Few business people are actually aware of how much time they and their colleagues lose to gripe sessions. By committing to resist the temptation to be drawn into the group gripe sessions, you will notice two things: first, that it is culturally very popular to be “one of the gang” when the whining starts; and second, and incredible amount of time and energy is wasted when a team engages in what we at Carnegie refer to as “driving the BMW” (beefing, moaning and whining.)

In one of my most successful initiatives ever, a decade ago, I gave up for Lent grumbling, griping, and whining of any kind. I made the public commitment t on Ash Wednesday, and proceeded to spend the next six weeks studiously revisiting the urge to join negative conversations and whining sessions.

Over the weeks I was involved in a number of very complicated, contentious, stressful strategy meetings. It was challenge enough to stay focused and get productive work done; and the second any one at any boardroom table started driving the BMW, all progress would grind to a halt as meetings disintegrated into whining sessions.

“I’m very sorry,” I was forced to apologize on several occasions. “I gave up grumbling, griping, and whining of any kind for Lent. I’d love to join you in this conversation, but I’m afraid it’s against my religion. Would you mind if we just got back to work?”

In 100 per cent of situations where I brought up my Lenten sacrifice, everyone in the room took it completely seriously. A few fellow Catholics would nod their heads and murmur gravely, instantly understanding that such a commitment had to be respected and honoured. Who could go on griping and whining when it violated such and obviously sacrosanct religious belief? No one! And on we’d go, getting back to the business at hand, BMW parked for the duration.

My Lenten sacrifice worked brilliantly on two levels: it signalled clearly and immediately to all concerned that I would have nothing to do with the whining session; and, it actually worked to make me aware of how much BMW-driving I did myself, and helped me break the habit almost completely.

I have to confess that  not only now give up grumbling, griping and whining of any kind every Lent (I will have to find something new one of these years) but I frequently re-state the commitment at the start of very big initiative. During one important  election campaign I ran, I put a “loonie jar” on the table and asked staff to hold me accountable by making me put a dollar in the jar every time I engaged in any negative talk or whining.

I carefully typed up a label for the jar  which read: “I am personally and professionally committed to: maintaining  a positive attitude, leading by example, working with enthusiasm, and spending absolutely zero minutes in a day criticizing, condemning or complaining.

“I need your help to maintain this commitment. If you catch me driving the BMW, nail me on it and I will put $1 in this jar. All funds will go to finance beer or other refreshments on suitable occasions. Thanks for holding me accountable. “

I brought the labelled jar into the campaign office and with great ceremony, read the label out loud to my assembled team and then signed my name to it in front of them.

Imagine my surprise and delight when one of my most negative and argumentative volunteers stepped forward and declared, “I want to sign it, too!”

“Wow!” I responded, thinking fast. “I was expecting to apply this only to myself – but if you want to get on board, so much the better!”

He signed his name to the loonie  jar label in thick, dark magic marker. For the first few days, whenever he fell back into the habit of grumbling, other campaign workers would leap on the opportunity to tell him “You’re driving the BMW!” and insist he put a loonie in the jar.

Within a short while, however, his entire tone and tenor improved to the point that we could go days at a time without having to listen to the negative tirades that had been commonplace before the advent of the loonie jar.

Even our candidate got into the spirit of things and dropped in a loonie one night on his way out of the office.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked. “You haven’t been griping.”

He paused to think, then explained: “Guilty conscience!” he exclaimed.

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“Man invented language,” comedian Lily Tomlin observed astutely, “to satisfy his deep need to complain.”

Tomlin can usually be counted on to provide amusing insights on life (“Growing up, I always wanted to be somebody,” she once remarked wryly. “I can see now that I should have been more specific.”)

Her comment on complaining as the motivation for language, though, hits particularly close to the mark. After all, just about the first thing human babies do after birth is scream with unhappiness. Some people, it seems, just go on screaming in misery from the doctor’s first slap on the butt in the delivery room until a different doctor ties a tag on their toe decades later.

Actually our Vice PresidentDave Matherhas a great visual analogy for the concept of those people who are forever dissatisfied because they believe Life owes them a living, and that Life is doing an inadequate job holding up its end of the bargain:

“They’re like babies whose umbilical cords were cut but the cord is still attached to their navels. They walk around for the rest of their life, holding onto that cord and looking for a new person to ‘plug it in’ to.”

