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Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our…
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Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success (edition 2014)

by Adam Grant (Author)

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1,1992516,236 (4.01)6
It's the topic I was needing to read. The author goes on to conclude that giving, when done right, it's a powerful way to succeed in life. ( )
  deo808 | Jul 3, 2019 |
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Excellent. Givers really do come out ahead. ( )
  pollycallahan | Jul 1, 2023 |
Give and Take is a compelling research based book that explains how people have become successful in their careers and business goals by being the right type of person when interacting with others. Grant categorizes people into three types: givers, takers, and matchers. In a world where success is dependent on how we interact, he finds that givers are more likely to become successful than takers and matchers. Surprisingly the data backs it up. I really liked the interesting stories of successful people who have lived a givers lifestyle that showed how a giving culture pays off. Grant also explains how people can vary between the three types depending on certain aspects of work especially since givers can be taken advantage of. There is something inspiring about reading other people’s stories of them giving and then them being reciprocated with success in some way or another. It motivates you to also want to give and be mindful of how you interact with others. This is a must read for anyone looking to further their career and achieve success by learning the value of giving a bit more. ( )
  Demos_Parneros | Nov 25, 2022 |
3.5 stars

So Adam Grant divides the world into givers, takers and matchers. You would think the givers would be at bottom of things getting run over by the takers in this dog eat dog world, and you would be half right. Adam shows how givers are at the bottom AND the top of the world.

These kinds of books I try to list out the most memorable lesson I received from reading this book. I love learning about pronoia, which is the opposite of the more famous paranoia. What could we accomplish if we believe the whole world is FOR you?

The second major thing that I remember is the abababab. It's just a little blurb that probably none of the other reviewers remember. There was an experiment where people were paid to do mundane tasks (like type out ababababab). It was boring, mind-numbing, and hand-numbing. But as soon as the subject was able to write something else, he was able to do it easily. There's some lesson here about avoiding burnout by doing a change up?

In fact, the motivation part about avoiding burnout probably hit me most because let's face it...there's not a lot of chance of meeting someone with my exact name or writing a comedy.

( )
  wellington299 | Feb 19, 2022 |
The premise of the book is good but loses narrative energy in part.
The examples from the sporting field are hard to relate to for a reader outside of North America, and some business word examples are also very specific to the US.

( )
  moukayedr | Sep 5, 2021 |
Don't ignore this book, because even though it seems like it follows a lot of business/management book clichés, it's actually insightful and seems like it could be very useful in your career or personal life. It's structured like every other "improve your business performance in ten easy steps!!!" clone, but stick with it.

Danger signs:
- An extremely broad subject ("giver" personalities" vs "matchers" or "takers", who aren't as generous to other people or are downright parasitical)
- Cutesy chapter titles (goofy animal analogies like "The Peacock and the Panda", pseudo-paradoxes like "The Power of Powerless Communication", or bad puns like "Chump Change", which is about not being a doormat)
- Seemingly superficial rapid-fire transitions between evidence for the author's position (for example, chapter 3, which is about the power of collaboration, jumps from comedy to architecture to coronary bypass surgery to equity analysts to the polio vaccine to temperature perception experiments to spinal taps to wedding registries)
- Inclusion of possibly irrelevant historical analogies (is the trajectory of Abraham Lincoln's political career really a useful analogy for modern workplace interactions?)

And yet, Grant makes it all work. The book is one long paean to how important it is to be helpful to other people, and how even though it's easy to get trapped in thinking of life as an endless series of zero-sum games where someone else's gain is your loss, you should keep on trying to invest in your fellow coworkers/clients/human beings. Because even though sometimes you'll get burned by enabling people who consume more emotional/financial/temporal resources than they give you, in the long run you'll probably be a happier and more successful person as long as you can successfully balance your own needs with the well-being of the larger groups you're embedded within. Grant has lots of good case studies showing that while being helpful can sometimes backfire on you, such as if you're pathologically ignoring your own needs , helping people generates such positive mutual returns that, much like the evolutionary strategy of Generous Tit-for-Tat, as long as you look on the bright side of human nature you'll be surprised at how far you can go.

