Books

Evergreen life skills manual

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie; Pocket Books; Price: Rs.115; 276 pp

The general forecast that President George W. Bush, author of the US-Iraq war (2003) would get a hostile reception when he visited India last month was belied — the shenanigans of habitually ill-mannered communists and fringe elements apart. Several years earlier, just before the completion of his eight year term as president, Bill Clinton also received a rapturous reception in the subcontinent. And every incumbent of the White House — Richard Nixon included — before that. It’s useless denying it: inimical US policy notwithstanding, America’s presidents — indeed all its leaders, political and business — radiate disarming personal charm which compels people around the world to distinguish between official US policy allegedly framed by machiavellian bureaucrats in Washington, and the folksy, likeable leaders forced to endorse them.

But one shouldn’t entertain any illusions. That easy-going, winning charm that America’s presidents and business leaders project, is practiced. Directly or indirectly, all top-rank American leaders are schooled in life skills education popularised way back in the early 20th century by the most widely read self-improvement manual in global history — How to Win Friends and Influence People. Written in 1936 by the legendary Dale Carnegie, an educator who began teaching a public speaking course under the same title in 1912, this pioneer life skills handbook has inspired thousands of imitations and spawned the entire life skills education industry — and arguably, the business management sub-discipline of human resource management — flourishing in the US and beginning to be belatedly appreciated worldwide.

Living and working in perhaps the most ill-mannered and insensitive societies on God’s good earth, your reviewer always entertained an ambition to read this widely acclaimed book, whose aggregate sale over the past seven decades has crossed the mind-boggling 115,000,000 landmark. But for reasons of — I confess it with shame — unwarranted intellectual pride and left-inspired anti-Americanism, this altruisitic ambition was suppressed.

Yet decades later, continuous sufferance of the insolence of office, the proud man’s contumely juxtaposed with the smooth charm offensives of presidents Clinton and Bush, and the good humour and friendliness of visiting American businessmen and academics prompted a rethink of an ill-considered, unnatural decision. Hence this belated review.

And after reading How to Win Friends, I can understand why America’s political and business leaders reared on self-improvement literature of this genre, are the most successful in the world. This vintage volume taught two generations of Americans the most important lesson of them all: that to succeed in business or politics, the most important quality required is the art of winning friends and influencing people.

"Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer," says Carnegie in the foreword of this hugely under-rated opus.

Almost a century on, corporate India hitherto notorious for its tyrannical, abusive lalas, maliks and kiss-up and kick-down professionals, is beginning to discover the validity of this business insight. But not the country’s education institutions where the dominant opinion seems to be that teaching people management skills (aka good manners) is a superfluous bourgeois vanity. Which is one explanation for the Pacific size gap between American and Indian industry.

Within the high-brow intelligentsia, the ‘how to’ genre of self-improvement handbooks tends to be dismissed as motley collections of self-evident truisms. But the value of this trail blazing people management almanac which has effortlessly survived the scorn of forgotten intellectuals, is that it is packed with real-life narratives and anecdotes detailing the transformational power of life skills nostrums first prescribed in this enduring guide which is still keeping cash registers ringing in bookshops around the world.

From the very first chapter titled ‘Fundamental techniques in handling people’, which warns against the folly of rushing to judgement — a famous cultural weakness of Indians — the book contains a treasure trove of immediately usable advice on ways and means to win friends and influence people. The "big secret" of success discloses the author, is to motivate — rather than command — people to do your bidding. To substantiate this seemingly self-evident, but seldom practised assertion, carefully researched anecdotes from the lives of inspirational leaders such as Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin are profusely cited.

The third and fourth chapters which should be mandatory reading for all — politicians, businessmen, educators and students included — are titled ‘How to win people to your way of thinking’ and ‘Be a leader: How to change people without giving offence or arousing resentment’. In keeping with the overall structure, each chapter is divided into several sub-chapters detailing valuable advice on techniques and methodologies to win the golden opinions and regard of employers, customers, fellow employees and sundry other people whose goodwill and cooperation is necessary for success in all vocations and professions.

Written in the deceptively easy and direct style for which Americans are famous, prima facie, How to Win Friends is a do-good prescription of a folksy American missionary. But in reality this is a heavily researched work which offers priceless advice on how to develop vital people management skills — the prerequisite of success in all walks of life.