These people – you know several of them – have yet to figure out that not whiny complaining dependence but cheerful self-reliance is the secret to happiness.

“If a half century of living has taught me anything at all,” Carnegie wrote in ‘Stop Worrying,’ “it has taught me that ‘nothing can bring you happiness but yourself.’

“Milton in his blindness discovered that same truth three hundred years ago:

‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.’

“Napoleon and Helen Keller are perfect illustrations of Milton’s statement,” Carnegie points out. “Napoleon had everything men usually crave – glory, power, riches – yet he said at Saint Helena, ‘I have never known six happy days in my life’; while Helen Keller – blind, deaf, dumb – declared: ‘I have found life so beautiful.’”

“You are not what you think you are,” Norman Vincent Peale said, “but what you think, you are.”

And I would add, what you think manifests itself in your words. The words that come out of your mouth describe the reality you are creating for yourself, and often for others. If they are words of complaint, you have automatically framed your reality as bleak and your character as helpless.

If they are words of hope and encouragement, you are framing your reality as one of accomplishment and your character one of strength.

Why not use language to create instead of complain? Human beings are still evolving, after all. Here’s your chance to support evolution! Stop crying because the doctor slapped your butt at birth and go do something productive. And say something encouraging to someone just for the sake of it, while you’re at it.

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My smart and beautiful neighbour Vicky returned  from a Maple Leafs’ game with clients, exploding  in frustration.

“And  then, one of our customers said to me, ‘My goodness, aren’t you flirt?’” she recounted furiously.

“I am so sick of it. I laced into him. ‘I am being friendly and outgoing, which is part of my job. I am not doing anything you aren’t doing. And listen,’ she spat, ‘I could be home with my family right now. I don’t need to be here watching you guzzle beer. I don’t need you. I don’t need your business, and I don’t need your referrals.’”

“Whoa, whoa!” I cringed. “Hang on for just a second!” I was imagining this poor guy’s shocked reaction to her tirade. “Maybe he thought he was paying you a compliment. Men can be thick, especially after several beers.”

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But all these men know I’m married. Most of them just make inappropriate remarks, but some of them actually hit on me. Why should I have to put up with this junk just to do my job?”

“Because they know you’ll rise to the bait,” I pointed out. “If you had the confidence to laugh off that remark, or return fire with a funny quip, men would stop doing it. Or, they’d do it but you wouldn’t notice or care. It’s the fact that you both notice and care that motivates them to press you.”

“Hmmmm,” she mused. “That could be true.”

“Create some lines ahead of time so you always know what to say,” I suggested.  “And then change the subject. If a man tells you you’re beautiful, tell him, ‘Thank you, my husband tells me that every morning’ and then ask him about product pricing.”

She laughed, and we spent a few minutes having fun devising some all-purpose lines, like “I bet your wife loves it when you say such nice things to her! How about those Leafs, eh?”

Walking home thinking about which Carnegie principles I would recommend in a situation like Vicky’s,  it occurred to  me: maybe what she needs isn’t a dose of Dale. Maybe she needs to adopt some of the iron-clad confidence and unstoppable attitudes of one of Dale Carnegie’s contemporaries, one of the smartest businesswomen of the 20^th century.

This woman was brilliant, ambitious, and so attractive that her name literally became a dictionary definition.

She began performing when she was 7 years old. Later she wrote her own plays, and when no men would produce them, she financed them herself and made a fortune.

A single one of her films was credited with saving Paramount Pictures  from bankruptcy. In 1935, she was the second-highest paid person in the United States, after William Randolph Hearst.

She was one of the earliest supporters of gay rights, and when once her landlord balked at allowing her black boyfriend visit her apartment, she solved the problem by buying the building.

Her enormous productivity and effortless wit were legendary; she has never been equalled.

I am speaking, of course, of Mae West. Surprise!

Most of western society recalls Mae West for one attribute only: her sexiness.

But she was also one of the sharpest minds – and the best writers – of her age. She didn’t just project confidence, she personified it. No man could fluster her, although legions of them tried (including morality groups, politicians, and law enforcers. She was actually jailed 10 days for allegedly ‘corrupting the morals of youth.’ While in prison, she dined with the Warden and his wife, and got two days off for good behaviour).