It's completely fair to be skeptical of such Pollyanna-ish positivity, yet I feel like Grant is correct to advocate for trusting in other people. While I would love to have seen some more longitudinal evidence (i.e., if givers come to dominate a company, are they vulnerable to an eventual influx of takers in the same way that an ecosystem is vulnerable to an influx of predators?), my experience in my personal and professional career has convinced me that successful groups are the ones that have built up interpersonal trust through exactly the mechanisms that he discusses here. E.O. Wilson, who is quoted here, once had a good line that "Within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals." Yet that actually understates the importance of altruism, because though givers can be exploited, the most successful people in groups tend to be the ones that have built up strong relationships through their assistance and advice. Context is everything when it comes to talking about human behavior, but even though it seems facile to link Teach For America and venture capital firms, Grant is very persuasive when he talks about the inspirational effects of helping people.

No business book would be complete without action items. Here are his end-of-the-book bullet points:
- Test your giver quotient by visiting his website to figure out if you're a giver, matcher, or taker
- Run a reciprocity ring that encourages helpful interactions
- Help other people craft their jobs
- Start a love machine (meaning try to institutionalize helpful feedback mechanisms in your organizations)
- Embrace the five-minute favor, because they cost you very little time but can be very helpful to the recipients
- Practice powerless communication, and take advantage of the psychological loophole that makes people more likely to listen to you when they think you're not trying to lawyer them into something
- Join a community of givers, and get inspired by them
- Launch a personal generosity experiment
- Seek help more often, because people enjoy doing favors for others more than they enjoy having favors done for them ( )
  aaronarnold | May 11, 2021 |
I hope you don't get too sick of me posting reviews of books I had to complete for my course. I really did enjoy this one a lot. It had a lot of interesting facts and data/examples to show why helping others leads to win/win. It's hard out there if you are a manager and you have employees or bosses that are set to win and they want to make sure that you lose. Heck, I have to deal with agency officials at times that don't want to concede a point since that will be saying (to them at least) that they lost.

"Give and Take" starts off with Grant laying out a story about an investor and a man who had a great idea for a company (the investor's name was Hornik and the man who pitched an idea to him was named Shader). What I thought was interesting was that Shader felt uneasy since he thought that Hornik in a word was too nice. Hornik suggested he seek out other people and take his time. And Shader was worried that Hornik would spend too much time encouraging him instead of challenging him. Yes in the business world this is apparently bad.

From there, Grant breaks the rest of the book down into "takers" and "givers." I found out through my course work and feedback survey and other surveys I took am a giver. I am also a border crosser (means I go back and forth between groups and am a go to person to do that) and surprise surprise I am also more likely to hit burnout. And in fact my one instructor read through all of my surveys and gave me feedback that I am close now. This book really was eye opening to me that you can be a "giver" and not be taken advantage of and not be seen as weak. That you want to approach ever negotiation as a win-win and not do your level best to wreck your opponent. You do have to be protective of yourself though and not "give" too much of yourself away to others.

I loved reading that yes "givers" are more likely to land at the bottom of the success leaders, but also they are more likely to land at the top as well. I think it's all about how people perceive givers as the story above shows. In the end I loved that Shader went back to Hornik after realizing the other guy who was a "taker" was ultimately not who he wanted to work with.

Grant also provides examples of one of the biggest takers out there: Kenneth Lay. What's shocking is how many people knew what Lay was doing, but were talked down to and were not allowed to speak up. Lay was a classic taker and Grant shows numerous ways that he was first and foremost thinking only of himself.

One of my favorite facts in this book though is Grant showcases a famous lawyer named Dave Walton who used to stutter And he points out other famous people who used to stutter as well such as GE CEO Jack Welch, VP Joe Biden, singer Carly Simon, 20/20 anchor John Stossel and actor James Earl Jones. I used to stutter as a child and had a great speech therapist. I eventually learned to speak without a stutter, and now all of my colleagues don't believe me when I mention that I used to have one. I think that they just see the person before them, not the one who had to jump a lot of hurdles to get to where she is now.

