Make a Graceful Exit

How do you conclude a conversation? During meetings and social gatherings, I'm often quite blunt. I'll mention something meaningful that was said in the course of our conversation and say, "There are so many wonderful people here tonight; I'd feel remiss if I didn't at least try and get to know a few more of them. Would you excuse me for a second?" People generally understand, and appreciate the honesty. There's also always the drink option. I'll say: "I'm going to get another drink. Would you like one?" If they say no, I don't have an obligation to come back. If they say yes, I'll be sure to enter into another conversation on my way to the bar. When I return with a drink, I'll say, "I just ran into some people you should meet. Come on over."

Until We Meet Again

In order to establish a lasting connection, small talk needs to end on an invitation to continue the relationship. Be complementary and establish a verbal agreement to meet again, even if it's not business. "You really seem to know your wines. I've enjoyed tapping your wisdom; we should get together sometime to talk about wine. We can both bring one of our more interesting bottles."

Learn to Listen

As William James pointed out, "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."

You should be governed by the idea that one should seek first to understand, then to be understood. We're often so worried about what we're going to say next that we don't hear what's being said to us now.

There are few ways to signal to your listener that you are interested and listening actively. Take the initiative and be the first person to say hello. This demonstrates confidence and immediately shows your interest in the other person. When the conversation starts, don't interrupt. Show empathy and understanding by nodding your head and involving your whole body in engaging the person you're talking with. Ask questions that demonstrate (sincerely) you believe the other person's opinion is particularly worth seeking out. Focus on their triumphs. Laugh at their jokes. And always, always, remember the other person's name. Nothing is sweeter to someone's ears than their own name. At the moment of introduction, I visually attach a person's name to their face. Seconds later, I'll repeat the person's name to make sure I got it, and then again periodically throughout the conversation.

If All Else Fails, Five Words That Never Do

"You're wonderful. Tell me more."

The late professor Thomas Harrell of Stanford's Graduate School of Business loved researching the traits of alumni. His chief finding, as you now know, is that successful graduates are social, communicative, and outgoing. "Getting-along skills," more than anything else, determined who got ahead.

And that's why the legacy of Dale Carnegie—the first person to sell small talk as a corporate skill—remains intact, nearly seven decades after the 1 9 3 6 release of his bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People.

For Carnegie, too, small talk became a means for self-advancement.

Born in 1 8 8 8 , the son of a Missouri pig farmer who struggled all his life, Carnegie grew up ashamed of being poor. The feeling never quite wore off, a n d , as a young man, he contemplated suicide. W h e n he was twenty-four, and struggling for subsistence in N e w York City, Carnegie offered to teach night classes in public speaking at the 1 25th Street Y M C A . Fewer than ten students attended his first class. For weeks, Carnegie shared with his students the skills he'd learned as a standout high school debater and as a student at Missouri State Teachers College. He taught people how to shirk shyness, boost self-confidence, and ease worry, using ideas that amount, then and now, to common sense. Remember people's names. Be a good listener. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.

After his first several classes, Carnegie ran out of stories to tell. So he asked his students to stand up and talk about their own experiences—and offered feedback on their performances. It was then that he realized that as students overcame their fear of taking the floor, and became more comfortable talking openly about themselves, their self-confidence rose accordingly.

In Carnegie's classes, businessmen, salesmen, and other professionals found a place devoted to affordable, commonsensical selfimprovement. By 1 9 1 6 , Carnegie's course was so successful that he needed to train, for the first time, official "Dale Carnegie Course" instructors. By 1 9 2 0 , Carnegie had published Public Speaking, an official text that he used to launch Carnegie courses in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

And it's possible none of it would've happened had not

Carnegie encouraged his initial classes to open up and to share their stories. It's no wonder Carnegie never failed to stress listening as a crucial networking skill. In an age when computers and e-mail take the personal touch out of doing business, Carnegie's homespun logic remains as relevant as ever. People, after all, are still people, and w h o couldn't use a reminder of lessons like:

• "Become genuinely interested in other people."

• "Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves."

• "Let the other person do a great deal of the talking."

• "Smile."

• "Talk in terms of the other person's interests."

• "Give honest and sincere appreciation."

Though he successfully applied the fundamentals of smart smalltalking to his own life, Carnegie was reluctant—at first—to share his secrets in book form. The course cost $75, and Carnegie wasn't keen on giving away its content. But Leon Shimkin, an editor at Simon & Schuster, was a passionate graduate of Carnegie's classes. Shimkin finally convinced Carnegie, to the benefit of us all, to write a book. "Perhaps by practicing the very sort of flattery and persistence that Mr. Carnegie himself advocated and admired—Mr. Shimkin won him over," wrote Edwin McDowell in the New York Times in 1 9 8 6 .

For Shimkin, and millions more like him, Carnegie emboldened us with the belief that we can learn to get along better with other people—and achieve great success—no matter w h o we are or how poor we were.