After recently read “Give and Take” by Adam Grant, an organizational behavior professor at the Wharton School, I found his ideas to be very compelling and applicable in my life. While I’ve outlined his points that I found most compelling, I encourage you to read his book if you find this post interesting. His story telling approach and rich examples make his theory come to life. While it may be apocryphal, I heard that Grant loved Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point”, but wanted to put scientific backing behind it, which inspired his research leading to this book. Given this background, he draws from many psyochology studies to build his theory in a compelling way.
My summary of Adam Grant’s description of givers / matchers / takers
Chapter 1: Good Returns
What do “successful people” do to make themselves successful? Grant’s starting question
“According to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity.”
“a fourth ingredient, one that’s critical but often neglected: success depends heavily on how we approach our interactions with other people. Every time we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can, or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return?”
“people differ dramatically in their preferences for reciprocity – their desired mix of taking and giving.”
Takers: Prefer to get more than they give. Self-focused.
Givers: Prefer to give more than they get. Other-focused.
Matchers: Prefer to reciprocate giving and taking behaviors. Tit-for-tat strategy.
Giving / taking / matching behaviors can be circumstantial and context-based.
Givers are rare with work relationships, but common with close personal relationships.
Most people are matchers
Evaluating the “success ladder”, Grant observes that the top and bottom are composed of givers, while matchers and takers are mostly in the middle.
Taking vs. receiving
Taking – using other people solely for one’s own personal gain
Receiving – accepting help from others while being willing to pay it back and forward.
When Givers succeed, many others also succeed. When Takers succeed, someone else loses.
“It’s easier to win if everyone wants you to win.”
Taking is a short-run strategy – focused on maximizing one’s benefit in zero-sum games.
Giving is a long-run strategy – focused on seeing situations not as zero-sum games, but as opportunities to create value-expanding outcomes
Givers gain a learning advantage. Solving other people’s problems can expand one’s knowledge and skills.
Focus on harnessing the benefits of giving, while minimizing the costs. High leverage situations.
“In the majority of the world’s cultures, including that of the United States, the majority of people endorse giving as their single most important guiding principle.”
But people don’t see much room for giver values in their professional lives.
Huge fear about being taken advantage of by Takers
Chapter 2: The Peacock and the Panda
Three advantages of networks: private information, diverse skills, power
Givers and takers often have equally large networks
When networking, Takers act like Fakers, exhibiting Giver-like behavior to win the trust of someone – but often won’t come through when the other person needs their help.
Takers need to keep adding people to their networks because they burn the trust of so many people that they need to keep cycling people in.
Givers and Matchers see networking as an appealing way to connect with new people and get exposed to new ideas
Identifying Takers:
Evaluate how a person treats people who cannot offer them value, e.g. people they manage, service industry people who are waiting on them
“Kissing up, kicking down”
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” – Samuel Johnson
People like to see Takers punished – justice
Gossip within a network is an efficient, widespread, and low-cost form of punishment for Takers
Lekking – when male animals show off to try to get female animals to mate with them
Does the person use first person pronouns when talking about organizational accomplishments – e.g. “I, me, my” instead of “Us, we, our”?
In evaluating CEO’s as givers or takers:
– how much more do they get paid vs. other senior executives in their company?
– how big are their photos in their company’s annual report?
Takers and matchers also give in the context of a network – but they give proactively with the intention of getting something in the future
Reciprocity is a powerful norm but
– People receiving often feel like they’re being manipulated
– Quid-pro-quo expectations of Takers results in them building smaller networks
Strong ties vs. Weak ties
– Strong ties – people you have frequent, repeated interactions with
– Weak ties – people you have infrequent interactions with
Weak ties provide more new information, and job referrals than Strong ties
But it’s hard to ask Weak ties for help
The key is Reconnecting with Weak ties
– This is very powerful for Givers — who have likely build strong rapport with people in their network, even if they haven’t connected with them recently.
– Pronoia – the opposite of paranoia, the belief that others are plotting your success
– Reactivating dormant ties – when people reconnect, they still have a strong feeling of trust
– Many Givers ignore dormant ties in their network
– For Givers, reconnecting with someone who’s a dormant tie can feel very energizing
Matchers will go out of their way to hurt Takers who’ve hurt them, but also go out of their way to help Givers who have helped them
Listening patiently and asking thoughtful questions can be a form of Giving
“Energy” in networks:
– Takers are often seen as black holes – sucking energy from everyone around them
– Givers are often seen as suns – projecting energy out toward everyone around them
Adam Rifkin, Fortune Magazine named him best networker: “we should see networks as a vehicle for creating value for everyone, not just taking value for ourselves”
“Five minute favors” – we should be willing to give just about anyone five minutes of our time – do them any favor that costs us 5 minutes or less
“Giving, especially when it’s distinctive and consistent, establishes a pattern that shifts other people’s reciprocity styles within a group.”
“When groups consisted of one consistent giver, the other members contributed more. The presence of a single giver was enough to establish a norm of giving.”
Chapter 3: The Ripple Effect
“Despite being held in the highest esteem, the givers faced a problem: they paid a productivity price.”