What does absolute, unshakable business and personal confidence sound like? A lot like Mae West:

“One and one make two; two and two make four. Five will get you twenty if you know what you’re doing.”

“Keep cool and collect.”

“An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.”

“A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.”

“Don’t ever make the same mistake twice, unless it pays.” 

Man: “When it comes to you, I’m dynamite.”

Mae: “And I’m your match.”

Man: “I wonder what kind of woman you are?”

Mae: “Sorry, I don’t give out samples.”

Man: “Can you handle it?”

Mae: “Yeah, and I can kick it around, too!”

Dale Carnegie said, “We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.”

Mae West said, “It isn’t what I do, but how I do it. It isn’t what I say, but how I say it. And, how I look when I do and say it.”

I think Vicky and all women in business could use an ounce of Mae West, along with their pound of Dale Carnegie.

When I became  Director of Communications for the Minister of Health, my counterpart as Director of Policy was Dr. Jo Kennelly.

Jo  is easily one of the most brilliant policy minds in Canada, having worked previously for the Prime Ministers of New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Her Ph.D  from Cambridge made my high school diploma look like a piece of Kleenex, and her political connections – especially in the Prime Minister’s Office – were intimidating . Our Minister loved her and respected her opinion above all others. She is a force of nature.

I got off to a rocky start in my new job, beginning  with  the very  first speech I wrote: I had been unable to nail the Minister down to work on it, which left me writing a speech based on guesswork, hoping to get his changes after he’d read it.

At 11pm the night before he was to deliver it, he called Jo and told her he hated the speech.

First thing the next morning, Jo approached me and told me that the speech  had to be changed.

“Fine,” I replied. “I’ll change it.”

“No,” Jo said. “There isn’t time. You don’t know enough about the policy. I want someone else to write it.”

My “precious ego” (as Dale Carnegie would describe it) could not possibly allow such a thing.

“Absolutely not,” I insisted. “I am the Director of Communications; I will re-write the speech.”

My balkiness stressed Jo terribly: every line, every word of a policy document matters to her tremendously, and she was frantically concerned that my speech would contain inaccuracies. I resented her lack of faith in my abilities. We eventually got the speech corrected and finalized, but the process was painful and it drained away much of the good will that might have automatically developed between us.

Jo  kept us all too busy to think about anything but the task at hand; she was a policy machine, developing new programs, securing funding for new initiatives, meeting with stakeholders.  I had to be in awe of her intelligence, her diligence and her energy level.

Every couple of days she would turn up at my desk and say “Hey.”

“Hey” meant: “I’ve finished work on a new policy initiative and I need you to put together an announcement rollout.”

As I had to respect Jo’s brilliance in all things related to policy and stakeholder relations, she came to admire my ability to get announcements approved and delivered. Some of the largest rollouts in Canada’s history – including Canada’s new Food Guide, the Chemicals Management Plan, and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer – involved the two of us working together in lockstep. We held some kind of record for having the Prime Minister at more of our announcements than any other portfolio, the highest compliment in our industry.

I used to get so many accolades and compliments at these launch events that I had to admit to Jo: “You know, I get all the credit for your work. You slave over the policy for months, then I set up the announcement and get all the credit; it’s like you carry the baby for nine months and then I deliver it and tell everyone, ‘Look what a brilliant job I did!’” Jo loved this analogy.

Along with my 30 Carnegie principles, I posted a quote on my office door by famed speechwriter Peggy Noonan: “Great speeches are based on great policy.”

A major turning point for us took place at a Federal/Provincial/Territorial (FPT) meeting of Health Ministers.  I wanted our Minister’s  opening remarks to be inspiring and to show leadership. The bureaucrats at Intergovernmental Affairs, however, insisted he deliver the same old boring non-offensive non-remarks every Federal minister had been delivering since the dawn of time.

Knowing  my preferred remarks would never get approved, I took a different tact. I wrote up one simple page of ideas, which I handed to the Minister in the car on the way to the airport. He stuffed it in his briefcase, and it was never mentioned it again.

When it came time to open the conference, the Minister pulled out some papers.