So all in all, a great book that I think would enhance any class on leadership. ( )
  ObsidianBlue | Jul 1, 2020 |
A well written and researched book that shows that acting in a manner that looks out for others results in success. Not always, and one must still understand one's goals, but it works. Well worth the read. ( )
  Skybalon | Mar 19, 2020 |
A lovely antidote to any cynicism you may have about who succeeds in business and life, and maybe a gentle nudge for anyone most concerned with getting what they can to give a little, too.

Grant is a business professor who has studied the career and life trajectories of people he labels givers, takers, matchers and fakers. (Fakers being those people who have taker values, but try to seem like givers to higher-ups and powerful people to create good impressions and get the rewards of being generous without the costs.) I was surprised to learn that while givers did indeed congregate at the bottom of the career and salary ladders, they also congregated at the top, basically forming a sandwich around the takers and matchers in the middle. What explains this counter-intuitive result?

Givers, when they manage to give a lot without letting themselves get burned out or taken advantage of, create large networks of friends and allies and excellent reputations that work to their long-term advantage, whereas takers--even when they manage to create short-term giver reputations--end up with their selfish actions coming back later to ruin their reputations and destroy their networks and relationships.

Give and Take is another black eye for the Greed Is Good philosophy, and the more the better in my opinion. Grant solidly establishes that not only is Greed bad for society, greedy workers are bad for the companies they work for, greedy leaders lead their teams to disaster, and greedy people end up shooting themselves in the foot over the long term. It's better to give, in every way that can be measured, so long as you don't let yourself be taken advantage of--and he's got plenty of research establishing how successful givers manage to do just that.

Regardless of whether or not you personally care about who is more successful (givers vs. takers vs. matchers), I highly recommend this book to help restore your faith in human nature and potential and the futures we are capable of creating. ( )
  andrea_mcd | Mar 10, 2020 |
baoerhv beblalalalal ( )
  sebastian73965426 | Nov 19, 2019 |
It's the topic I was needing to read. The author goes on to conclude that giving, when done right, it's a powerful way to succeed in life. ( )
  deo808 | Jul 3, 2019 |
Summary: Proposes that many of the most successful people are givers who have learned how to give without being doormats and without expectation of return and explores why such giving is so powerful.

It is common to think that robust success in any field requires a "winner take all and devil take the hindmost" approach that zealously pursues one's own interests. Psychologist Adam Grant's research has led him to a very different conclusion. For one thing, he identifies three styles of relationship styles: givers whose predominant approach is giving without expectation of return, takers who tend to get far more than they give, and matchers, who balance giving and taking. Not surprisingly, he found out that the givers were the least successful. The surprise was that those who were most successful, most productive, were also givers. Takers and matchers fell in between.

This book explores why some givers are so successful, and what distinguishes them from the givers who are not. He begins by distinguishing between givers and takers who are good at looking like givers. The contrast he offers is between Ken Lay, who presided over the demise of Enron, who seemed to do favors for the rich and powerful but built a company that served his interests and was focused around him, and Adam Rifkin, a shy Silicon Valley entrepreneur with over 3000 LinkedIn connections, and the most connections of anyone to those on Forbes' most powerful people list. Both were networkers, but the difference was that Rifkin gave far more than he received, and without expectation of return. It is from Rifkin that we learn about the 5-minute rule that he zealously pursued: “You should be willing to do something that will take you five minutes or less for anybody.” Rifkin also teaches us the practice of not writing off our "dormant" networks, the people we once knew.

Givers are good collaborators. Grant profiles George Meyer, a comedy writer whose impact far exceeded the number of credits he received on The Simpsons. Meyer would often generate ideas and give them to others, and elevated the whole team of writers, contributing to the long-running success of the show. Perhaps his most famous contribution is "meh"--a new word for boredom or apathy, a contribution he didn't even remember until other writers jogged his memory! Again, Grant offers a contrast, this time with Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, whose least successful period was when he worked alone, and yet who hogged credit from his apprentices.

