Give And Take Adam Grant Download Free
Ashlie Hagenson
For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But today, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. It turns out that at work, most people operate as either takers, matchers, or givers. Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of people who contribute to others without expecting anything in return.
Recently I have read Give and Take: A revolutionary approach to Success by Adam Grant. It is an inspiring book and I found myself taking too many notes while reading it. Now I want to summarize my learnings, to internalize them, but also to give others access to it.
In his book, Adam Grant dives deep into the spectrum of altruistic to selfish personalities. Anyone, who reads the book, might be able to identify his or her own personal traits. It can differ in your personal and professional lives. Moreover, as Adam Grant shows, you can apply the principles of giving and taking even in companies or communities. The book shows and encourages the benefits of giving instead of taking. Furthermore it dives into the role of a giving personality and shows ways to avoid being exploited.
You cannot apply it like a cookbook. Nobody wants to encourage a faking personality. But it certainly will help you to understand the principles of giving and taking personalities. Perhaps the book is a good incentive to change your behavior to the better.
In addition, I was able to see the intersection of the topic to give and take and open source in software development. Contributing in open source can be a draining volunteering task. The book shows ways to prevent the burnout of giving that shows up too often for open source contributors.
Adam Grant distinguishes the behavior of people into reciprocity styles. Two of them are givers and takers. The third one will be described as matcher later on. In addition, there are fine grained variations in each style.
Takers: "Takers have a distinctive signature: they like to get more than they give. They tilt reciprocity in their own favor, putting their own interest ahead other's needs. Takers believe that the world is a competing, 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."
Givers: "[A giver is the] opposite of a taker [...]. In the workplace, givers are a relatively rare breed. They tilt reciprocity in the other direction, offering to give more than they get. Whereas takers tend to be self-focused, evaluating what other people can offer them, givers are other-focused, paying more attention to what other people need from them."
Being a giver is quite common outside of the workplace. We act like givers in close relationships to our family and friendships. In the workplace, the principle of giving and taking gets more complicated. There a third reciprocity style emerges: the matchers.
Matchers: "[Matchers are] striving to preserve an equal balance of giving and getting. Matchers operate on the principle of fairness: when they help others, they protect themselves by seeking reciprocity."
None of these reciprocity styles is fixed for yourself. When evaluating yourself, you will find yourself traveling across these styles. You will become a giver when interacting with your close friends yet become a matcher or taker in the workplace.
In the workplace itself, people find themselves traveling between these styles again. You might be a giver when mentoring others but be a taker when negotiating your salary. Yet you become a matcher when sharing experiences with a coworker.
Research shows that givers are at the bottom of the success ladder. You might would expect that matchers or takers are at the top of the success ladder. Neither is true, because it is the giver again who is on the top.
After all, there is a higher likelihood that givers end up at the top of the success ladder. One lesson by Adam Grant will show you how to become a champ and not a chump when interacting with takers and matchers.
A scenario from the book shows how a lawyer turned down to defend a client, because he knew that his client was guilty. In fact, he declined money by defending the client and walked away. Later on, people worried if he could make tough decisions, when he applied for a political position. They thought that he couldn't be tough when he has concerns for others. But in the long run he earned respect for his decision.
In the book you will learn about remarkable people who were in the role of givers, acted to put the good of others or whole nations over their own ego, and succeeded in the long run. "It takes time for givers to build goodwill and trust, but eventually, they establish reputations and relationships that enhance their success."
However, "In the long run, giving can be every bit as powerful as it is dangerous." You will need to know how to prevent to end up at the bottom of the success ladder. Adam Grant gives plenty of advices in his book.
Back in the days, it was more difficult to earn the fruits of being a giver. The environment was more slow paced and you had fewer connections to others. When you would send a generous or supportive letter to someone, no one would know and appreciate it. Most of the time your work dependent only on yourself, not on a team, like it works in companies nowadays.
Adam Grant argues that "in today's connected world, where relationships and reputations are more visible, givers can accelerate their pace". In a work environment, "teams depend on givers to share information, volunteer for unpopular tasks, and provide help."
Adam Grant sees the opportunities in a team, where givers can demonstrate their value and have more opportunities than in the old world. Even in a service environment people depend on each other. You can only be a good lawyer, doctor or teacher when you have the best interest of your clients at your heart.
"The further [students] advance, the more their success depends on teamwork and service. Whereas takers sometimes win in independent roles where performance is only about individual results, givers thrive in interdependent roles where collaboration matters."
When researchers conducted experiments about giving and taking values, they found out that giver values are the most popular values across most of the countries. But how can we translate these values in the world of business?
However, Sherryann Plesse also sees the problems arising with giving: "I want my primary skills to be seen as hardworking and results-oriented, not kindness and compassion. In business, sometimes you have to wear different masks." To wear different masks prevents givers from being givers at work. They have to adjust their reciprocity style. Givers become matchers or even worse takers.
Givers are fearing exploitation by takers in business. Robert Frank says: "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."
In his book, Adam Grant divides the interactions in the workplace into four key domains: networking, collaborating, evaluating and influencing. These domains happen to be the domains where givers can thrive. It all concludes to benefits that givers enjoy over matchers and takers. Maybe you are a matcher yet want to become a giver after reading the book. The next lessons learned will be about these key domains.
How to approach networking, when you can't distinguish a giver from a taker?The common sense is that givers protect their networks from takers. Takers know the strategy of protection of a giver and act as fakers: pretending good will to get access to a giver. They can become givers or matchers, but by faking it they are still takers.
"Although takers tend to be dominant and controlling with subordinates, they're surprisingly submissive and deferential toward superiors. When takers deal with powerful people, they become convincing fakers." says Adam Grant.
"Takers may rise by kissing up, but they often fall by kicking down." Takers are worried how they are seen the upward management chain, but not how they are perceived from their coworkers or subordinates. "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
In the past, for instance, it was possible to distinguish taker from giver CEO by comparing annual reports. They used first-person singular pronouns and used a larger photo of themselves than their giver CEO counterparts in the booklet.
In addition, the number of people in a network was relatively manageable compared to nowadays. The reputation of each person was transparent for everyone. Nowadays the networks got larger. By using social media and other networks, the interactions became dispersed and anonymous. Reputation became less visible.
Yet it became possible to track down the reputation from another person. All the information is available when the other person is not careful with his/her sensitive information. Howard Lee says: "Nowadays, I don't need to call in to a company to find out about someone's reputation. Everyone is incredibly connected. Once they make it past the technical rounds, I check their LinkedIn or Facebook. Sometimes we have mutual friends, or went to the same school, or the people on my team will have a link to them."
When working with identified takers, givers and matchers punish their behavior for being unfair. Before having an imbalance in a collaborative task, givers and matchers decline the cooperation in favor of punishing the takers. Adam Grant says that it is not about revenge, but about justice.
Networking guru Keith Ferrazzi has written: "It's better to give before you receive." The advice is useful for every reciprocity style, but takers exploit it by offering proactively "favors to people whose help they want in the future".
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