“Of all engineers, the most productive [in the study] were those who gave often – and gave more than they received. These were the true givers, and they had the highest productivity and the highest status: they were revered by their peers. By giving often, engineers built up more trust and attracted more valuable help from across their work groups – not just from the people they helped.”
Geniuses vs. Genius Makers
– Geniuses tend to be takers: promote their own interests, drain capability and intelligence from others
– Genius Makers tend to be givers: they use their abilities to amplify the abilities of others
“Americans see independence as a source of strength, viewing interdependence as a sign of weakness. This is particularly true of takers, who tend to see themselves as superior to and separate from others.”
“Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength.”
Expedition Behavior – doing the tasks that are in the group’s best interest, but not necessarily in their own best interest, to ultimately make the group better off
– the goal is the expand the pie, not take as much pie for yourself as in a zero sum game
– Helps to shield a person from politics:
— It disarms takers – they no longer feel the need to compete with this person
— It indebts matchers – they feel like they owe this person
— It signals givers – they see this person as one of “them”
Idiosyncrasy Credits – positive impressions that accumulate in the minds of group members
– Once a member earns an idiosyncrasy credit, matchers will allow that member to deviate from the group’s norms or expectations
– “Giving away credit” compromises one’s visibility in the short-term, but pays off in the long-term
Responsibility Bias – exaggerating our own contributions relative to others’ inputs
– Takers are especially vulnerable to this bias
– Driven by the desire to see and present ourselves positively
– Caused by an “information discrepancy” – we know more about our own contributions than we do about others’
– Takers blamed their partners for failures and claimed credit for successes
– The givers shouldered blame for failures and gave their partners more credit for successes
Psychological Safety – belief that you can take a risk without being penalized or punished
– The higher the psychological safety in a hospital unit, a study found, the fewer errors they made — the more errors they reported, and were able to deal with — less safe hospital units withheld reporting of errors
– Givers create a safer environment
Perspective Gap – when we’re not experiencing a psychologically or physically intense state, we dramatically underestimate how it will affect us
– Takers rarely cross this perspective gap
– Givers are more motivated to benefit others, so they find ways to put themselves in others’ shoes
Chapter 4: Finding the Diamond in the Rough
Recognizing talent or potential
– Belief in talent can create self-fulfilling prophecies — a study found that teachers who were told that a certain set of randomly selected students were smarter gave them more mentoring, which resulted in them learning more
– Traditionally, psychologists believed that success depends on talent first and motivation second
– Recent studies suggest the opposite – that in order to develop talent, one must first have motivation
– Takers place little trust in other people, they assume most people are takers so they harbor doubts about others’ intentions — this triggers a viscious cycle
– Givers succeed more often at getting people to perform at their potential — Givers don’t wait for signs of potential, they see people as having potential by default
– Givers focus on identifying motivation, not by trying to identify talent
Grit — having passion and perseverance toward long-term goals
– Givers focus on gritty people
– Cultivating grit — setting high expectations, pushing people to stretch and grow
– One key to cultivating grit is to make the task more interesting — understand who they are and speak in their language
– Linkage between grit and Giving — givers continue exerting effort out of a sense of responsibility to their teams
Throwing good money after bad
– Escalation of commitment – bias that people often increase their investment after their initial investment goes poorly – even when the expected payoff is negative –> sunk cost fallacy
— anticipated regret — expected future regret if a person gives up too early
— project completion — pushing to just try to finish a project
— ego threat — most powerful factor — a person fears looking like and feeling like a fool
– Takers are more vulnerable than givers to escalation of commitment
— Escalation helps to keep the prospect of failure hidden
— Takers hide failures because that’s in their own personal interest
— Givers are more willing to admit mistakes and de-escalate, since it’s in the best interest of other people and the organization
— Givers are more responsive to feedback — whereas Takers discount information or feedback that’s not in-line with their desired views
– Takers strive to be the smartest person in the room
– Givers are more receptive to expertise from others, even if it challenges their own beliefs
Chapter 5: Powerless Communication
2 paths to influence: dominance and prestige
Dominance – attractive to takers.
