Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success

“Givers”, “Takers”, and “Matchers” are three fundamental styles of interacting with others. “Takers” use other people solely for their own gain. “Givers” focus on acting in the interests of others, even when the benefits to others exceed the cost to themselves. “Matchers” operate on the principle of fairness by seeking reciprocity.Which one best describes you in business?Of course, in marriage and friendships, we contribute whenever we can without keeping score. We also shift from one style of behaviour to another, across different work roles and relationships. However, we all have a primary style and it has been shown to play as much of a role in our work success as hard work, talent, and luck.Which style of relating is most likely to end up at the bottom of the success ladder, and which style on top? Pause here for a moment and reflect on your personal experience.Research demonstrates that givers sink to the bottom of the success ladder - they make others better off, but sacrifice their own success. In a study of more than 160 engineers in California the least successful engineers were those who gave more than they received. A study of more than 600 medical students in Belgium, showed the lowest grades going to those described as givers. Salespeople were no different, with givers generating 2 ½ times less in annual sales.“On average, givers earn 14% less money, have twice the risk of becoming victims of crimes, and are judged as 22 % less powerful and dominant,” reports author Professor Adam Grant, the youngest full professor of the Wharton School of Business.If the givers are at the bottom of the success ladder, who then is at the top—takers or matchers?The data reveals a surprising pattern – the givers again! “This pattern holds up across the board,” Grant reports. “The top performers were givers, and they averaged 50 percent more annual revenue than the takers and matchers.” It was only at the start of medical school that givers underperformed. They increased their scores each year and by the sixth year, the givers earned substantially higher grades than their peers. When the givers became doctors, they climbed still further ahead. And this pattern holds true across occupations.David Hornik, a venture capitalist, is admired for his commitment to acting in the best interests of entrepreneurs. When he gives an entrepreneur a term sheet - a bullet-point document outlining the material terms and conditions of a business agreement - he also suggests that they shop around to ensure they get the best deal for themselves. Other investors, and if it is a promising deal there are always others, give entrepreneurs a tight deadline to respond to their offer in order to prevent shopping around.The best venture capitalists have an acceptance rate of nearly 50% of the term sheets they offer. In the 11 years as a venture capitalist, Hornik has offered 28 term sheets and twenty-five have accepted.“In this book, I want to persuade you that we underestimate the success of givers like David Hornik,” Grant asserts.Giving can be more powerful and less dangerous than most would believe. “Givers reverse the popular plan of succeeding first and giving back later, raising the possibility that those who give first are often best positioned for success later,” Adam explains. The venture capitalist Randy Komisar remarks, “It’s easier to win if everybody wants you to win… (If) you don’t make enemies out there, it’s easier to succeed.”Success is less about raw talent or aptitude, and more about the strategies givers use. Givers are not necessarily nice, and they’re not necessarily altruistic.In a purely win-lose interaction, giving rarely pays. Most of life is not win-lose. People who choose giving as their primary reciprocity style end up reaping rewards. One reason why givers take time to succeed, is that it takes time for givers to build goodwill and trust, and establish reputations and relationships that enhance their success.“Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon,” says Chip Conley, founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels. Today, speed is making the long-run shorter, and technology is amplifying the advantages of being a giver. In the past, most people worked in independent jobs that rarely required collaboration, so it was fairly inefficient to be a giver. Today, more than 80 percent of Americans work in service jobs where giving is not a choice, but a business necessity.Steve Jones, the former CEO of one of the largest banks in Australia, commissioned a study of successful financial advisers. It was not financial expertise or effort that made for success, it “was whether a financial adviser had the client’s best interests at heart, above the company’s and even his own.”All this needs to be calibrated by observation, that too many givers become pushovers and doormats, and fail to advance their own interests. What differentiates successful givers from failed givers is the degree to which the givers expressed two key motivations: self-interest and other-interest. Self-interest involves pursuing power and achievement, and other-interest focuses on being generous and helpful.This is well illustrated by a study of “Caring Canadian” award winners. The award is made by the Governor General of Canada to honour volunteers. In their life stories, these highly successful givers mentioned a quest for power and achievement almost twice as often as the comparison group. They also had roughly 20% more objectives related to gaining influence, earning recognition, and attaining individual excellence.Takers score high in self-interest and low in other-interest and selfless givers score high on other-interest and low on self-interest. Selfless giving is a form of pathological altruism, an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one’s own needs.“If takers are selfish and failed givers are selfless, successful givers are “otherish”: they care about benefiting others, but they also have ambitious goals for advancing their own interests,” Grant concludes.Much food for thought.Readability Light --+-- SeriousInsights High +---- LowPractical High --+--Low*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author ofStrategy that Works

