卡耐基演講·二、首先要獲得聽眾的贊同

西北大學前校長華特·狄爾·史柯特說：“凡是進入了頭腦的意見、概念或結論，都會被認為是真實的，除非有相反的理念阻礙，那另當別論?！逼鋵?，就是說要堅持聽眾贊同的思想。我的好友哈理·歐沃斯霍教授在紐約社會研究新校的講演中，條理分明地闡釋了這種概念的心理背景：Walter Dill Scott, former president of Northwestern University, said that" every idea, concept, or conclusion which enters the mind is held as true unless hindered by some contradictory idea." That boils down to keeping the audience yes-minded. My good friend Professor Harry Overstreet brilliantly examined the psychological background of this concept in a lecture at the New School for Social Research in New York City:

“有技巧的演講者，一開始便獲得了許多贊同的反應。于是他借此為聽眾鋪上路，讓他們向贊同的方向前進。這就像撞球游戲里彈子的運動情況，把它往一個方向推動后，如果想讓它轉向，要費些力氣，如果想把它推到相反的方向，則需要用更大的力量?！盩he skillful speaker gets at the outset a number of yes-responses. He has thereby set the psychological processes of his listeners moving in the affirmative direction. It is like the movement of a billiard ball. Propel it in one direction, and it takes some force to deflect it, far more force to send it back in the opposite direction.

人的心理在這方面表現(xiàn)得很明顯。當一個人說“不”，而且真心如此，他所做的不僅僅是一個由橫撇豎點組成的字。他整個的身體——腺體、神經(jīng)、肌肉——就會一起把他包裹起來進入一種抵抗之中。通常，他會有微小的身體上的撤退，或撤退的準備，有時甚至非常明顯。也就是說，他的整個神經(jīng)、肌肉系統(tǒng)都戒備起來抗拒接受。相反，一個人說“是”時，就絕無撤退的行為發(fā)生。整個身體是處在一種前進、接納、開放的狀態(tài)中。所以，如果從開始我們就能獲得多一些的“是”，那么成功抓住聽眾注意力的可能性就越大，從而為我們最終的建議被聽眾接受鋪路。The psychological patterns here are quite clear. When a person says "no" and really means it, he is doing far more than saying a word of two letters. His entire organism-glandular, nervous, muscular-gathers itself together into a condition of rejection. There is, usually in minute but sometimes in observable degree, a physical withdrawal, or readiness for withdrawal. The whole neuromuscular system, in short, sets itself on guard against acceptance. Where, on the contrary, a person says "yes" none of the-withdrawing activities takes place. The organism is in a forward-moving, accepting, open attitude. Hence the more" yeses" we can, at the very outset, induce, the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our ultimate proposal.

獲得“是”的贊同態(tài)度，是非常簡單的技巧，但經(jīng)常被人忽視。人們常常以為，如果一開始不采取敵對的姿態(tài)，好像就不足以顯示自己的重要性了，于是激進派和保守派的人一開會，不用片刻就讓大家火冒三丈了。說實話，這樣究竟有什么好處？如果一個人這樣做僅僅是為了找點樂子，還情有可原，可是如果他希望能達成什么事，不免就太愚蠢了。It is a very simple technique-this yes-response.And yet how much neglected! It often seems as if people get a sense of their own importance by antagonizing at the outset. The radical comes into a conference with his conservative brethren; and immediately he must make them furious! What, as a matter of fact, is the good of it? If he simply does it in order to get some pleasure out of it for himself, he may be pardoned. But if he expects to achieve something, he is only psychologically stupid.

一開始就讓學生、顧客、孩子、丈夫或妻子說“不”，然后再想把這有增無減的否定變?yōu)榭隙?，可能需要神一樣的智慧和耐心了。Get a student to say "no" at the beginning, or a customer, child, husband, or wife, and it takes the wisdom and patience of angels to transform that bristling negative into an affirmative.

怎樣一開口就獲得希望的“贊同反應”呢？很簡單?？纯戳挚险f到的其中的秘密：“我展開并贏得一場議論的方式，是先找到一個共同的贊同點?！彼踔猎谟懻摳叨染o張的奴隸問題時，都能找到這種共同的贊同點。一家中立的報紙《明鏡》報在報道一場他的講演時這樣敘述：“前半個小時，他的反對者幾乎會同意他說的每一個詞。然后，他抓住這一點開始領著他們走，一點一點地，到最后就似乎已經(jīng)把他們?nèi)肓俗约旱臋谌?。”How is one going to get these desirable" yes-responses" at the very outset? Fairly simple. "My way of opening and winning an argument," confided Lincoln, "is to first find a common ground of agreement." Lincoln found it even when he was discussing the highly inflammable subject of slavery. "For the first half hour," declared The Mirror, a neutral paper reporting one of his talks, "his opponents would agree with every word he uttered. From that point he began to lead them off, little by little, until it seemed as if he had got them all into his fold."

這不是很明顯的事實嗎？演講人與聽眾爭辯，只會引起他們的固執(zhí)，讓他們變得死命防守，幾乎沒有可能改變他們的思想。你說：“我要證明這樣是否明智。”聽眾會認為這是一種挑釁而無聲地說：“那咱們走著瞧！”Is it not evident that the speaker who argues with his audience is merely arousing their stubbornness, putting them on the defensive, making it well-nigh impossible for them to change their minds? Is it wise to start by saying, "I am going to prove so and so"? Aren't your hearers liable to accept that as a challenge and remark silently, "Let's see you do it"?

