[saurik]

If your goal is to change the world--incepting some politician to change their position or some businessperson to alter their product--that makes a lot of sense... if you are working for some company extracting value from you, why would you ever do this? I can't imagine it would help your career any... shouldn't you be spending all of that effort finding a less toxic place to work?

[mypalmike]

It's not toxicity though - it's human psychology. The classic book "How To Win Friends And Influence People" even mentions this strategy when discussing winning people over to your ideas.

People are far more willing to promote an idea they played a role in creating than one which they are just a passive party to. In large organizations, getting buy-in is critical to moving anything forward, so you need to have higher-ups going to bat for your ideas.

One way to use this approach to your career advantage is to make sure you are a few steps ahead once the idea takes hold. This makes it clear that you also had the idea, and you were smart enough to consider the consequences of it.

[bergstromm466]

> "How To Win Friends And Influence People"

"This book had a profound effect on me, however, of the negative variety. It did give me pointers on how to actually break out of my shell and "win friends" but in the long term, it did way more harm than good. Not the book per se, but my choice to follow the advice given there. The book basically tells you to be agreeable to everybody, find something to honestly like about them and compliment them on it, talk about their interests only and, practically, act like a people pleaser all the time.

It might sound like a harmless, or even attractive idea in theory, but choosing to apply it in your every day life can lead to dangerous results. Case in point: after being a smiley happy person with loads of friends for about a year, the unpleasant realization began to creep in, that by being so agreeable to everybody else, I rarely ever got my way. I also sustained friendships with people who were self-centered, so talking about their interests was all we got to do together, which drained me of my energy. The worst thing still, is that by trying to find something to like about every person, I completely disregarded their glaring faults. It didn't matter that those people did have redeeming qualities - they weren't redeeming enough! I ended up with a bunch of friends I didn't really want and, because I was so preoccupied with "winning" those friendships I missed out on the chance to form relationships with good people.

I suppose, for somebody who is a better judge of character, the principles outlined in this book could be of some value. But that's really just me trying to find something positive (using the "principles") in a book that I am still trying to UN learn.

If you want to win friends, you have to do it the hard way, by being yourself and risking rejection (and daring to do some rejection of your own, as well). And if you want to influence people the only fair way to do it is through honesty. All the rest is manipulation and pretending. Do not read this book, you'll only learn how to manipulate yourself & others. Do not read it out of fear of rejection & low self-esteem, there are better ways to gain some courage in approaching people. This will harm you in the long run.

Thank you for reading this review." — Caroline [1]

I'm sharing this review because trying Carnegie's strategies had the exact same effect on me.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/96767612

[winston_smith]

Advice nudges people in a direction. Carnegie's advice is good for nudging people in the direction of being less self centered. For people pleasers who don't think of themselves enough, it is bad advice. For people too wrapped up in themselves, it is good advice.

[freeone3000]

You're going to want to use the advice there as weapons, to use in order to accomplish goals and build a power base, not for personal fulfilment.

[mypalmike]

Interesting. I have tended to think the book's main flaw is in encouraging some amount of manipulation of others and a degree of artificiality in doing so. I always thought of it in tactical terms for things like business negotiations. It never occurred to me to treat it as a general guidebook to personal interaction, but I can see how that could cause problems.

[nashashmi]

You can’t just keep running from all of your difficult situations. Sometimes the best way to avoid something is figuring it out.

You sometimes see other people never face the same situations you face repeatedly. That is life telling you that you need to learn and that they’ve already figured that part out. That is why when they face the situation it doesn’t seem so intense.

[TheRealSteel]

I agree. I imagine the idea is you do it when you'll still get to lead/work on the project and it'll be enjoyable/beneficial to your career.

[tooltower]

I tend to think of bureaucracies as a mechanism for outsourcing the "real-life" parts of a project I care less about. The marketing, the litigation-responding, the budgeting. The cost is you sometimes have to deal with this. Sometimes it's still worth it. Whether or not it's toxic depends on whether or not you wanted them to take credit for it, or whether it was a surprise.

Not every "idea" that crosses one's mind is worth taking credit for. They are not that great to begin with.

[kortilla]

> if you are working for some company extracting value from you, why would you ever do this?

Because there can be massive monetary rewards for it? (Sorry if that’s the obvious answer we’re all pretending isn’t there.) We’re talking about the Xbox project, where one of the leaders is so rich he pays people to help him cook ancient Egyptian bread for something to do.

[saurik]

Ok, so if you are incepting someone into giving you a pay raise or a dividend or options or a commission on a new project, that makes some sense to me; but if you are just working at a company and have to move mountains to convince people to do something that they will never even be able to appreciate you for it because part of the process was tricking them into thinking it was their own idea, then I guess I am saying you also need to make damned sure that you aren't going to just work for that project and have protection against being replaced on it: you need to incept the further idea that you should get a cut of the upside (which just sounds difficult in a world where you are explicitly diverting any credit for the idea to someone else).

[victor106]

Agree with this. If you’re not going to be recognized for your efforts in someway then what’s the point?

[Gravityloss]

But why would a manager reward someone with only bad and/or non-original ideas?

[dash2]

It’s not necessarily about the environment being toxic. I’ve had the same experience with co-authors. It’s just human nature to forget things other people tell you, and then to suddenly have the idea yourself....

[saurik]

To me the problem was the "I won't do it if it isn't my idea (and so other people have to go out of their way to trick me into thinking their idea is my idea so I don't discard it)" aspect (which I find extremely toxic), not some kind of "I (maybe even accidentally) took credit for your idea because (but if you had corrected me I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem)" angle.