Although 2013 is still young, I predict that Give and Take, by Wharton professor Adam Grant, has a great chance of being the best book I've read all year, for three reasons: it's inspirational, it's instructional, and it's solidly research-based.The premise of the book is quite simple: the world comprises three types of people: givers, takers and matchers. Which type tends to be most successful? Although we've all been raised on the homily that it's better to give than to receive, the bad news is that the left side of most bell curves is populated by givers, those who contribute more to others than they expect in return. Quite simply, they do less for themselves, people take advantage of them, and they are prone to burnout.But the real surprise is that the right side of bell curves is also a givers' neighborhood. Combining extensive research with inspiring examples, Grant shows us how and why successful givers do well for themselves at the same time that they contribute so much to others. Successful givers approach four principal aspects of relationships differently. The four aspects are networking, collaborating, developing talent and communicating.Successful givers are excellent networkers, but so are a lot of takers and matchers. The difference is that successful givers proactively do things without expectation of return, creating goodwill and possibly setting an example that may be contagious. One of the excellent tips in this chapter is the suggestion to revive dormant connections. The benefit is that when most people tap into their network for help, their strong ties are trusting and disposed to help, but their weak ties have more diverse information. People you haven't talked to in a long time combine the assets of strong ties and weak ties.Givers are also excellent collaborators, quick to help others in a team environment and without spending too much time worrying about who gets credit. They tend to demonstrate what the National Outdoor Leadership School calls expedition behavior, putting the needs of the mission and the team ahead of your own. In the long run, this behavior increases their prestige and the willingness of others to help them when they need it.Givers are also excellent at spotting talent, because they're not worried about creating rivals who may outshine them. Also, because they tend to assume competence and talent on the part of others, they may be generating self-fulfilling prophecies. I found this chapter to be rather long on anecdote and thin on evidence, but the next chapter made up for it.For me the meatiest chapter covered the successful practices that givers follow in communicating with others, in presenting, selling, and negotiating. Successful givers ask more meaningful questions and have an effective mix of confidence and humility in their advocacy. They also tend to be good at perspective-taking, which is the cognitive equivalent of empathy: instead of feeling what the other person is feeling, they are adept at thinking what they're thinking. In studies, people with high empathy do worse in creating value, because they are more apt to give the other person what they want. Those high in perspective taking are better at coming up with creative ideas to give both sides more of what they want.The second section of the book is for those who are too giving, and tend to fall at the bottom of the success distribution because they get taken advantage of and exhaust their energies serving others rather than themselves. The key insight is that self-interest and other-interest are not opposite points on a single line; they are separate axes on a graph. Those who give too much have a high score for other-interest, and a low score for self-interest. Successful givers are at the top right of the graph, combining a high other-focus with high self-interest. As a result, they are in better control of their giving, seeing it as a positive choice rather than an obligation, and being more proactive in allocating their giving time and energy.If you get inspired by Grant's book, what you'll really want to know is how to become a more successful giver. The Catch-22 is that giving has to be sincere it it's to work, and if you try to make it strategic it's not sincere. I do think, however, that if you begin changing your behavior for strategic purposes, and start doing more for others, two positive things may happen. First, regardless of the motive, you're contributing to the sum total of benefit and happiness. Even more important is that your attitude may begin to catch up with your actions. The mind does not like cognitive dissonance, so if we're acting in a giving manner we will begin to see ourselves more as givers, leading to a virtuous circle. The book finishes with ten suggestions for becoming more of a giver--I'll keep you posted on how it works.The one weakness in the book is that in some of the chapters, as mentioned above, there was less evidence than it seemed on first reading. You get pulled in to the inspiring stories, but on closer reading you don't find enough evidence to be able to make up your mind whether those examples are the rule or the exception.Despite this, the message in Grant's book is so powerful that I give it five stars. But it's not a gift--it's truly earned. The book itself is a gift to anyone who reads it, and to countless others who may be on the receiving end of their stepped-up giving.Disclaimer: I may be subject to some confirmation bias, because although I don't know Adam Grant personally, I found out about the book through the very complimentary article profiling him in the New York Times Magazine. (Of course, that's one way highly successful givers work their magic..)

Esse livro ta me ajudando a pensar que mais vale ser altruista e ajudar os outros ao inves de pensar em si mesmo o tempo todo e fazer as coisas sempre pensando em algo em troca. no final vc sái ganhando muito mais

It was a great book no doubt. Anyone Must read. A lot of day to day examples to apply. I really liked how the main topics are linked and how to apply the theory. Strongly recommended. The author explained really clear with examples regarding givers and takers so anyone could understand how to deal with different personalities

3つのカテゴリーについて延々語る本まあそうかなーと思うところも有るけど、そんなに3つのカテゴリーにこだわらなくても良いんじゃないのって気もする

Fantastic and relatable book. For people who doubt the power of giving or helping , and understand how to do it better.

Very well written. Originals, by Adam Grant, earned 5 stars with me, but Give and Take only earned 4. There are some fantastic insights into social behavior, psychological training and business relations. A must-read for those wanting to counteract burn-out or understand how to give their time rather than just blindly following and becoming a doormat.