Using Dale Carnegie’s principles from his evergreen and classic book, How to Win Friends & Influence People, let’s go through the ones that were violated in this Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni conflict.

I believe that the disproportionate public dislike of Blake Lively can be attributed in bulk to the marketing strategy of the movie as well as her public isolation of her co-star and director, Justin Baldoni, which seemed out of place and odd.

I’m not a fan of either Blake Lively or Justin Baldoni and my opinion is that they are both guilty of whatever behaviors each has pointed out in each other. 

No one deserves to be the target of a smear campaign.

No one deserves to be sidelined / marginalised and intentionally cast out of an ensemble effort. 

So as much as each party would like their day in the sun and have their reputation restored in the eyes of the law, this back and forth lawsuit comes across as an expensive fight between privileged people who had their egos bruised. 

Going back to the classic book’s principles, I’ve selected a few to illustrate how Blake Lively’s behavior could have come across as less than ideal. 

For a full list of the 30 Dale Carnegie principles, you can find a great summary from this blog post by Jason Scott Montoya.

Principle: Make The Other Person Feel Important – And Do It Sincerely

Outside of Blake Lively’s press tour of the movie, It Ends with Us, a resurgence of her past interviews have resurfaced and her behavior has been quite consistent. 

She comes across consistently as rude, condescending, abrasive, entitled and seems to not have a good radar in reading the room.  

While I do understand that press tours can be intensive and exhausting with back to back interviews, usually with questions that are very similar, when you’re being interviewed, if you take offense to what was asked, there is a way to point that out respectfully and assertively without being passive aggressive or rude. (i.e. having lengthy side conversations while the journalist looks on awkwardly while waiting to ask the next question)

You can google examples of assertive interview behavior by Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson who put rude interviewers in their place without being rude.

This boils down to sincerity, if you are not feeling it, then don’t go through the motions because your lack of interest and authenticity will be apparent. 

Principle: Let The Other Person Save Face

Whilst you may hate the person’s guts and whatever they stand for, it is important to leave a person with some dignity. 

The alleged story of how director / actor Justin Baldoni and his family had to quickly leave the red carpet before Blake Lively made an appearance sounded very childish, petty and high handed. 

Principle: Give The Other Person A Fine Reputation To Live Up To

Whether or not Justin Baldoni was being sincere in his responses about Blake Lively’s role and involvement in the movie, he said only good things about her in public. 

On the other hand, it looked as if Blake Lively rallied the book’s author and movie’s cast around her to make Justin Baldoni seem even more like the odd one out. 

It may not have been her intention to create that image but the public impression created could not have come as a surprise.

Principle: Try Honestly To See Things From The Other Person’s Point Of View

From the details of the lawsuit filings, Blake Lively had made Justin Baldoni, the Production Company and the Studio aware of the types of behavior she will not stand for.

If both parties had seriously taken each other’s point of view into consideration, this whole mountain of issues might not have happened.

Instead it is obvious that these complaints were not addressed well enough for both parties to trust that they will not retaliate against each other.

The proof being Justin Baldoni hiring a PR Crisis company to manage his own and his company’s reputation at the start of the movie launch just in case something happens. 

Blake Lively promoted the movie by either not mentioning Justin Baldoni’s involvement or downplaying his role. 

This behavior shows that the conflict between them exists.

Would you like every message spoken and written by you to be effective but still reflect your personality? If you would like to learn to be a more effective communicator at work, let’s chat more. You can read about what I do here.

You can read more posts on relating to people here.