– Assumes zero-sum game – when one party has more dominance, the other party has less
– Goal is to dominate the listener – through powerful communication
– Powerful communication – speak forcefully, raise voice, express certainty, promote their accomplishments, sell with conviction
Prestige – attractive to givers
– Assumes no zero-sum game – no limit to the respect that we can dole out to someone
– Has more lasting value in the long-run
– Prestige can be built through powerless communication
– Powerless communication – speak less assertively, express plenty of doubt, rely heavily on advice from others
Vulnerability
– Signals of vulnerability build a speaker’s prestige with audience – when other signals establish the speaker’s vulnerability
– Pratfall effect – when an expert makes a common blunder (e.g. spills coffee), it makes that person more approachable
Questions
– Leading with questions is a form of powerless communications that help givers gain influence and understanding
– Through listening, givers invoke the “joy of talking” from people they interact with – making the givers more likable
– “The art of advocacy is to lead you to my conclusion on your terms” – using thoughtful questions
Tentative Talk
– Takers use powerful speech – assertive and direct – useful in short-run, one-shot interactions (e.g. job interviews)
– Givers use powerless speech – full of tentative markers (e.g. um, kinda, I might be wrong, very), useful in long-run, team dynamics
– Leaders who use powerless speech run more effective orgs – because people trust them more and contribute more
– Leaders who use powerful communications discourage team members from contributing,
Advice Seeking
– Advice seeking is surprisingly effective to exercise influence when we lack authority
– Asking for advice encourages greater cooperation and info sharing – can turn a potentially contentious negotiation into a win-win
– Advice is a form of powerless communication that combines expressing vulnerability, asking questions, and talking tentatively
– Has 4 benefits: learning, perspective taking, commitment, flattery
– Only works when it’s genuine
Chapter 6: The Art of Motivation Maintenance
– Success is a combo of capitalizing on opportunities and avoiding pitfalls
– Successful givers were both more other oriented and more self-interested than their peers
– Selfless vs. Other-ish Givers
— Selfless – have high other-interest and low self-interest
— Other-ish – care about benefiting others, but also have their own ambitions
– Self-interest and other-interest are independent motivations – can have them at the same time (not everything is zero-sum game)
– Selfless giving can be overwhelming – can hurt the giver in the long-run, and be unsustainable – burn-out
– Otherish giving is sustainable and beneficial to all – willing to give more than get, with no strings attached, but careful not to over-extend oneself
Impact Vacuum
– Givers deprived of the rewards they find most energizing will feel burned out
– Givers value feedback on the positive impact that their efforts are making – this energizes them, no matter how hard they work to give
Planning / Organizing Giving
– Chunking vs. Sprinkling
— Chunking – pack all of non-work giving activities into a small time frame – helps reduce burnout – provides flexibility to giver to give on own terms and schedule
— Sprinkling – performing giving activities at various disparate times – causes burnout
– 100-hour mark – magic number for giving, where giving is maximally energizing but minimally draining – 2 hours a week
Chapter 7: Chump Change – Overcoming the Doormat Effect
– 3 major traps for givers:
— being too trusting
— being too timid
— being too empathetic
Sincerity screening – judging fakers (takers who pretend to be givers) from genuine givers – to prevent oneself from being taken advantage of
– Agreeableness – smoothing over disagreements is often mistaken for giving – but givers can be disagreeable
– Ability to distinguish agreeable takers vs. genuine givers is the key
– By habitually trusting others, givers get burned – through repeated experience of getting burned, givers have a finely honed sense of how to identify fakers and takers
Generous Tit-for-Tat – “never forgive a good turn, but occasionally forgive a bad one”
– Empathy trap – feeling too much empathy for the other person blinds one from identifying the optimal solution (e.g. in negotiating problems)
– Perspective taking can help you break out of the empathy trap – by taking the other person’s perspective, you can creatively solve for optimal solution for both parties
– Givers can avoid getting burned by takers by playing matcher once they identify the taker
– This strategy rewards giving and punishes taking, but not overly-harshly
Assertiveness and the Advocacy Paradox
– Difference in salaries for men and women is a result of men being more willing to ask for more money than women
– Women are timid to ask for more money because it violates social expectation for women to be warm and kind
– Chump change – doormat giver changes into other-ish giver
– Advocacy — think of oneself as an agent for oneself – as a 3rd party representative – to not feel bad for looking out for one’s interests
– Most successful negotiators were other-ish givers – perspective taking helped them convey their concern for the other party’s interests and create more value first (non-zero sum game), then defended their own (agent advocacy) to ask for more value
Chapter 8: The Scrooge Shift
– In a group setting, givers can make sure that they don’t get exploited by making everyone else behave like givers
– If a group norm is established to give, even matchers and takers will follow suit
– People don’t have one strict giving / taking / matching style – it depends on context
– The selfish/altruistic divide is a red herring – they’re not mutually exclusive
– We give based on a mixture of feelings and motivations
– Ideal giving is low-cost to oneself, but very helpful to others – high leverage
– Establishing a common identity can make takers more sympathetic to others – and behave more like givers
– Optimal distinctiveness – socially, we look for ways to fit in and stand out – two opposing motivations –
– Elevation – warm feeling when someone is given something by someone else – motivates them to reciprocate in the short-term
– Creating visibility of giving/ taking – many people are takers because they don’t know that they’re taking. If there’s a way to make giving and taking visible, it encourages more people to give — takers are more likely to give when it’s publicly (they get reputation benefit for giving)
– People often don’t ask for help because:
— They assume others are not givers
— They want to look strong – and assume that never asking for help is strength (it’s not!)
– Change people’s behaviors first, then their attitudes will change – trying to change attitudes first doesn’t work
– To shift Takers into Givers, get them to start giving (while maintaining a sense of freedom of choice) – and they’ll start seeing themselves as givers (under the right circumstances) — cognitive dissonance helps convince them
Chapter 9: Out of the Shadows
“Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.”
– For givers, success involves both achievements that make a positive impact for others
– Connection between individual success and collective success