PRINCIPLE 2：
Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly. My niece， Josephine Carnegie， had come to New York to bemy secretary. She was nineteen， had graduated from high schoolthree years previously， and her business experience was a triflemore than zero. She became one of the most proficient secretarieswest of Suez， but in the beginning， she was—well， susceptibleto improvement. One day when I started to criticize her， I saidto myself： “Just a minute， Dale Carnegie； just a minute. You aretwice as old as Josephine. You have had ten thousand times asmuch business experience. How can you possibly expect her tohave your viewpoint， your judgment， your initiative—mediocrethough they may be？ And just a minute， Dale， what were youdoing at nineteen？ Remember the asinine mistakes and blundersyou made？ Remember the time you did this ... and that...？”
After thinking the matter over， honestly and impartially， Iconcluded that Josephine’s batting average at nineteen was betterthan mine had been—and that， I’m sorry to confess， isn’t payingJosephine much of a compliment.
So after that， when I wanted to call Josephine’s attention toa mistake， I used to begin by saying， “You have made a mistake，Josephine， but the Lord knows， it’s no worse than many I havemade. You were not born with judgment. That comes only withexperience， and you are better than I was at your age. I have beenguilty of so many stupid， silly things myself， I have very littleinclination to criticize you or anyone. But don’t you think it wouldhave been wiser if you had done so and so？” It isn’t nearly so144 ·
difficult to listen to a recital of your faults if the person criticizingbegins by humbly admitting that he， too， is far from impeccable.
E. G. Dillistone， an engineer in Canada， was having problemswith his new secretary. Letters he dictated were coming to hisdesk for signature with two or three spelling mistakes per page.
Mr. Dillistone reported how he handled this：
“Like many engineers， I have not been noted for my excellentEnglish or spelling. For years I have kept a little black thumbindexbook for words I had trouble spelling. When it becameapparent that merely pointing out the errors was not going tocause my secretary to do more proofreading and dictionary work，I resolved to take another approach. When the next letter came tomy attention that had errors in it， I sat down with the typist andsaid：
“‘somehow this word doesn’t look right. It’s one of the wordsI always have had trouble with. That’s the reason I started thisspelling book of mine. [I opened the book to the appropriatepage.] Yes， here it is. I’m very conscious of my spelling nowbecause people do judge us by our letters and misspellings makeus look less professional.’
“I don’t know whether she copied my system or not， but sincethat conversation， her frequency of spelling errors has beensignificantly reduced.”
Admitting one’s own mistakes—even when one hasn’t correctedthem—can help convince somebody to change his behavior. Thiswas illustrated more recently by Clarence Zerhusen of Timonium，Maryland， when he discovered his fifteen-year-old son wasexperimenting with cigarettes.
“Naturally， I didn’t want David to smoke，” Mr. Zerhusen toldus， “but his mother and I smoked cigarettes； we were giving hima bad example all the time. I explained to Dave how I started145 ·
smoking at about his age and how the nicotine had gotten thebest of me and now it was nearly impossible for me to stop. Ireminded him how irritating my cough was and how he had beenafter me to give up cigarettes not many years before.
“I didn’t exhort him to stop or make threats or warn himabout their dangers. All I did was point out how I was hooked oncigarettes and what it had meant to me.
“He thought about it for a while and decided he wouldn’tsmoke until he had graduated from high school. As the yearswent by David never did start smoking and has no intention ofever doing so.
“As a result of that conversation I made the decision to stopsmoking cigarettes myself， and with the support of my family， Ihave succeeded.”
A good leader follows this principle：