Episode #87: We All Need Catalysts

Ever heard that a training course changed somebody's life? "It was good", "I enjoyed it", “I learnt something new”, maybe. Warren Buffett, the famous American billionaire investor is a huge Dale Carnegie fan and often mentions in TV interviews how the Dale Carnegie course changed his life. Being in Japan, it is great to hear a leading local businessman like Mr. Masami Atarashi say the very same thing.

He is very well known in Japan and spends his time writing, adding to the 40 plus books he has already published and giving public speeches as well as training to executives. Previously he headed up Johnson & Johnson, Philips, and Hallmark in Japan as President.

I asked him how the course impacted him, "The Dale Carnegie Course changed my life. When I was asked to make a speech to an audience or to a customer etc., I trembled with fear and I was a lousy speaker, not so much technically but mentally. Half way through the Dale Carnegie Course I found myself beginning to enjoy talking, that's one significant visible change which occurred to me. And overall I began to look at things in a positive way. Instead of saying we can't do it, I start looking at how we can do it. The whole mind set changed and that happened when I was 32."

We determine trust through listening to what is said and how it is said. Everyone puts their best face forward, but we are trying to get behind the superficial to the reality. We are racing around in business, with our antennae on full throttle, trying to dodge the dodgy types and find some trustworthy keepers.

Yet, people say the dumbest things to us, ruining their credibility. We see people who are quite clever, scoring "own goals" all of the time because they can't control what comes out of their mouth or because their self-awareness level is hovering somewhere around zero. The Japanese call it KY, an acronym using English to abbreviate “kuki wo yomenai” or can’t read the air or no sense of occasion, as possible translations.

Business is too complex for us to do it all by ourselves anymore - the day of the hero is over. Today we need the hero team. To get things done requires more and more specialisation but with that often comes a poverty of skills in other key areas. Persuading people rather than trying to order them. Getting willing cooperation instead of whipping them into a frenzy of reluctance and resistance. Having technical skills but little common sense doesn’t help. Being smart is good, but it isn't enough. We need to be better communicators, better with people, better with diversity, more capable with complexity.

Buffett and Atarashi both discovered that the Dale Carnegie course was a source of answers to a lot of the business challenges they faced to be successful through other people. There is a good reason this course is still around for over 100 years. It works. That is why it is paid the ultimate compliment of having changed their lives.