Givers look for potential in people and create self-fulfilling prophecies, often recognizing diamonds in the rough. At the same time, when things don't work out, their identity is not tied up in the decisions in the same way it is for matchers or takers. They more quickly help people move on when they need to.

Givers learn the power of powerless communication. Instead of trying to win their way by wowing others, they take more modest approaches that give others the space to come to the conclusion one hopes they will come to, often by questions or more tentative approaches.

The last part of the book focuses on the distinction between unsuccessful and successful givers. Successful givers figure out how not to burn out. They learn to be "otherish" givers rather than selfless. They find ways to give to causes they care about, and then end up giving more. Grant talks about the chunking principle--that giving works best when done in chunks rather than sprinkled through one's schedule. Givers who devote at least 100 hours over a year to their cause find more satisfaction. Effective givers also learn to identify and focus their giving efforts on other givers. As they lead organizations, they foster cultures of giving by their own active giving, by encouraging a "pay it forward" attitude. In these situations, even matchers and takers learn how to act like givers, further enriching the organization. He features organizations that set up "reciprocity rings" like Freecycle. Grant concludes the book with a list of "actions for impact."

This was a fascinating and challenging book for me to read from my faith perspective as a Christian. My faith is grounded in the extravagant love of a giving God who even gives his Son for humanity's redemption. It leads to an ethic of grace, of generous giving without expectation of return, of forgiveness without payback. Grant's book, without referencing faith, raises the question: am I a giver, taker, or matcher? Also without referencing faith, he offers evidence that giving is the ground of healthy and flourishing relationships and organizational cultures, defying the apparent common sense of a cutthroat ethic. Most of all, his diverse selection of examples suggest that this is not exclusive to the non-profit world, but rather touches on something that is fundamental to the better angels of our nature.

I also like the challenge to actively give. I think I'm going to start with Adam Rifkin's five minute rule. It actually sounds kind of fun to see where that will lead! ( )
  BobonBooks | Mar 7, 2019 |
It's tough to rate this book, because there's a lot I disliked about it. I felt that chapters 2-5 could be skipped. It makes some claims that are debunked later or only apply to CEOs/bosses. He states that takers are easy to spot in chapter 2 but then backtracks in chapter 7. The thesis of the book is good, that establishing norms of helping others helps ourselves. He provides some evidence that people who give often are more valued and receive benefits that move them forward in their careers. He never really qualifies giving for say women who are expected to be more giving, or people who dont have many skills or resources. It seems that effective givers are creative on also making asks. He gives little information to understand how effective givers also take, just less than they give, and they pay it forward and ask others to give or pay it forward as well.

Essentially,
Give freely and trust people
But once you realize someone is a taker, be arrive about exclusions if reciprocity and matching
Givers ask for what they need because they invest in themselves as much as others
Givers are not limited to tit for tat, they also pay it forward
Avoid burnout by dedicating time to activities that make the benefits of your giving/work apparent so you feel that what you do is important
Find things that you have in common with people
Find clever ways to meet your needs and others without sacrificing; think outside the box about studying motivations and making each of your jobs easier and achieving all the goals
Ask for help and advice
Don't worry so much about power language because to can be off-putting and you want to express your interest in investing in the team, others and yourself as a win win

Generally, life is not a zero sum game. ( )
  CassandraT | Sep 23, 2018 |
This book does an amazing job of talking about how giving is the best strategy to build most benefit for all. This is a very OPEN idea!
  open-leadership | Jan 24, 2018 |
Key takeaways:

