Offer Sympathy
Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you.
The magic phrase: "I don't blame you one iota for feeling as you do. If I were you, I would undoubtedly feel just as you do."
This phrase stops resentment cold. The moment you genuinely step into the other person's position, their defenses dissolve — because you have given them what they wanted most: to be understood.
Carnegie and the Mayflower Descendant
Carnegie made a geography error on a radio broadcast about Louisa May Alcott — said New Hampshire instead of Massachusetts, twice. He received furious letters, including one from a Mayflower descendant who "couldn't have been more bitter if I had accused Miss Alcott of being a cannibal from New Guinea."
His first impulse: write back and tell her what he really thought. He controlled himself instead.
"After all, if I were she, I would probably feel just as she does." He called her. He apologized. He kept taking the blame when she tried to offer hers. By the end of the conversation: "You must be a very nice person. I should like to know you better."
Because he sympathized with her point of view, she began sympathizing with his. He got infinitely more real gratification out of making her like him than he could ever have gotten out of telling her off.
President Taft's Formula
From Ethics in Service: A Washington mother lobbied Taft for six weeks to appoint her son to a position requiring technical qualifications. Taft couldn't. She wrote him a furious letter. His advice: when you get such a letter, compose an answer, then put it in a drawer and lock it. Take it out two days later. You will not send it.
Instead, write as politely as you can, acknowledging a mother's disappointment, explaining the constraint. "That letter completely mollified her. She wrote me a note saying she was sorry she had written as she had."
Jay Mangum and the Hotel Escalator
Jay Mangum's maintenance company needed eight hours to repair a stalled escalator in a leading Tulsa hotel. The manager insisted on two hours maximum. Instead of arguing, Jay called:
"Rick, I know your hotel is quite busy and you would like to keep the escalator shutdown time to a minimum. I understand your concern about this, and we want to do everything possible to accommodate you. However, our diagnosis shows that if we do not do a complete job now, your escalator may suffer more serious damage and that would cause a much longer shutdown. I know you would not want your guests without an escalator for several days."
The manager agreed that eight hours was better than several days. By sympathizing with the manager's desire to keep patrons happy, Jay won without rancor.
Sol Hurok and Feodor Chaliapin
Hurok was impresario for Chaliapin — one of the greatest bassos, but a constant problem. Chaliapin would call at noon on a performance day: "My throat is like raw hamburger. It is impossible for me to sing tonight."
Hurok's method: rush over dripping with sympathy. "What a pity. What a pity! My poor fellow. Of course you cannot sing. I will cancel the engagement at once. It will only cost you a couple of thousand dollars, but that is nothing in comparison to your reputation."
Then Chaliapin would sigh and say, "Perhaps you had better come over later in the day." At seven-thirty, the great basso would consent to sing — provided Hurok would announce that Chaliapin had a very bad cold. Hurok would agree. He knew that was the only way to get the basso on stage.
The Science
Dr. Arthur I. Gates (Educational Psychology): "Sympathy the human species universally craves. The child eagerly displays his injury; or even inflicts a cut or bruise in order to reap abundant sympathy. For the same purpose adults... show their bruises, relate their accidents, illness, especially details of surgical operations. 'Self-pity' for misfortunes real or imaginary is, in some measure, practically a universal practice."
The craving for sympathy is not childishness — it is species-wide. Meet it honestly and you unlock the person.
Connections
- see-their-point-of-view — sympathy is what happens when you actually succeed at seeing the other person's point of view; the two principles are sequential
- begin-friendly — sympathy is the warmest form of friendliness; both prevent the defensive crouch that blocks all persuasion
- active-listening — you cannot offer genuine sympathy without listening first; listening is what reveals what they actually feel
- avoid-argument — sympathy disarms the exact hostility that would otherwise escalate into argument