Looking back, I wish I had read Carnegie earlier. It would have saved me a lot of pain, frustration and regret while helping me to greater success in my numerous endeavours.

Enduring mystery

Story of the Delhi Iron Pillar by R. Balasubramaniam; Foundation Books; Price: Rs.195; 140 pp

Contrary to popular belief India was a major player in the global metallurgy industry long before the late J.N. Tata established the Tata Iron and Steel Co in Jamshedpur in 1907 and the London-based steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal started grabbing newspaper headlines around the world. It is arguable that Indian scientists and technologists were producing high quality corrosion-resistant iron and steel as early as 400 AD.

There is considerable evidence of the ingenuity of ancient India’s metallurgists in the form of permanent installations, museum exhibits and pillars adorning places of worship across the country. The most famous of these — one which has defied and confounded students and professors of metallurgy in India and abroad — is the 32 ft high pillar of rust-free iron, sited contiguous to the 239 ft tall red and buff sandstone Qutb Minar and constructed by Qutb-ud-Din Aibak in 1199 to commemorate the victory of Moham-mud Ghori over the Rajputs in 1192.

And the wonder of this metallurgical marvel is that it has not rusted or succumbed to atmospheric corrosion despite being unprotected against the elements for over 1,600 years. During the past two centuries since the existence of this wonder pillar was brought to public attention by British archaeologist James Prinsep in 1817, over 250 books have been written on the subject. The first systematic research was done by British metallurgist Sir Robert Hodfield in 1912, and since then several scientists from across the world have researched, presented papers and written books on the iron pillar.

The latest title is Prof. R. Balasubramaniam’s Story of the Delhi Iron Pillar — a simplified version of his earlier treatise on the subject titled Delhi Iron Pillar: New Insights which targeted metallurgy professionals, scholars and academics. Unlike its predecessor, this one is for lay readers, particularly higher secondary students. Its stated objective is to arouse student interest in history, metallurgy and archaeology and to encourage them to undertake fieldwork, self-study and research. "It is sincerely hoped that the imagination especially of young readers, will be fired by the facts and ideas presented in this book," writes Balasubramaniam.

The Story of the Delhi Iron Pillar traces the history of this metallur-gical masterpiece and recounts that it was engineered in Udayagiri. The author reveals that the iron pillar was originally installed atop a hill near Udayagiri in the hinterland of Madhya Pradesh during the reign of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (374-413 AD) of the Gupta dynasty. The original site of the pillar was the exact location where the imaginary line of the Tropic of Cancer crosses India and where one can observe the sun rising at zero degree in the east and setting at zero degree in the west on spring and autumn equinox days. However in 1234 King Iltutmish (1210-36), the third sultan of Delhi’s slave dynasty, captured Udayagiri and transported the pillar to Delhi as part of his victory booty.

The incumbent professor of materials and metallurgical engineering at IIT-Kanpur, Balasubramaniam attempts to unravel the mystery of the amazing durability of Delhi’s iron pillar. According to him, unnamed engineers of that era used the film forming quality of phosphoric acid to create a thin protective layer of ‘misawite’, a compound of iron, oxygen and hydrogen to prevent rusting and corrosion. This protective film encapsulated the pillar within three years after its erection and has been growing imperceptibly since. Today 1,600 years later, the film is of a thickness of one-twentieth of a millimeter.

This slim volume is well structured into five sections — Introduction, History of the Iron Pillar, Structural Features of the Pillar, Manufacturing Methodology and The Pillar’s Resistance to Corrosion — each offering a different perspective on this engineering marvel. Written as a simple, easy-to-comprehend narrative, the book is useful for history and science teachers to plan supplemental lesson plans, as also for secondary school students interested in history/ metallurgy.

Quite obviously ancient India’s universities and institutes of learning had well-developed research and learning capabilities. But during the next millennium this research and scholastic tradition was lost. And in post-independence India when prime minister Nehru reserved the steel and metallurgy industries for the clerical cadres of the public sector, this capability was lost further.

Fortunately this lost knowledge is being recovered slowly through the initiatives of dynamic entrepreneurs such as Laxmi Mittal and Anil Aggrawal (of Vedanta). Although they may not know it, they are heirs to a great tradition.