- People can be classified as givers, matchers or takers depending on their reciprocity strategy. Givers give without expecting payback, matchers look for equilibrium, takers want gain at the expense of others.
- Givers can be further classified as "selfless" or "otherish". Selfless givers don't do well for themselves as they help everybody indiscriminately regardless of the disadvantages to themselves. Otherish givers have a more nuanced strategy such as limiting help provided to takers.
- Selfless givers end up at the bottom of the ladder, but otherish givers are apparently more successful than either takers or matchers.
- Takers will fake their strategy for a time to be accepted into a community.
- People can adjust their strategy per community. A community of givers will influence givers and takers in the giver direction. People need to see benefit from the community first before they adjust their strategy
- People need to see the positive impact of their actions, or they burn out.
- Reactivating dormant ties in one's social network can be really useful because they don't require establishing trust like new connections
- Givers create a lot of weak ties by doing favours for people and asking nothing in return, and if they reconnect with them later, those weak ties are often eager to help
- Givers see everyone as having potential and behave accordingly
- A huge factor in the sunk cost fallacy/escalation of commitment is looking good: If I don't keep investing, I will look and feel like a fool. Other factors are anticipated regret (will I be sorry if I don't give this another chance?) and project completion (If I keep investing, I will succeed in the end)
- Takers use powerful communication, but givers tend towards powerless communication: less assertive, expressing doubt and relying on advice from others, showing vulnerability and revealing weaknesses. Powerless communication can nonetheless help develop prestige if combined with demonstrable expertise. It helps experts appear approachable and human instead of superior and distant
- Good negotiators ask questions and take time to understand the other side's perspective, and are able to provide a better outcome for the *other* side in a way that doesn't cost a lot to themselves.
- Combining giving activities into a single period provides more feeling of impact than spreading them out over time
- A good strategy: "generous tit for tat" - never forget a good turn, but occasionally forget a bad one
- In negotiations, givers can overcome their tendency to give away too much by taking the position of advocating on behalf of someone else (e.g. family, team etc.).
- People are more inclined to give when they have something in common with the other person; the more in common, the better.
- People want to be unique but at the same time belong to groups; "optimal distinctiveness" is about a blend of belonging and uniqueness which makes people happier

Interesting factoids:

- Study: teachers were told that some of their students had high potential. Even though these students were picked at random, this created a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they went on to outperform others. The teachers' belief in the students' potential made teachers engage with them differently and produced better results
- Tennis players who have been in the top 10 reported that their first coaches weren't exceptional, but they provided the motivation for them to become interested in tennis and to spend time practising. This was also true with other musicians and athletes: their first teachers made initial learning pleasant and rewarding.
- Asking a question about something can be a lot more persuasive than saying "you should". "The art of advocacy is to lead you to my conclusion *on your terms*".
- Study: when asked about conserving electricity, people named their neighbours' behaviour as least motivating, but in practice it was the factor that led *to most savings*
- Reciprocity ring: each person in a group asks for something they need, and all the others
  supremumlimit | May 30, 2016 |
Do Givers win or do Takers win? Or is it the people in the middle. The results are surprising until you learn how other factors matter. This book backs a simple concept with empirical research and plenty of practical examples. What I valued most from it was a technique of making interpersonal negotiations more objective by imagining giving advice to someone else. ( )
  jpsnow | Oct 4, 2015 |
Absolutely amazing book for understanding generosity from totally another angle.
For anyone who has been on a self-discovery journey to ascertain his success and failures, this book provides for an illuminating answer !
Absolutely fascinating and comprehensive research on givers, takers and matchers - That unveils how the world really works …
The most inspirational book I have read in years ;()

Aug, 21 st - 2015 ( )
  Fouad_Bendris | Aug 21, 2015 |
I will be buying this for my personal library! ( )
  TheresaUpshur | Jan 28, 2015 |
I usually hate books written by B School professors but this one is great. The mix of real psychological studies with leadership profiles with thoughtful frameworks. I thought it was a great read and highly recommend it to anyone. ( )
  lincolnpan | Dec 31, 2014 |
Pretty repetitive, on the whole. ( )
  Egon_Spengler | Oct 26, 2014 |
Leerzaam maar wel erg Amerikaans. De boodschap had ook in 25% van de tekst verpakt kunnen worden. ( )
  JaapNoordzij | Nov 13, 2013 |
American business is supposed to be a tough, ultra-competitive arena where only the strong survive, and nice guys get trampled, right? According to this book, that is not totally true.