“Like you,” he began, “I am an elected politician. Every one of us here was elected by our constituents, not to argue over what can’t be done, but to envision what CAN be done, and to work together to make it happen for Canadians…”

He was using my notes! I was delighted. Then I noticed our Deputy Minister – the highest ranking official in the room – glowering  at me. He glared at me with absolute venom in his eyes for several minutes. If looks could kill, I was a dead woman. Uh-oh. My mouth went dry.

Then my blackberry buzzed. It was a message from Jo  – sitting across the room, she had seen the Deputy cast me the evil eye.

“How DARE we be inspiring!” Jo wrote. “Great remarks, Rita!” I looked up to see her smiling.

That year, on February 14^th, I was at my desk late – and Jo was too. At 8:30pm she showed up in my door.

“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing for Valentine’s Day? Do you want to go out for a drink?”

“That is a GREAT idea!” I laughed. We shut down our computers and flew out the door, the last two people in the Minister’s office, heading out to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We dropped into a local pub, where we talked  for hours. It truly was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” which endures to this day and has only grown stronger with time, as we continue to work on projects together now that we are both out in the private sector again.

 “If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I will tell you who you are,” Dale Carnegie wrote.  “That determines your character. That is the most significant thing about you.”

Both Jo and I are completely committed to being excellent and professional in our jobs. It is the most significant thing about each of us. Because of this, we were able to overcome our early tensions,  and work to do the best job possible for Canadians.

Hey! What could be better than that?

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On October 8, 2005, the front page of the Globe and Mail was horrifying. A major earthquake had hit Pakistan in an area so remote  that more than 20,000 people were expected to be dead and there was not even a plan to recover their bodies. They would stay where they lay, buried in rubble, gone forever, with no hope of rescue or even respectful internment;  it was as though they had never existed.

After coffee, I put on my running clothes and headed out the door to Sunnybrook Hospital, 3.5 miles away. I was reporting for my very first day of radiation treatment for breast cancer.

It was a lovely crisp fall morning and my run seemed  effortless. When I came in sight of the sprawling Sunnybrook complex, I felt an unexpected rush of euphoria. I did it! I ran to my first radiation appointment. I felt grateful – for my health, for our cancer care system, for Canada.

As I approached the entrance to Sunnybrook, a police car with sirens wailing raced down Bayview Avenue and came to an abrupt stop at the driveway. An officer jumped out and stopped all traffic, northbound and southbound. Rush hour  ground to a halt as the officer, arms extended and  palms facing outward in both directions, ordered all movement  to cease.

Respectful Toronto drivers slammed on their brakes; cars were backed up for blocks in either direction. A  sudden and eerie quiet descended upon the street.  From several blocks away I could hear the siren of an ambulance as it raced toward the hospital.

I stood transfixed on the sidewalk, mesmerized  by the drama before me. The ambulance roared south through the empty northbound lane of Bayview. Lights flashing, siren screaming, it slowed only slightly to make a sharp turn into the Sunnybrook driveway. Inside that ambulance, a human being was hovering between life and death, and every resource our society had to offer – police, ambulance, healthcare – was utterly focused and dedicated to saving that person’s life. One, single person – a stranger to everyone involved.

Hundreds of drivers, busy people on the way to work, had screeched to a halt and waited, in unison, at the simple lift of a police officer’s hand. It was like watching a ballet, or a symphony of a kind. For a brief moment, it seemed, a “veil” was lifted from between the reality we take for granted everyday, and the true magical, miracle that is life in Canada. I could actually see the miracle with my eyes, which were filled with tears.

My heart, which had been filled with gratitude only moments before just because I’d finished my first run to Sunnybrook, was almost bursting at the sight of a city stopping to save the life of a stranger – and a society which had the means and took the responsibility to do so.

Upon returning home that morning, I mentioned this irony to my son Tom, who was studying economics.

“In Pakistan 20,000 people died and there is not even going to be a rescue attempt. In Toronto, one dying person brought a whole corner of the city to a halt,” I described. “It’s like we don’t even live on the same planet.”

“Well, of course, Ma,” Tom pointed out logically. “That’s the difference between living in a developed or an undeveloped nation.”

“The words ‘Think and Thank!’ are inscribed in many of the Cromwellian churches of England,” Dale Carnegie wrote in Stop Worrying.

