Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success by Adam Grant

 Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success by Adam Grant.

For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But in today’s dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. In Give and Take, Adam Grant examines the surprising forces that shape why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom. 

According to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: motivation, ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of hard work, talent, and luck.  a fourth ingredient, one that’s critical but often neglected: 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?

Takers have a distinctive signature: they like to get more than they give. They tilt reciprocity in their own favor, putting their own interests ahead of others’ needs. Takers believe that the world is a competitive, dog-eat-dog place. They feel that to succeed, they need to be better than others. To prove their competence, they self-promote and make sure they get plenty of credit for their efforts.

Giving, taking, and matching are three fundamental styles of social interaction, but the lines between them aren’t hard and fast. You might find that you shift from one reciprocity style to another as you travel across different work roles and relationships

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. And because networks are based on interactions and relationships, they serve as a powerful prism for understanding the impact of reciprocity styles on success. 

There’s a Dutch phrase that captures this duality beautifully: kissing up, kicking down. Although takers tend to be dominant and controlling with subordinates, they’re surprisingly submissive and deferential toward superiors.

As Wayne Baker, a University of Michigan sociologist and networking expert, explains, If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won’t succeed. We can’t pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships.

It’s in homage to a classic study by the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Strong ties are our close friends and colleagues, the people we really trust. Weak ties are our acquaintances, the people we know casually. Testing the common assumption that we get the most help from our strong ties, Granovetter surveyed people in professional, technical, and managerial professions who had recently changed jobs. Nearly 17 percent heard about the job from a strong tie. Their friends and trusted colleagues gave them plenty of leads. 

But 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. 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.

In the words of Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, I’ll do this for you without expecting anything specific back from you, in the confident expectation that someone else will do something for me down the road. In one study, contagion experts James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis found that giving spreads rapidly and widely across social networks. 

Reciprocity styles offer a powerful lens for explaining why some people flourish in teams while others fail. In Multipliers, former Oracle executive Liz Wiseman distinguishes between geniuses and genius makers. Geniuses tend to be takers: to promote their own interests, they drain intelligence, energy, and capability from others. Genius makers tend to be givers: they use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of other people, Wiseman writes, such that light bulbs go off over people’s heads, ideas flow, and problems get solved.

The star investment analysts and the cardiac surgeons depended heavily on collaborators who knew them well or had strong skills of their own. If Frank Lloyd Wright (Fallingwater house fame architect) had been more of a giver than a taker, could he have avoided the nine years in which his income and reputation plummeted? George Meyer thinks so.

In a classic article, psychologist Edwin Hollander argued that when people act generously in groups, they earn idiosyncrasy credits—positive impressions that accumulate in the minds of group members.

The psychologist Angela Duckworth calls this grit: having passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. Her research shows that above and beyond intelligence and aptitude, gritty people—by virtue of their interest, focus, and drive—achieve higher performance. Persistence is incredibly important, says psychologist Tom Kolditz, a brigadier general who headed up behavioral sciences and leadership at the U.S. Military Academy for a dozen years.

When an investment doesn’t pay off, even if the expected value is negative, we invest more. Economists explain this behavior using a concept known as the sunk cost fallacy: when estimating the value of future investment, we have trouble ignoring what we’ve already invested in the past. Sunk costs are part of the story, but new research shows that other factors matter more.

 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.

To establish dominance, takers specialize in powerful communication: they speak forcefully, raise their voices to assert their authority, express certainty to project confidence, promote their accomplishments, and sell with conviction and pride. When our audiences are skeptical, the more we try to dominate them, the more they resist. Even with a receptive audience, dominance is a zero-sum game: the more power and authority I have, the less you have. When takers come across someone more dominant, they’re at risk of losing their influence. Conversely, prestige isn’t zero-sum; there’s no limit to the amount of respect and admiration that we can dole out. This means that prestige usually has more lasting value, and it’s worth examining how people earn it.

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. givers instinctively adopt a powerless communication style that proves surprisingly effective in building prestige. I want to trace how givers develop prestige in four domains of influence: presenting, selling, persuading, and negotiating. 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 imposing their views on others. Is it possible that these forms of powerless communication can become powerful?

Psychologists Netta Weinstein and Richard Ryan have demonstrated that giving has an energizing effect only if it’s an enjoyable, meaningful choice rather than undertaken out of duty and obligation.

Studies led by Columbia psychologist Adam Galinsky show that when we empathize at the bargaining table, focusing on our counterparts’ emotions and feelings puts us at risk of giving away too much. But when we engage in perspective-taking, considering our counterparts’ thoughts and interests, we’re more likely to find ways to make deals that satisfy our counterparts without sacrificing our own interests.

People are motivated to give to others when they identify as part of a common community. But not all individuals and groups are equally likely to attract this type of identification.

ACTIONS FOR IMPACT

If you’re interested in applying the principles in this book to your work or your life, I’ve compiled a set of practical actions that you can take.

1. Test Your Giver Quotient.

Visit www.giveandtake.com to take a free survey that tests your giver quotient. 

2. Run a Reciprocity Ring.

For more information on how to start a Reciprocity Ring in your organization, visit Cheryl and Wayne Baker’s company, Humax (www.humaxnetworks.com), which offers a suite of social networking tools for individuals and organizations.

3. Help Other People Craft Their Jobs—or Craft Yours to Incorporate More Giving. 

4. Start a Love Machine.

To try out the Love Machine in your organization, look up a new electronic tool called SendLove. It’s available from LoveMachine (www.lovemachineinc.com), a new start-up that asks you to start by choosing a recognition period.

5. Embrace the Five-Minute Favor. 

6. Practice Powerless Communication, but Become an Advocate. 

7. Join a Community of Givers. To find other givers, join a Freecycle community to give away goods and see what other people need (www.freecycle.org).

8. Launch a Personal Generosity Experiment. If you’d rather give on your own, try the GOOD thirty-day challenge (www.good.is/post/the-good-30-day-challenge-become-a-good-citizen).

9. Help Fund a Project. www.kickstarter.com; www.kiva.org

10. Seek Help More Often.