Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

by Adam M. Grant

entrepreneurs look for the same attributes in investors that we all seek in financial advisers: competence and trustworthiness.

In marriages and friendships, we contribute whenever we can without keeping score.

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

in today’s connected world, where relationships and reputations are more visible, givers can accelerate their pace.

surprisingly, people were significantly more likely to benefit from weak ties. Almost 28 percent heard about the job from a weak tie. Strong ties provide bonds, but weak ties serve as bridges: they provide more efficient access to new information.

designs.” Frank Lloyd Wright’s drought lasted until he gave up on independence and began to work interdependently again with talented collaborators. It wasn’t his own idea: his wife Olgivanna convinced him to start a fellowship for apprentices to help him with his work. When apprentices joined him in 1932, his productivity soared, and he was soon working on the Fallingwater house, which would be seen by many as the greatest work of architecture in modern history. Wright ran his fellowship program

“Even when people are well intentioned,” writes LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, “they tend to overvalue their own contributions and undervalue those of others.” This

responsibility bias is a major source of failed collaborations. Professional relationships disintegrate when entrepreneurs, inventors, investors, and executives feel that their partners are not giving them the credit they deserve, or doing their fair share.

The key to balancing our responsibility judgments is to focus our attention on what others have contributed.

By default, givers start by viewing people as bloomers.

This is exactly what has enabled C. J. Skender to develop so many star students. He isn’t unusual in recognizing talented people; he simply starts by seeing everyone as talented and tries to bring out the best in them. In Skender’s mind, every student who walks into his classroom is a diamond in the rough—able and willing to be mined, cut, and polished.

leadership development: identify high-potential people, and then provide them with the mentoring, support, and resources needed to grow to achieve their potential.

When the pianists and their parents talked about their first piano teachers, they consistently focused on one theme: the teachers were caring, kind, and patient.

looking for motivation and work ethic, not only intellectual ability, is part of what has made C. J. Skender so successful in recognizing talent.

The psychologist Angela Duckworth calls this grit: having passion and perseverance toward long-term goals.

This is why givers focus on gritty people: it’s where givers have the greatest return on their investment,

In To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink argues that our success depends heavily on influence skills. To convince others to buy our products, use our services, accept our ideas, and invest in us, we need to communicate in ways that persuade and motivate.

Research suggests that there are two fundamental paths to influence: dominance and prestige. When we establish dominance, we gain influence because others see us as strong, powerful, and authoritative. When we earn prestige, we become influential because others respect and admire us.

When our audiences are skeptical, the more we try to dominate them, the more they resist.

Powerless communicators tend to speak less assertively, expressing plenty of doubt and relying heavily on advice from others.

They talk in ways that signal vulnerability, revealing their weaknesses and making use of disclaimers, hedges, and hesitations.

Because they value the perspectives and interests of others, givers are more inclined toward asking questions than offering answers, talking tentatively than boldly, admitting their weaknesses than displaying their strengths, and seeking advice than

“Givers fear that they’ll become invisible,” Lane says. “But I’ve seen givers thrive because people like working with and trust them. Realizing this was a major turbo boost early in my career.”

Once again, when team members were passive followers, the powerful speakers did just fine. But when team members were highly proactive, taking initiative to come up with a faster way to fold T-shirts, the powerless speakers were much more effective.

New research shows that advice seeking is a surprisingly effective strategy for exercising influence when we lack authority

When the sellers focused on their goal of getting the highest possible price, only 8 percent reached a successful agreement. When the sellers asked the buyers for advice on how to meet their goals, 42 percent reached a successful agreement. Asking for advice encouraged greater cooperation and information sharing, turning a potentially contentious negotiation into a win-win deal.

According to Liljenquist, advice seeking has four benefits: learning, perspective taking, commitment, and flattery.

Seeking advice is a subtle way to invite someone to make a commitment to us.

Bill Gates argued at the World Economic Forum, “there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest, and caring for others,” and people are most successful when they are driven by a “hybrid engine” of the two.

Giving more can be exhausting if it’s in the same domain. Instead of giving more in the same way, over and over, she expanded her contributions to a different group of people.

In this study, led by the psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, people performed five random acts of kindness every week for six weeks. They were randomly divided into two groups: half chunked their giving into a single day each week, and the other half sprinkled it across all five days each week. At the end of the six weeks, despite performing the same number of helping acts, only one group felt significantly happier. The chunkers achieved gains in happiness; the sprinklers didn’t.

By five hours a week, volunteering had diminishing returns: people were learning less and less with each additional hour. After eleven hours a week, additional time volunteered no longer added new knowledge and skills.

Otherish givers build up a support network that they can access for help when they need it. This, along with chunking giving so that it’s energizing, is what makes otherish givers less vulnerable to burnout than selfless givers.

In 2004, Branson launched Virgin Unite, a nonprofit foundation that mobilizes people and resources to fight deadly diseases like AIDS and malaria, promote peace and justice, prevent climate change, and support entrepreneurs with microloans and new jobs in the developing world.

that otherish employees made more sustainable contributions than the selfless givers, takers, or matchers.

Many people think they can judge givers and takers in the blink of an eye. But in reality, they’re wildly inaccurate. Blink again.

Like Ken Lay at Enron, these people come across as pleasant and charming, but they’re often aiming to get much more than they give.

The stronger their feelings of love, the worse they did. The dating couples—especially the ones in love—operated like selfless givers. Their default approach was to empathize with their partners’ needs and give in right away, regardless of their own interests.

once a counterpart is clearly acting like a taker, it makes sense for givers to flex their reciprocity styles and shift to a matching strategy—as Peter did by requiring Rich to reciprocate by adding value to the business.

“If this conversation was helpful, I’m happy to do it on a monthly basis.” If the person agrees, Geller sets up a recurring monthly meeting in his calendar, with no end date.

“It’s easy to fake it every six months, but not on a regular basis. That’s part of why I encourage people to schedule that time.

Through a combination of sincerity screening and generous tit for tat, Bauer was able to avoid becoming a doormat in advising and mentoring takers.

he put himself in a different frame of mind: he was representing his family’s interests.

I became an advocate and pushed back. Because his rivals were pulling their ads, I told Michael, it was an opportunity to gain a leg up on the competition—and what better time to invest than during a recession? He said he would check with his boss and get back to

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 to benefit others and themselves, otherish givers are able to think in more complex ways and identify win-win solutions that both takers and selfless givers miss.

She started doing group mentoring sessions instead of only one-on-ones:

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.

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 gives us a sense of connection and belonging. At the same time, being part of a group that is clearly distinct from other groups gives us a sense of uniqueness.

The more rare a group, value, interest, skill, or experience is, the more likely it is to facilitate a bond.