“These words ought to be inscribed on our hearts, too: ‘Think and Thank.’ Think of all we have to be grateful for, and thank God for all our boons and bounties…if we want to stop worrying and start living…count your blessings – not your troubles!

 “About 90 per cent of the things in our lives are right and about 10 per cent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is concentrate on the 90 per cent that are right. If we want to be worried and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 10 per cent that are wrong and ignore the 90 per cent that are glorious.”

Oh, Canada! Thank you to all the elected politicians, loyal opposition, dedicated civil servants, hard-working political staffers, generous volunteers, diligent journalists, voters, taxpayers, and law-abiding citizens who make the miracle happen. It truly is glorious, 100 per cent glorious.

Classified’s version of Oh Canada: the best! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF62J3vxPdQ&ob=av2n

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People are on auto pilot anyway when it comes to work, a job or team. AREN’T THEY?
People don’t really need to get to know one another to be emotionally connected to achieve team goals, DO THEY?  

Well I don’t know about you, but my experience has been that the best teams I had were out to achieve something for the team and themselves. They were more willing to do things that were uncomfortable to them when they had team support and when they felt part of a growing, committed team and when they were part of team projects that everyone was contributing to.  Business can be boring and tedious without some kind of team bond, spirit of fun and camaraderie.

This kind of team culture is created.  On its own, a culture can become self-defeating through normal misunderstandings, lack of respect for individual differences, and too many critical communications and conversations.  It seems impossible to achieve anything together without legal threats or some kind of time consuming, over-supervision.  As for real commitment and accountability, FORGET IT.  
So in these times when we need everyone to do the heavy lifting, a close, well-bonded team purposely taking their understanding of one another to a mature and reasonable level, sparks a whole new productive direction that can last for years.  I can think of great examples of this power at work. 

For example, my son’s first day at Appleby College, a private high school, where success was openly talked about in a team meeting (all sitting on the floor, including the parents) conducted by the faculty, Wow! I remember thinking this place is different. It was. 
Or reading about how Canada’s Junior Hockey Team always had a pre-game on-ice sessions where each player talked about themselves, their aspirations, and their feelings about being selected to this world renowned team. 
Or remembering all the team projects I was involved in with so many customers like Hatch or Johnson Controls or CIBC/Wood Gundy, where incredible team spirit and togetherness was achieved while each individual was improving their own performance, and at the same time, contributing to small team projects that improved the overall business.  Leaders like Ron Nolan the CEO of Hatch or Jim Beqaj of CIBC/Wood Gundy, or Warren Martin of Johnson Controls, understood this power and kept teams learning and improving the business together.  

How do you get exceptional team performance?  Here are some ideas:

1. Bring teams together talking about themselves, their aspirations, and goals. (Don’t rush into business improvement demands)  Let people get to know each other in a sincere and real way.   If you are going to comment, only mention strengths so everyone can see how they are perceived and appreciated.

2. Have them set personal and business goals and bring in someone to facilitate growth and changes in behavior and habits.

3. Divide the team into smaller units who take on an innovation or  problem solving project that is needed for the business.  Again you might want to bring in someone to facilitate the process. 

4. Be sure to record and recognize all improvements, personal, team, and business.    
These are the kinds of things I have seen work for years.  They can work for you and your team.
 
What ideas occurred to you while reading this?
What could you do to increase your team’s performance? 
As always, your comments and/or questions are welcomed. 
Have a great week.

Robert Foster, one of the most successful political fundraisers in Canada, once told our executive how he approached large donors so successfully.

“These people have money, they can afford to give it away, and they’re going to give it away,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t ask them to give it to the Blue Party, or the Red Party, or the Green Party. I ask for it on behalf of Democracy. I tell them they are contributing to Democracy, they are supporting Democracy – and they give me the money. For Democracy.”

This is not only a brilliant approach in my opinion, but one that has seldom failed in my experience.

“Appeal to the nobler motives,” Carnegie designated Principle #19, and virtually every time I do, I am successful. People love to be part of something that is larger than themselves, more important than their own immediate circumstances, and which benefits the greater community. It gives them a feeling of significance and goodness that they find tremendously gratifying.

