From Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Let the Other Person Feel the Idea is His or Hers.
“Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If so, isn’t it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the throats of other people? Isn’t it wiser to make suggestions—and let the other person think out the conclusion?” (p. 196)
Examples:
A sketch artist tried to sell his sketches to a company. He was unsuccessful.
“He decided on this new approach. With half a dozen unfinished artists’ sketches under his arm, he rushed over to the buyer’s office. “I want you to do me a little favor, if you will,” he said. “Here are some uncompleted sketches. Won’t you please tell me how we could finish them up in such a way that you could use them?” (p. 197)
The company told him how he would like the sketches to be finished, bought them, and kept buying them in the future. “Then I changed my approach completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t have to sell him. He bought.” (p, 198)
A President’s advisor gave the president an idea, but the President rejected it. A few days later the President brought up this idea as if he thought of it himself. The Colonel did not try to take credit for the idea because he was only interested in results. In fact the advisor gave all the credit to the President in public! The President ended trusting this advisor over anyone else.