student he was.
With that reputation to live up to, even a nine-year-old couldn't let her down - and he didn't.
If you want to excel in that difficult leaders.h.i.+p role of changing the att.i.tude or behavior of others, use . . .
PRINCIPLE 7 Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8 MAKE THE FAULT SEEM EASY TO CORRECT
A bachelor friend of mine, about forty years old, became engaged, and his fiancee persuaded him to take some belated dancing lessons. ”The Lord knows I needed dancing lessons,” he confessed as he told me the story, ”for I danced just as I did when I first started twenty years ago. The first teacher I engaged probably told me the truth. She said I was all wrong; I would just have to forget everything and begin all over again. But that took the heart out of me. I had no incentive to go on. So I quit her.
”The next teacher may have been lying, but I liked it.
She said nonchalantly that my dancing was a bit old-fas.h.i.+oned perhaps, but the fundamentals were all right, and she a.s.sured me I wouldn't have any trouble learning a few new steps. The first teacher had discouraged me by emphasizing my mistakes. This new teacher did the opposite. She kept praising the things I did right and minimizing my errors. 'You have a natural sense of rhythm,' she a.s.sured me. 'You really are a natural-born dancer.' Now my common sense tells me that I always have been and always will be a fourth-rate dancer; yet, deep in my heart, I still like to think that maybe she meant it. To be sure, I was paying her to say it; but why bring that up?
”At any rate, I know I am a better dancer than I would have been if she hadn't told me I had a natural sense of rhythm. That encouraged me. That gave me hope. That made me want to improve.”
Tell your child, your spouse, or your employee that he or she is stupid or dumb at a certain thing, has no gift for it, and is doing it all wrong, and you have destroyed almost every incentive to try to improve. But use the opposite technique - be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an undeveloped flair for it - and he will practice until the dawn comes in the window in order to excel.
Lowell Thomas, a superb artist in human relations, used this technique, He gave you confidence, inspired you with courage and faith. For example, I spent a weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas; and on Sat.u.r.day night, I was asked to sit in on a friendly bridge game before a roaring fire. Bridge? Oh, no! No! No! Not me. I knew nothing about it. The game had always been a black mystery to me, No! No! Impossible!
”Why, Dale, it is no trick at all,” Lowell replied.
”There is nothing to bridge except memory and judgment.
You've written articles on memory. Bridge will be a cinch for you. It's right up your alley.”
And presto, almost before I realized what I was doing, I found myself for the first time at a bridge table. All because I was told I had a natural flair for it and the game was made to seem easy.