‘How to win friends and influence people’ by D Carnegie

There is an old saying: 'Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him.' But give him a good name - and see what happens!

When Mrs. Olivia, a fourth-grade teacher in Sydney Grammar School, looked at her class roster the first day of school, her excitement and joy of starting a new term was tinged with anxiety.

In her class this year she would have Tommy T., the school's most notorious 'bad boy.' His third-grade teacher had constantly complained about Tommy to colleagues, the principal and anyone else who would listen. He was not just mischievous; he caused serious discipline problems in the class, picked fights with the boys, teased the girls, was fresh to the teacher, and seemed to get worse as he grew older. His only redeeming feature was his ability to learn rapidly and master the school work easily.

Mrs. Olivia decided to face the 'Tommy problem' immediately. When she greeted her new students, she made little comments to each of them: 'Rose, that's a pretty dress you are wearing,' 'Alicia, I hear you draw beautifully.' When she came to Tommy, she looked him straight in the eyes and said, 'Tommy, I understand you are a natural leader. I'm going to depend on you to help me make this class the best class in the fourth grade this year.' She reinforced this over the first few days by complimenting Tommy on everything he did and commenting on how this showed what a good student he was. With that reputation to live up to, even a nine-year-old couldn't let her down - and he didn't.

Henry Henke, a service manager for a large truck dealership had a mechanic whose work had become less than satisfactory. Instead of bawling him out or threatening him, Mr. Henke called him into his office and had a heart-to-heart talk with him.

'Bill,' he said, 'you are a fine mechanic. You have been in this line of work for a good number of years. You have repaired many vehicles to the customers' satisfaction. Yet, of late, the time you take to complete each job has been increasing and your work has not been up to your own old standards. I felt sure you would want to know that I am not happy with this situation, and perhaps jointly we could find some way to correct the problem.'

Bill responded that he hadn't realized he had been falling down in his duties and assured his boss that the work he was getting was not out of his range of expertise and he would try to improve in the future.

If you want to excel in that difficult leadership role of changing the attitude or behaviour of others, give the dog a good name.