if everybody followed the advice here to a T, we'd be worse than yesmen. we'd all be silent. so, refuted by Kant's categorical imperative (which in turn is refuted by his own critique of pure reason, since our ability to conceptualize a law that we could will universally is predicated on our sensible intuitions and categories of understanding).
also, does anybody feel like you could read way too much of these "social skills" books and end up operating on a different plane of existence? like perhaps you end up trying to see complexities of personality that aren't there. or you think you're tuned into a power play that nobody can even detect.