RIYADH: Dale Carnegie Training celebrated 100 years of its success recently at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.
On this occasion, the Saudi-based school Al Tarbiyah Al-Islamiah School (ATS) was honored with the highest Carnegie Leadership Award, making it the first of its kind in the Kingdom to win the global award. The girls school received the award for its pioneering work and commitment in developing its students.
More than 800 female students from ATS have graduated with the "Wathek" or Confident certificate, part of the globally known "Next Generation" Dale Carnegie youth developmental training program.
To measure the effectiveness of the program, Ertyad Training, a Dale Carnegie Training exclusive franchise in Saudi Arabia, conducted a study through self-evaluation instruments. The results showed 91 percent of the students have increased their respect toward other peoples' opinions, point of views, and good feelings, while 90 percent showed the increase of their team spirit and effectiveness. Eighty-eight percent of them have developed their self-confidence after taking the program.
In his opening remarks, Ahmad Alafaliq, director of youth programs and employability at Ertyad Training, said the failure of job seekers in maintaining their jobs is mostly due to bad attitude.
This training program is expected to be very useful in Saudi Arabia, where many service sector enterprises are manned by expatriates. This is due to their helpful attitude, since they know when to smile and address their customers with politeness and respect.
The event was attended by various Saudi human resources personalities and representatives of top companies, including Abdullah Al-Suwailim of Tadawul, Ertyad Training CEO Abdullah Mashari, while Mohammed Al-Omair, strategic partnerships manager of Microsoft, spoke on the Itcan Initiative.
Soha Al-Snaidi, deputy manager ladies branch, discussed Altarbiyah Al-Islamiyah Schools' extra curricular initiative and the experience of how students at the school benefited from the training.
Founded in 1912, Dale Carnegie's teaching philosophy evolved from one man's belief in the power of personal development to a global workplace learning and performance organization with offices in over 85 countries and training in more than 25 languages.
Speaking on the occasion, Peter Handal, chairman and CEO of Dale Carnegie Training International, said in 1936 Dale Carnegie made a compelling statement to his readers: "Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face."
This is the foundation of how to win friends and influence people, and it is still true today, he said, adding that developing strategies for dealing with people is nowadays more complex.
Messaging speed is instantaneous. Communication media have multiplied. Networks have expanded beyond borders, industries, and ideologies. Against this backdrop, rather than making the principles in this book obsolete, these major changes have made Carnegie's principles more relevant than ever.
They represent the foundation of every sound strategy, whether you are marketing a brand, apologizing to your spouse, or pitching to an investor. And if you don't begin with the right foundation, it is easy to send the wrong message, to offend, or to fall embarrassingly short of your objective.
You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you. Carnegie's assertion remains relevant, albeit counterintuitive, because it reminds us the secret to progress with people is a measure of selflessness, which has swept the drift of the digital age, Handal said.
"We live in an unprecedented era of sefl-help and self-promotion. We watch YouTube videos like the Double Rainbow go viral in a matter of weeks and garner the sort of global attention people were used to for years, even decades, to obtain," he said.
"The sooner you allow this truth to shape your communication decision, the sooner you will see that the quickest path to personal or professional growth is not in hyping yourself to others but in sharing yourself with them," is another notable quote from Dale Carnegie.
Handal reaffirmed that general principles for success and good attitudes are all almost the same in many communities in the world. What mattered was the language of the people. In a book distributed by the organizer, "How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age," the author discusses in part one, titled "Essentials of Engagement," the following: "Bury your boomerangs, affirm what's good and connect with core desire." In part two, it talks about six ways to make a lasting impression on a person by taking part in others' interests, smile, reign with names and listen longer.
Other quotes from Dale Carnegie are: "On smile, emotions, it seems, are the boundless gifts that human carry. This can either discourage or encourage. Your mouth has a lot to say about your choice. A smile, someone once said, costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive it without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts."
While the hyper frequency of our interactions has made proficient people skills more advantageous than ever, influence people must be more than savvy communications, he said.
Communication is simply an outward manifestation of our thoughts, our intentions, and our conclusions about the people around us. "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks". These internal drives are the primary differentiator between today's leader and today's relation leech.
The two highest levels of influence are achieved when people follow you because of what you've done for them and people follow you because of who you are, he said, adding that in other words, the highest levels of influence are reached when generosity and trustworthiness surround your behavior.
© Arab News 2012
