The main book was "How To Win Friends And Influence People" and I was reminded of it all when I came across the mindmap shown above. It can be found and viewed in larger format on www.mindmeister.com .
The other sources were "Don't Grow Old, Grow Up" and "How To Stop Worrying And Start Living".
Looking back I have to say that I think it was one of the most valuable learning experiences I have enjoyed in my life and I have attended a lot of courses. As a teenager I was very self-conscious. If I had to speak or ask a question in public then my heart raced and I felt sick. I tended to internalise a huge amount and build internal stresses. I was also very technical in my approach to work, possibly at the expense of the people and relationship aspect.
Those who know me now might ask, "So what's changed?", but I know they would be joking, at least in the most part. I am now a happy extrovert who is happy speaking and contributing in public. I have much better ways of dealing with stress and certainly don't feel as old as my birth certificate suggests I should.
Of the almost 100 people I have personally seen go through the course (I have put a few of my staff on it too), all but one gained significantly from it, often in ways they did not expect at the start.
Of course I am not a prime example of all things Dale Carnegie. I still make my share of mistakes, but a self awareness really helps.
I know they run the modern version of the programmes all over the world. It can seem rather formulaic, ie session 12 in London is the same as session 12 in New York or Hong Kong, and this may put some people off. Instead this structure allows one to make up missed sessions with confidence or possible adapt to travel schedules.
For anyone who is committed to developing themselves and/or their team, I commend consideration of the Dale Carnegie courses.
"all but one gained significantly from it"
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to know why that one person did not gain (or feel they gained) anything...
There is, or at least there was, a "break through" session, yes I knowit sounds very American and in a way it is, but it also works. It carefully pushes an individuals boundaries of personal performance. There is a conscious decision not to give advance notice or prepare participants as it would give the cautious a reason to skip it.
DeleteIn the end everyone, bar one, embraced the session and acknowledged its value. The one that didn't was an Australian lady (no idea of the nationality was important) who felt she had been tricked and that she should have been personally coached ahead of the session. I know this because I was her graduate coach. As I said the policy was no advance notice and I adhered to that. I would also add that her contribution to the sessions had been a littel patchy in the run up, to the extent that I was surprised she had not dropped out already. This I guess was a step too far, and we never saw her again.
To this day I am not sure what her motivation was.
As I sit and write this response I can actually think of a second who had training $ to spend, ie company money but use it or lose it and time was running out. She booked the course but then approached it as if she had nothing to learn and in fact thought she knew more than the coach (not true in my opinion). She did drop out after four or five sessions and I intervened and got her a refund.
Still, it had and still has my personal recommendation. It is hard to please all the people all the time :)