More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
October 6 - October 24, 2020
Whereas advocacy and relational accounts enabled me to become more assertive in win-lose negotiations, it was perspective taking that helped me expand the pie and succeed in win-win negotiations.
the best negotiators weren’t takers or selfless givers. The takers focused on claiming value: they saw negotiations as zero-sum, win-lose contests and didn’t trust their opponents, so they bargained aggressively, overlooking opportunities to create value through developing an understanding of their counterparts’ interests. The selfless givers made too many concessions, benefiting their counterparts at a personal cost. The most effective negotiators were otherish: they reported high concern for their own interests and high concern for their counterparts’ interests. By looking for opportunities
...more
even if a style like giving is our first nature, our ability to prosper depends on developing enough comfort with a matching approach that it becomes second nature. Although many successful givers start from the default of trusting others’ intentions, they’re also careful to scan their environments to screen for potential takers, always ready to shift from feeling a taker’s emotions to analyzing a taker’s thoughts, and flex from giving unconditionally to a more measured approach of generous tit for tat. And when they feel inclined to back down, successful givers are prepared to draw reserves
...more
people rarely have a single reciprocity style that they apply uniformly to every domain of their lives. If a group develops a norm of giving, members will uphold the norm and give, even if they’re more inclined to be takers or matchers elsewhere. This reduces the risks of giving: when everyone contributes, the pie is larger, and givers are no longer stuck contributing far more than they get.
When we empathize with a person, we focus our energy and attention on helping him or her—not because it will make us feel good but because we genuinely care.
Cialdini’s first challenge to Batson’s claims was that when empathy leads us to help, it’s not because our ultimate goal is to benefit the other person. He proposed that when others are in need, we feel distressed, sad, or guilty. To reduce our own negative feelings, we help. Cialdini accumulated an impressive body of studies suggesting that when people feel distressed, guilty, or sad toward another person in need, they help.
Empathy leads to a sense of oneness, or self-other overlap, and this leads to greater helping.
Oneness is otherish. Most of the time that we give, it’s based on a cocktail of mixed motives to benefit others and ourselves.
Common ground is a major influence on giving behaviors.
When people share an identity with another person, giving to that person takes on an otherish quality. If we help people who belong to our group, we’re also helping ourselves, as we’re making the group better off.*
we seem to prefer people, places, and things that remind us of ourselves.
The more strongly we affiliate with a group, the greater our risk of losing our sense of uniqueness. The more we work to distinguish ourselves from others, the greater our risk of losing our sense of belongingness. How do we resolve this conflict? The solution is to be the same and different at the same time. Brewer calls it the principle of optimal distinctiveness: we look for ways to fit in and stand out. A popular way to achieve optimal distinctiveness is to join a unique group. Being part of a group with shared interests, identities, goals, values, skills, characteristics, or experiences
...more
When members saw people giving away items like clothes and old electronics, they felt it would be easy for them to do the same.
people donate more money to charity when the phrase “even a penny will help” is added to a request.
Legitimizing small contributions draws in takers, making it difficult and embarrassing for them to say no, without dramatically reducing the amount donated by givers.
just showing people how they were doing relative to the local norm caused a dramatic improvement in energy conservation.
People often take because they don’t realize that they’re deviating from the norm. In these situations, showing them the norm is often enough to motivate them to give—especially if they have matcher instincts.
As Charles Darwin once wrote, a tribe with many people acting like givers, who “were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection.”
Why do we underestimate the number of people who are willing to give? According to Flynn and Bohns, when we try to predict others’ reactions, we focus on the costs of saying yes, overlooking the costs of saying no. It’s uncomfortable, guilt-provoking, and embarrassing to turn down a small request for help.
If many people personally believe in giving, but assume that others don’t, the whole norm in a group or a company can shift away from giving.
When people assume that others aren’t givers, they act and speak in ways that discourage others from giving, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As a structured form of giving, the Reciprocity Ring is designed to disrupt this self-fulfilling prophecy. The first step is to make sure that people ask for help. Research shows that at work, the vast majority of giving that occurs between people is in response to direct requests for help.
Of all the giving exchanges that occurred, roughly 90 percent were initiated by the recipient asking for help. Yet when we have a need, we’re often reluctant to ask for help. Much of the time, we’re embarrassed: we don’t want to ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
the Reciprocity Ring often starts with givers stepping up as role models for contributions.
It’s very difficult to act like a pure matcher in the Reciprocity Ring, since it’s unlikely that the people you help will be the same people who can help fulfill your request. So the easiest way to be a matcher is to try to contribute the same amount that other people do.
The Reciprocity Ring created a context that encouraged takers to act like givers, and the key lies in making giving public. Takers know that in a public setting, they’ll gain reputational benefits for being generous in sharing their knowledge, resources, and connections. If they don’t contribute, they look stingy and selfish, and they won’t get much help with their own requests.
givers usually contribute regardless of whether it’s public or private, but takers are more likely to contribute when it’s public.
By making contributions visible, the Reciprocity Ring sets up an opportunity for people of any reciprocity style to be otherish: they can do good and look good at the same time.
They see success in terms of making significant, lasting contributions to a broad range of people.
successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them.
As Simon Sinek writes, “Givers advance the world. Takers advance themselves and hold the world back.”
A powerful way to give is to help others work on tasks that are more interesting, meaningful, or developmental.
Job crafting involves innovating around a job description, creatively adding and customizing tasks and responsibilities to match personal interests and values.
Start a Love Machine.
The Love Machine was designed to overcome this tendency by enabling employees to send a Love message when they appreciated help from a colleague. The Love messages were visible to others, rewarding and recognizing giving by linking it to status and reputations.
5. Embrace the Five-Minute Favor.
(www.meetup.com/106miles),
Rifkin also recommends reconnecting with dormant ties—not to get something, but to give. Once a month, reach out to one person with whom you haven’t spoken in years. Find out what they’re working on and ask if there are ways that you can be helpful.
6. Practice Powerless Communication, but Become an Advocate. Developing greater comfort and skill with powerless communication requires a change in habits—from talking to listening, self-promoting to advice-seeking, and advocating to inquiring.
7. Join a Community of Givers.
10. Seek Help More Often. If you want other people to be givers, one of the easiest steps is to ask. When you ask for help, you’re not always imposing a burden. Some people are givers, and by asking for help, you’re creating an opportunity for them to express their values and feel valued.
