I’ve read a lot of books over the last decade or so. Most of them have been self-improvement books that focused on communication, emotions, interacting with others, and effective action. As such, I’ve noticed parallels between different books that discuss similar subjects. That got me thinking, as did the point in the next paragraph.
While I generally believe that more is better when it comes to reading as lots of folks read hardly ever or even never, this is only true up to a point. As Carl Sagan beautifully says here, we simply don’t have enough time to read all the books in the world before we die. Since we’re limited on how many books we can read, any book that gives a lot of bad advice or fails to satisfy the reader prevents that reader from reading a book that gives good advice or otherwise proves satisfactory. That gave me the idea to compare different books on similar subjects and give my opinion of which one is more worth the read. This may prevent someone from going down a bad path (or at least a less effective path) and having to relearn a lot of stuff in order to be more effective, as I have.
I don’t know how long this series will last or how many books I’ll pit against each other. At the time of this writing, I have two posts in mind, including this one. This week, I’ll compare two books I’ve previously reviewed: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.
Both books focus heavily on influencing and communicating with others, and they have some degree of overlap. Perhaps their strongest point in common is presenting ideas to others in ways that will appeal to their interests rather than one’s own. On most of their points, however, the books offer opposing advice. For example, How to Win Friends and Influence People encourages you to get people to say “yes” early on in the hopes of getting them to agree to several more things before finally agreeing to your big ask. In contrast, Never Split the Difference recommends using questions designed to elicit “no” responses based on the idea that saying “no” makes people feel safe and more open to what you have to say. Having read both books multiple times, it’s interesting to see how similar they are at times and, at other times, how different. It sometimes seems as if Never Split the Difference is an updated version of How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Whenever I read a fascinating book, I often like to learn more about the author. At this point, I know a good bit about Chris Voss and what he offers beyond Never Split the Difference. His company, the Black Swan Group, has a website with tons of free information, a free weekly newsletter, and lots of online and in-person training workshops that can be purchased by those who want to dive deep into improving their negotiation skills. The techniques espoused in the book are constantly improving as the whole team is always finding new things or different ways to better use the old methods. Even without going for any of the paid training (which I haven’t thus far), the abundance of quality, free information is astonishing, and it can take anyone much further than they’d go if they only went as far as reading the book.
Regarding the usefulness of the techniques in Never Split the Difference, I’ve found them to be incredibly valuable in day-to-day life. Though I’ve not used them much in tense situations, I plan to try them when such situations present themselves; they work wonders at keeping good situations good, getting clarity and collaboration, and giving me some guidance where I previously would have had no idea what to say. That personal verification is enough for me. There are also many stories in the book of hostage negotiators using these tools to save lives by persuading kidnappers to release the hostages. For anyone who prefers to look at the science behind things, you’re also in luck. There has been a lot of neuroscientific verification of the validity of these tools, from canceling out negative emotions by calling them out to releasing bonding hormones through accurately verbally identifying how someone is feeling.
Now for How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’ll say that I have found several things in that book to be useful, and it will always hold a special place in my heart since it was the book that started my self-improvement journey. That said, I believe that it also exacerbated my people-pleasing tendencies and made it much harder for me to stick up for myself. The book has lots of big picture ideas and, unfortunately, little in the way of specific applications. Outside of a few examples, I struggled with applying the ideas in a variety of situations, especially when I was in tremendous pain after my dog Sawyer died and tended to just go along with whatever anyone said while offering little to nothing in the way of conversation on my end. I wish it gave more guidance for general conversations apart from just sitting quietly and letting others talk.
Aside from a handful of other books he wrote, the only major ongoing resource I know of for Dale Carnegie’s work is a speaking course intended to help people overcome their fear of public speaking. Since I don’t know much about how the ideas behind How to Win Friends and Influence People have changed over time, I can’t speak as to how much training around that book or some of Dale Carnegie’s other ideas currently exists and how similar it now is to how it originally appeared. The fact that Dale Carnegie died long ago means that there’s no longer an option for him to train anyone, add to his work, or make changes to it. With everything, I believe in taking the good and leaving the rest, including works that have been around for ages and are considered classics. Even ideas that have stood the test of time can still be improved as new discoveries are made, and that includes How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Overall, I consider How to Win Friends and Influence People to be a decent book. It gave me some good ideas, and I believe that the world would be much better if even half of the existing humans used its techniques. At the same time, I now consider Never Split the Difference to be the best communication book I’ve ever read, and I believe that the world would improve tremendously if more people used what it teaches. If you’ve got time to read and digest them both, go for it. If you only have time for one, I say pick Never Split the Difference and watch as all of your relationships undergo a drastic improvement.