開始強調(diào)一些所有聽眾和你都相信的事情，再找一個適合的問題，讓聽眾愿意聽，這樣是不是有利很多？這時，再帶著聽眾一起去追尋答案。在這個過程中，把你十分清楚的事實陳列在他們的面前，他們就會被你引領，接受你的結論。對于這種他們自己發(fā)現(xiàn)的事實，他們會給予更多的信任?！翱此埔粓鼋庹f的議論，才是最好的議論”。Is it not much more advantageous to begin by stressing something that you and all of your hearers believe, and then to raise some pertinent question that everyone would like to have answered? Then take your audience with you in an earnest search for the answer. While on that search, present the facts as you see them so clearly that they will be led to accept your conclusions as their own. They will have much more faith in some truth that they have discovered for themselves. "The best argument is that which seems merely an explanation."

在各種爭議中，不論分歧有多大、多尖銳，總會有一些共同的贊同點是講演者可以用來讓大家產(chǎn)生心靈共鳴的。例如：1960年2月3日，英國首相哈羅德·馬克米蘭向南非聯(lián)邦議會發(fā)表講演。當時，南非當局采取種族隔離政策，而他必須面對立法團體陳述英國無種族歧視的觀點。他有沒有一開始便對這種分歧進行闡述？沒有。他開始的時候去強調(diào)了南非在經(jīng)濟上有了不起的成就，對世界有重大的貢獻，然后才巧妙而機智地提出了觀點分歧的問題。即使講到這里，他還是指出，他非常了解這些分歧都是來自各自真誠的信念。整場講演非常精彩，可與林肯在蘇姆特堡前那些溫和卻堅定的言辭相比?！吧頌橛囊粏T，”首相說，“我們真誠地希望能給予南非支持和鼓勵，不過希望各位不要介意我的直言：在我們的領土上，我們正在設法給予自由人政治前途。這是我們堅定的信念，所以我們無法在支持和鼓勵各位的同時，不違反自己的信念。我認為，我們應該像朋友一樣，不管誰是誰非，都來共同面對一個事實：今天我們之間還存有分歧?！盜n every controversy, no matter how wide and bitter the differences, there is always some common ground of agreement on which a speaker can invite everyone to meet. To illustrate: On February 3, 1960, the prime minister of Great Britain, Harold Macmillan, addressed both houses of the Parliament of the Union of South Africa. He had to present the United Kingdom's nonracial viewpoint before the legislature body at a time when apartheid was the prevailing policy. Did he begin his talk with this essential difference in outlook? No. He began by stressing the great economic progress made by South Africa, the significant contributions made by South Africa to the world. Then, with skill and tact he brought up the questions of differing viewpoints. Even here, he indicated that he was well aware that these differences were based on sincere conviction. His whole talk was a masterly statement reminding one of Lincoln's gentle but firm utterances in the years before Fort Sumter. "As a fellow member of the commonwealth," said the Prime Minister, "it is our earnest desire to give South Africa our support and encouragement, but I hope you won't mind my saying frankly that there are some aspects of your policies which make it impossible for us to do this without being false to our deep convictions about the political destinies of free men to which in our own territories we are trying to give effect. I think we ought as friends to face together, without seeking to apportion credit or blame, the fact that in the world of today this difference of outlook lies between us."

不論一個人有多堅決地想和演講者對抗，像這樣的言論，也會讓他相信演講者公正坦誠的心。No matter how determined one was to differ with a speaker, a statement like that would tend to convince you of the speaker's fair-mindedness.

假設馬克米蘭首相一開口就強調(diào)雙方政策上的差異，而不提出共同的贊同點，后果將會怎樣？詹姆士·哈威·羅賓生教授在其后啟人深思的書《思想的醞釀》里，對這個問題作出答復：What would have been the result had Prime Minister Macmillan set out immediately to emphasize the difference in policy rather than the common ground of agreement? Professor James Harvey Robinson's enlightening book, The Mind in the Making, gives the psychological answer to that question:

“有時，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己會在毫不抵抗、情緒毫不激動的狀況下改變心思。但是如果人家說我們錯了，我們就會討厭這樣的責備，便死活不同意了。在我們信仰形成的過程中，不會去刻意留心，可是有任何人表示與我們不同道時，我們就會對自己的信仰滿懷有些偏激的狂愛。明顯的是，我們所珍愛的并非理念本身，而是遭受威脅的自尊……這小小的‘我’是人類最要緊的一個詞，適當加以考慮才是大智慧的表現(xiàn)。不論它是我的晚餐，我的狗，我的家，我的信仰，我的國家，還是我的神，一樣具有相同的力量。我們不僅僅憎恨別人指責我們的表不準，我們的車破舊，還討厭別人讓我們修正我們所認為的火星運河論，或‘Epicteus’的發(fā)音，柳皮精的藥用價值，或薩爾責一世的年代等這些概念。我們喜歡繼續(xù)相信自己習慣于接受的事實，一旦我們的任何假設受到懷疑，激起的憤怒會導致我們找一切借口來堅持它。這樣，大多數(shù)我們所謂的‘講理’，就是找出一大堆論據(jù)來讓自己繼續(xù)相信已經(jīng)相信的東西?！盬e sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told we are wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship. It is obviously not the ideas themselves that are dear to us, but our self-esteem which is threatened ... The little word my is the most important one in human affairs, and properly to reckon with it is the beginning of wisdom. It has the same force whether it is my dinner, my dog, and my house, or my faith, my country and my God. We not only resent the imputation that our watch is wrong, or our car shabby, but that our conception of the canals of Mars, of the pronunciation of "Epictetus" of the medicinal value of salicine, or of the date of Sargon I, are subject to revision ... We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to it. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.