This book looks at three different kinds of people. Takers claim as much value for themselves as possible. If, for instance, they are the CEO, they are the sort of person who has a full page picture of themselves in the company's annual report, where most other CEO's will have a much smaller picture in their annual report. Takers are very deferential to superiors, and very mean and inconsiderate to subordinates. They use words like I, me and mine, as if they single-handedly caused their company to have a profitable year.

Matchers aim to trade value evenly, as if they want to keep their spiritual inbox and outbox equal. Givers contribute to others without expecting anything in return.

The giving could involve something like arranging a business introduction, or mentoring a younger employee. There is a fine line between being a giver and a doormat; a giver must also make sure that their business duties are not being ignored. In the short term, takers may do better than givers, but, in the long term, a giver's networking, collaboration and leadership skills will come to the forefront. A giver uses words like we, us and ours.

How can a person increase their giving capacity? Take a test to see just how much of a giver you really are. Start a reciprocity ring at work. A group of employees meet weekly to make requests of each other. The intention is that everyone do what they can to fulfill those requests. It may seem a bit silly, but someone in your circle may know someone who knows someone who can fulfill your request. Publicly recognize givers at work. If you would rather give on your own, start a Personal Generosity Experiment.

This is a very thought-provoking book, which shows that nice people can finish first. The average CEO, or division head, could do a lot worse than read this book, and start to implement its recommendations. ( )
  plappen | Aug 23, 2013 |
Convincing about the benefits of being a "giver". Grant's management research provides the basis for this thought provoking book about working styles. Most people are takers, givers or matchers (some of both). It turns out being a giver characterizes many of both the most succesful and the least succesful in different working places. Concern for others can be dysfunctional and lead to getting little done oneself, but if you do it right, you get more in return in the long run. And not only that, you drag your surroundings with you. It is obviously difficult to identify causality here, but Grant evidently firmly believes that giving causes success, and some of his evidence suggests that giving behavior can be learnt and effects identified.

Organizes his discussion around four areas in which givers have a unique approach: networking, collaborating, evaluating and influencing.

Networking. Grant tells us about "Fortune 500's best networker" - Adam Rivkin, a universally appreciated nice guy who always has found it worthwhile to help others out and making matches between people and suggests making keeping in touch a habit. Reconnecting is key, and that is easier for givers, who have shared resources and knowledge before.

A first teacher in some field is not necessarily important for the skills that he or she teaches, but for giving motivation. Grit is a powerful predictor of success. To connect with an audience, it may be good to establish both vulnerability and credibility.

Givers should keep their own interest in mind, but when they do that, they are "other-ish" givers that "find ways of expanding the pie." ( )
  ohernaes | Jun 4, 2013 |
There are givers. There are takers.

Who loses? Who wins?

As you might suspect, the givers lose.
But here’s a surprise: the givers also win.

Lots and lots here for those who own companies or manage people or just want to know more about human nature. ( )
  debnance | May 26, 2013 |
Using scientific evidence and lots of stories, Grant explores the impact of giving on success. Grant argues that there are three types of people in the workplace - givers, takers, and matchers. And he finds that good guys (the givers) finish first. . . and last. Some givers are able to manage their giving in a way that serves both the interests of others and their own interests, making them successful in the workplace, while others are consumed by serving the demands of others to the detriment of their own success. Grant provides lots of practical tips on how to manage giving behavior so that you can reap the psychological benefits of helping others and the practical benefits of succeeding at your own aims.

Full disclosure - I know the author of this book. He's a management professor at the Wharton School of Business (University of Pennsylvania), and we're in the same professional organizations and have served on some committees together. He's a serious scientist with the ability to translate what he's learned from research into practical insights. This is one of those rare business books that is built on a scientific foundation, but is easy to read and apply. ( )
  porch_reader | May 14, 2013 |
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