Benjamin Franklin Offers The ONLY Management Advice You'll Ever NEED
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- Playboy to Poster Boy
- Before EQ, there was BF
He was a playboy and the poster boy for the US Treasury.
He was a "rock star" of his age (drugs and groupies!).
He was a renowned scientist and famed diplomat (and boudoir legend during his time as US Ambassador to France).
He liked to swim, invented swim fins and earned himself a spot in the International swimming Hall of Fame (1968).
He was also chubby, bespectacled, balding and ineloquent.
So how can a dude who looks like this, do all that?
Let Benjamin Franklin tell you:
“I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertions of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as ‘certainly,’ ‘undoubtedly’, etc. I adopted instead of them ‘I conceive’, ‘I apprehend’, or ‘I imagine a thing to be so-and-so’, or ‘it so appears to me at present’.
When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition. And, in answering, I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances, his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared to me to be some difference, etc.
I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner. The conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction.
I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more eagerly prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.
And this mode which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, because at length so easy and so habitual to me, that perhaps for these fifty years past, no one has ever heard a dogmatic expression escape me. And to this habit I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow citizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member.
For I was such a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language and yet I generally carried my point.” (from his autobiography)
Ben Franklin gained the respect, esteem and fellowship of colleagues and opponents alike because he practised "friction-less" interactions with people.
It worked for him.
It'll work for you.
Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. - Benjamin Franklin
Feel free to comment.
Duff Watkins, a former psychotherapist, hosts the podcast 10 Lessons It Took 50 Years To Learn and is Director of ExecSearch International- Australia.
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Chief Cyber Security Strategist
9y.... or the proper choice of not saying word's. Seems to be a lesson in there about listening carefully, even fools have something to say. Not always an easy thing to do. Great article.
Project Manager
9yAhhh.... The proper choice of words.... Proper word selection (with proper tone)for the current situation seems to be more and more difficult for people to employ as we become more obsessed with personal rights. I especially agree with Ben's choice to be more likeable and more approachable to those around him. If you are not perceived as a direct threat, people will be more likely to agree with you and to support you. They will also tend to lend you support when you are wrong about something. To promote the concept, I tend to agree with Ben in most situations. ;-) Thanks for the post!