How to get paid a million dollars a year
It’s at times like these that I find re-visiting classic pieces of writing about performance and success worthwhile. Yesterday I took another look at Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, which included this item written in 1934:
“One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was Charles Schwab. He had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in 1921, when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old.
Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab? Why? Because Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the manufacture of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of steel than he did.
Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his ability to deal with people.”
Fast track to 2008 and Joe Takash says in his book Results Through Relationships, “It doesn’t matter whether I’m called on to deal with dysfunctional teams, to coach a talented but flawed leader, to increase profit, or to improve productivity and morale; there is always a relationship issue. There may be other issues contributing to the problem, but relationships always play a large part in the cause of the problem… and its solution.”
I know that obtaining degrees and certificates helps to qualify you as an expert in a particular field. I also know that the way most businesses are organised, you are spending the vast majority of your time dealing with tasks such as emails, reports and research. Yes, knowing your business inside out and dealing with everything that lands on your desktop are critical. But isn’t this time of economic turbulence a great opportunity to step back and assess what areas need a laser-like focus to bring you career success and your company growth and profitability in the next few months and years?
The secret is relationships. Your ability to deal with people is now the critical success factor. In fact it always has been. And the only way to deal with people effectively and to get them to do anything, is simply to give them what they want. And what they want is, as John Dewey, one of America’s most profound philosophers said, “to have a feeling of importance”. I doesn’t matter what situation or task you apply this to – what will enable you to forge lasting relationships and influence people is to make them feel valued and recognised. And this, above all else, leads to results.
So let’s spend some time thinking about our people skills and how we are going to use them to achieve much more than we ever thought we were capable of.
Tags: Communication, Leadership, People Skills, Performance Management, Relationship Management
December 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
James I agree wholeheartedly. And I believe people skills are the real success to this. I have to admit that some of my best people experiences as a kid influenced my lifetimerelationship capabilities. I had numerous Summer jobs that required interaction with various people- waiter, ranch hand, oil field roughneck, Etc. that enhanced my personal skills which allowed me relate to people and build relationships. However you measure success, it has been successful for me.
One concern I have today is the lack of people skills kids have today. They have a huge chance to be exposed to so many more experiences in this global world, however many of them choose (especially in Singapore) to spend their time off studying. Actually, their parents often make this bad decision for them. This often means time spent in front of a computer or book. What a shame. What a waste. Get out there and experience people…and life!
Trip Allen
Egyii Team
I believe they are really missing out.