A neighbour of mine used to sell for Atlantic Packaging, a Toronto-based company which was founded fifty years ago on the principle of using only recycled paper – decades before that idea became popular. Atlantic Packaging can proudly and truthfully say that for all of the millions of tons of paper product it has shipped over the years, it has never killed a tree!

“When I call on a customer,”Dee told me once, “they can tell me a competitor’s product is cheaper, or they may tell me a competitor’s product has features ours doesn’t have, and intellectually we both know that to be true. But when I tell them that ours is recycled and helping the environment, not hurting it, they know they cannot argue, and they have to buy my product. It makes them feel good to buy my product, and they do.”  

“The fact is,” Carnegie wrote in Win Friends, “that all people you meet have a high regard for themselves and like to be fine and unselfish in their own estimation…all of us, being idealists at heart, like to think of motives that sound good. So, in order to change people, appeal to nobler motives.”

I have loved Barry Devolin since he gave up a career in real estate to work for the Minister of Natural Resources in the Ontario government. When I first met Barry, he was ambling around the Premier’s Office in a cozy knit cardigan (quite distinctive in a culture of “power suits”) and had a little gurgling quartz water fountain on his desktop.

“It’s part of my plan,” he explained. “If we lose the next election and the left wing gets back in, maybe I’ll look enough like one of them that maybe they’ll forget to fire me.”

Actually, we did lose the next election and of course all of us got “fired” promptly, but Barry had the last laugh, as he went on to win in the federal election and is now the Member of Parliament for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes.

I kept a running file of “Barry-isms,” as he regularly dropped  quiet, insightful little rural pearls of wisdom.

Once, discussing the fact that three female union leaders had publicly commented on an issue while the lone male boss in their midst had yet to reveal his position, Barry compared it to hunting for white-tailed deer inEastern Ontario:

“A smart buck will stay back and let three does cross a clearing first,” he noted. “If the third doe makes it across without getting shot, the buck figures it’s safe enough for him to emerge.

“Of course,” he finished, “a smart hunter lets the first three does cross, hoping that will draw out the buck.”

So there we were, the brilliant team of crack communications strategists, basing our negotiating plans on an age-old hunters’ strategy!

I saw Barry in Ottawa years later and Parliament hadn’t changed his wit or humour one little bit. Pleased to have been elected, he was keenly aware that the minority government of the day could fall at any time, and that he would then be plunged into another election battle to keep his seat.

“Waking up every day knowing you could be 38 days from unemployment tends to keep you focused,” he commented wryly.

Of all the “Barry-isms” I can recall, my absolute favourite has always been this one:

“If you wrestle with a skunk,” Barry used to warn as we prepared to plunge headlong into yet another round of political mud-slinging, “even if you win, you both stink when you get up.”

Dale Carnegie offered a similar observation in Stop Worrying: “As a farm boy, I trapped four-legged skunks along the hedgerows inMissouri; and as a man, I encountered a few two-legged skunks on the sidewalks ofNew York. I have found from sad experience that it doesn’t pay to stir up either variety.”

Both Dale Carnegie and Barry Devolin were pointing out that some things just don’t pay: wrestling with skunks is one of those things.

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Interviewing one of Canada’s most successful businessmen recently, I was fascinated by his insight into prioritization and commitment.

Jim Hjartarson is the CEO of OneChip Photonics, an Ottawa firm poised to become one of the world’s leading suppliers of FTTH components (Fibre to the Home). Hjartarson is a 30-year veteran of the telecommunications industry. He was a co-founder and CEO of Catena Networks; co-founder and VP of the Telecommunications Design Centre at Cadence Design Systems and, before then, he served as Director of Access Peripheral Design at Nortel Networks.

 Hjartarson feels strongly that negative attitudes and too much playing ‘devil’s advocate’ can grind progress to a halt: “People tend to get the results they focus on,” he said. “In an environment in which people spend a large part of their time preparing to defend their work against challenge or argument, that energy is not going into the primary project.

“In fact,” he noted, “I believe that when a company pours a large amount of energy into developing a ‘Plan B’ in case ‘Plan A’ fails, they are almost guaranteeing the failure of Plan A by this very process. You need to know what you want, and commit to putting your energies there.”

