Cambridge Business Association
The 5 Essential People Skills
Book

The 5 Essential People Skills

How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts

Dale Carnegie Training
Touchstone, 2009
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Editorial Rating

6

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Recommendation

Dale Carnegie was the original self-help guru. His book How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic. First published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies and remains popular. Carnegie’s ability to inspire people is legendary. This contemporary bestseller from the Dale Carnegie Training organization distills Carnegie’s teachings about business relationships into five common-sense principles for creating positive, persuasive interactions. getAbstract recommends it to up-and-comers who want to learn how to be assertive in an effective way. You can use this book’s clear “action steps” to change how you relate to others, win their cooperation and approval, and build your assertiveness and self-confidence.

Summary

Assertive Ways to Improve Your Life

To assert yourself effectively enough to influence others, develop the “five essential people skills”: “rapport building, curiosity, communication, ambition” and “conflict resolution.” Empower yourself by applying the recommendations that follow and carrying out the “action steps.”

Begin by developing “assertive interactions” with others. This involves getting people to respond “attentively and positively” to you. Failing to assert yourself blocks your ability to improve your personal interactions. To stand up for yourself, clearly state your “preferences, needs, opinions, grievances and other feelings.” Assertiveness is not aggressiveness. It involves getting in touch with your true feelings through self-reflection and self-assessment, and then expressing these feelings in an appropriate, mature, nonemotional, effective way. If you find it difficult to stand up for yourself, try it in the situations that are least stressful, then move to more troublesome ones. Set deadlines for yourself. Don’t try to win while someone else loses. Aim for a “win-win.” Action step: Grade how assertive you are on a one-to-10 scale. To become more assertive...

About the Author

Dale Carnegie wrote the bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936. The famous Dale Carnegie Training program started to take shape during the 1950s; today, 400 of the Fortune 500 companies are its clients.

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