Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success

by Adam M. Grant

The fear of exploitation by takers is so pervasive, writes the Cornell economist Robert Frank, that “by encouraging us to expect the worst in others

it brings out the worst in us: dreading the role of the chump, we are often loath to heed our nobler instincts.”

When a financial planner asked him what he wanted to achieve in life, Hornik said that “above all, I want to demonstrate that success doesn’t have to come at someone else’s expense.”

I’ll show you how successful givers have unique approaches to interactions in four key domains: networking, collaborating, evaluating, and influencing.

According to Brian Uzzi, a management professor at Northwestern University, networks come with three major advantages: private information, diverse skills, and power. By developing a strong network, people can gain invaluable access to knowledge, expertise, and influence. Extensive research demonstrates that people with rich networks achieve higher performance ratings, get promoted faster, and earn more money.

We meet many people throughout our professional and personal lives, and since we all have different knowledge and resources, it makes sense to turn to these people to exchange help, advice, and introductions. This raises a fundamental question: Can people build up networks that have breadth and depth using different reciprocity styles? Or does one style consistently create a richer network?

A trio of German psychologists found that when strangers first encountered people, the ones they liked most were those “with a sense of entitlement and a tendency to manipulate and exploit others.”

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

They found several clues of takers lekking at the top. One signal appeared in CEO interviews. Since takers tend to be self-absorbed, they’re more likely to use first-person singular pronouns like I, me, mine, my, and myself—versus first-person plural pronouns like we, us, our, ours, and ourselves. In the computer industry, when talking about the company, on average, 21 percent of CEOs’ first-person pronouns were in the singular. For the extreme takers, 39 percent of their first-person pronouns were in the singular. Of every ten words that the taker CEOs uttered referencing themselves, four were about themselves alone and no one else.

Another signal was compensation: the taker CEOs earned far more money than other senior executives in their companies. The takers saw themselves as superior, so they felt entitled to substantial pay discrepancies in their own favor.

For the taker CEOs, it was all about me. A big photo is self-glorifying, sending a clear message: “I am the central figure in this company.”

First, when we have access to reputational information, we can see how people have treated others in their networks. Second, when we have a chance to observe the actions and imprints of takers, we can look for signs of lekking. Self-glorifying images, self-absorbed conversations, and sizable pay gaps can send accurate, reliable signals that someone is a taker.

The takers posted information that was rated as more self-promoting, self-absorbed, and self-important. They featured quotes that were evaluated as boastful and arrogant. The takers also had significantly more Facebook friends, racking up superficial connections so they could advertise their accomplishments and stay in touch to get favors, and posted vainer, more flattering pictures of themselves.

Rifkin reflects. “You never know where somebody’s going to end up. It’s not just about building your reputation; it really is about being there for other people.”

But Adam Rifkin isn’t after their help—at least not for himself. Rifkin’s real aim is to change our fundamental ideas about how we build our networks and who should benefit from them. He believes that we should see networks as a vehicle for creating value for everyone, not just claiming it for ourselves. And he is convinced that this giver approach to networking can uproot the traditional norm of reciprocity in a manner that’s highly productive for all involved.

His giving is governed by a simple rule: the five-minute favor. “You should be willing to do something that will take you five minutes or less for anybody.”

To effectively help colleagues, people need to step outside their own frames of reference.

His name is C. J. Skender, and he is a living legend.

As Malcolm Gladwell showed us in Outliers, research led by psychologist Anders Ericsson reveals that attaining expertise in a domain typically requires ten thousand hours of deliberate practice.

The world-class pianists had their initial interest sparked by teachers who were givers.

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

“Persistence is incredibly important,” says psychologist Tom Kolditz,

This is why givers focus on gritty people: it’s where givers have the greatest return on their investment, the most meaningful and lasting impact.

One of the keys to cultivating grit is making the task at hand more interesting and motivating.

But the single most powerful factor is ego threat: if I don’t keep investing, I’ll look and feel like a fool.

Inman recognized that givers were undervalued by many teams, since they didn’t hog the spotlight or use the flashiest of moves. His philosophy was that “It’s not what a player is, but what he can become… that will allow him to grow.”

Inman worked with Ogilvie to assess players on their selflessness, desire to succeed, willingness to persevere, receptivity to being coached, and dedication to the sport. Through these assessments, Inman could develop a deep understanding of a player’s tendencies toward grit and giving.

“If you choose to champion great talent, you will be picking one of the most altruistic things a person can do,” writes George Anders. “In any given year, quick-hit operators may make more money and win more recognition, at least briefly. Over time, though, that dynamic reverses.”

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.

Givers are much more comfortable expressing vulnerability: they’re interested in helping others, not gaining power over them, so they’re not afraid of exposing chinks in their armor. By making themselves vulnerable, givers can actually build prestige.

But there’s a twist: expressing vulnerability is only effective if the audience receives other signals establishing the speaker’s competence.

Psychologists call this the pratfall effect.

It’s the givers, by virtue of their interest in getting to know us, who ask us the questions that enable us to experience the joy of learning from ourselves.

And by giving us the floor, givers are actually learning about

us and from us, which helps them figure out how to sell us thin...

By asking questions and getting to know their customers, givers build trust and gain knowledge about their customers’ needs.

you’ve been convinced by someone you already like and trust: Yourself.

According to Aronson, “in direct persuasion, the audience is constantly aware of the fact that they have been persuaded by another. Where self-persuasion occurs, people are convinced that the motivation for change has come from within.”

Fragale finds that speech styles send signals about who’s a giver and who’s a taker. Takers tend to use powerful speech: they’re assertive and direct. Givers tend to use more powerless speech, talking with tentative markers like these:

Fragale shows that when people have to work closely together, such as in teams and service relationships, powerless speech is actually more influential than powerful speech.

“Teams love it when their leader presents a work product as a collaborative effort. That’s what inspires them to contribute,” Hill reflects. “The paradox comes from people thinking an inclusive leader isn’t strong enough to lead a team, when in fact that leader is stronger, because he engenders the support of the team. People bond to givers, like electromagnetism.”

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

The turnaround highlights a remarkable principle of giver burnout: it has less to do with the amount of giving and more with the amount of feedback about the impact of that giving.

According to Langer, they weren’t faking it. Rather, “the change of context brought renewed energy.”

In these contexts, decisions about how, where, and how much to give clearly make a difference when it comes to burning out or firing up.

In numerous studies, Carnegie Mellon psychologist Vicki Helgeson has found that when people give continually without concern for their own well-being, they’re at risk for poor mental and physical health.* Yet when they give in a more otherish fashion, demonstrating substantial concern for themselves as well as others, they no longer experience health costs.

Perlow had an idea for turning these selfless givers into otherish givers. She proposed that instead of sprinkling their giving, they could chunk it. She worked with the engineers to create dedicated windows for quiet time and interaction time.

UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor has discovered a stress response that differs from fight or flight. She calls it tend and befriend. “One of the most striking aspects of the human stress response is the tendency to affiliate—that is, to come together in groups to provide and receive joint protection in threatening times.”

Trust is one reason that givers are so susceptible to the doormat effect: they tend to see the best in everyone, so they operate on the mistaken assumption that everyone is trustworthy.

Giving and taking are based on our motives and values, and they’re choices that we make regardless of whether our personalities trend agreeable or disagreeable.