Hjartarson’s observation is basically a 21^st century update of the story of explorer Hernando Cortes: legend has it that after landing on the Yucatan Peninsula in 1519, Cortes overheard some of his men worrying that they were doomed to be defeated in battle. The men were making a plan to get back to their ships and sail away before such a defeat could occur.

In response, Cortes had all the ships in the harbour set on fire and burned to destruction.

“Now,” he told his men, “fight, or die. If we sail back to Spain, we will sail in their ships.”

Napoleon Hill wrote, “Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut off all sources of retreat. Only by doing so can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win, essential to success.”

Dale Carnegie, of course, phrases it in plainer language (because, he’s Dale). He quotes Abraham Lincoln: “If I were to try to read, much less to answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

As Jim Hjartarson notes, focusing too much energy on developing a ‘Plan B’ in case ‘Plan A’ fails almost guarantees the failure of Plan A. You need to know what you want, and commit to putting your energies there.

“Do the very best you can,” Dale Carnegie advised simply. “Then put up your old umbrella, and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of your neck.”

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Some years ago when I was seeking office space, I found the perfect space two short blocks from my home.

I worried a bit on moving in, because I have quirky professional habits as a writer – listening to funky World music and burning Tibetan incense. I was concerned that my neighbours might be irritated by the sounds or the smells emanating from my office.

That was before I met the tenant next door. John Grigoriadis is a very successful real estate agent, regularly closing huge, expensive deals.  One year he got involved in a nasty lawsuit and paid his lawyer more money in legal fees than I earned in the whole year – “And this lawyer is an a–hole, I don’t trust him at all,” he fumed. “But who knows, the next guy I get might even be worse! Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t know,” he advised me seriously.

John’s habits while working are even more extreme than mine. He smokes brutally strong Turkish cigarettes that cloud up the whole floor. He doesn’t play music while he works. Instead, he shouts into the phone at lawyers, mortgage brokers, purchasers, vendors, and especially other real estate agents.

“You cashed the f—— deposit cheque, you b—–d, when you knew you weren’t supposed to! I oughta come over there and break your neck, you f—— a–hole!” was the litany one day. “You cost me this deal, and you’ll never do business in this town again, I promise you that, you f—— idiot!”

Somehow, I’ve never found the sounds or the smells coming from the office next door disturbing but rather, ironically hilarious. Here I am in my sunny yellow office promoting Dale Carnegie programs and writing articles on positive communications, to a background soundtrack of histrionic shouting and vein-popping anger accompanied by billowing clouds of stinky tobacco smoke.

“Do you know,” I couldn’t help smiling one day, “that when I moved in I was worried my music and incense might disturb you? Of course, that was before I found out about the Turkish cigarettes and the 100 decibel phone calls.”

“Really? Can you hear me next door?” he asked, wide-eyed with sincere and anxious concern. He considerately waved away a thick plume of smoke. “I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“No, it makes me laugh,” I admitted. “It’s like I’m living in a situation comedy and you are the most extreme character in the piece. And the tobacco smoke reminds me of the Pall Malls my mother used to smoke, so I don’t even mind that.”

One day, we reached the ironic extreme. Returning from a meeting about a happy community event, I passed John’s door to hear him screaming at a purchaser. “Don’t you even think about walking away from this deal!” he was thundering. “You go to that lady and give her that cheque right now, you b—–d, or I swear to God I’ll come over there and shoot you myself!”

Holy mackerel, I thought. If anything ever happens I’ll have to tell the police I heard death threats being uttered. For the first time I actually worried about the shouting coming from next door.

I paused for a moment to wonder what Dale Carnegie would have said to my neighbour John. I think Carnegie would have offered up these tips from “Win Friends” entitled “You can’t win an argument:”

• Welcome the disagreement – it could be your opportunity to be corrected before you make a serious mistake; 
• Distrust your instinctive first impression; 
• Control your temper; 
• Listen first; 
• Look for areas of agreement; 
• Be honest; 
• Promise to think over your opponents ideas and study them carefully; 
• Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest; 
• Postpone action to give both sides time to think through the problem.

“The only way to get the best of an argument,” Carnegie summarized, “is to avoid it.”

I imagine John’s response. “What does he know, the f—— b—–d? This Dale Carnegie guy ever crosses me, he’ll never sell real estate in this town again!”

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