Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

by Adam M. Grant

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?

If you’re a giver at work, you simply strive to be generous in sharing your time, energy, knowledge, skills, ideas, and connections with other people who can benefit from them.

Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them.

“Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.”

According to the psychologist Robert Cialdini, people can capitalize on this norm of reciprocity by giving what they want to receive. Instead of just reactively doing favors for the people who have already helped them, takers and matchers often proactively offer favors to people whose help they want in the future.*

Strong ties provide bonds, but weak ties serve as bridges: they provide more efficient access to new information. Our strong ties tend to travel in the same social circles and know about the same opportunities as we do. Weak ties are more likely to open up access to a different network, facilitating the discovery of original leads.

Givers have a track record of generously sharing their knowledge, teaching us their skills, and helping us find jobs without worrying about what’s in it for them, so we’re glad to help them when they get back in touch with us.

The takers were black holes. They sucked the energy from those around them. The givers were suns: they injected light around the organization.

Giving, especially when it’s distinctive and consistent, establishes a pattern that shifts other people’s reciprocity styles within a group. It turns out that giving can be contagious.

Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple people for a greater good.

This is a defining feature of how givers collaborate: they take on the tasks that are in the group’s best interest, not necessarily their own personal interests. This makes their groups better

In roles as leaders and mentors, givers resist the temptation to search for talent first. By recognizing that anyone can be a bloomer, givers focus their attention on motivation.

In fact, there’s a close connection between grit and giving. In my own research, I’ve found that because of their dedication to others, givers are willing to work harder and longer than takers and matchers. Even when practice is no longer enjoyable, givers continue exerting effort out of a sense of responsibility to their team.