Give like if it was you on the other end
An inside look into Adam Grant’s Give and Take
Hello hello hello!
You’ll be surprised to see the calendar right now because it’s only been two weeks since our last publication. Whoa… The world must be coming to an end if we’re keeping up the pace!
Today we’re thrilled to share about a fantastic book that came across since a while back in various of our previous reviews: Give and Take, by Adam Grant.
First off, let’s start from the beginning:
Giving vs Taking
This is a concept that becomes of importance once we acknowledge the fact that success and happiness are greater goals that, at one point or another, critically depend on our interactions with others. The concepts explored by Grant on his book go beyond selfishness and altruism, or even Karma; he explores dozens of cases from real people and research studies that he has encountered throughout his career to decompose the principles of programmatic and sustainable giving.
We behave differently depending on the context, so that means that as individuals we don’t belong in a single category: we’re likely to behave like givers with our spouses and children, but at the same time likely to work as Takers or Matchers in our workplaces, where depending on the group, the environment might be much closer to a survival game.
Where along the spectrum should you be?
Well, let’s just stay with the fact that for a taker to make a win, someone else has to lose. Yet, when a giver wins, everyone around her also wins. This can be further understood as the contrast between taking a larger chunk of the pie, as opposed to making it larger, to begin with.
It is worth mentioning though, that giving does not reap rewards in the short run because those are a consequence of building goodwill, trust, a favorable reputation, and beneficial relationships. This means that fake giving for the wrong reasons becomes a frustrating game likely to backfire if those around the faker end up seeing through the facade.
In the age of the internet and instant communications building, a reputation is not as painfully slow as it was years or decades ago. This means that now, more than ever, it is possible to reap the rewards of giving within one’s lifetime (and of course much before that), thanks to technology.
On influencing others
Influence can be achieved either through dominance or prestige. This means, either you forcefully impose your will upon others, or you influence them based on earned respect and admiration.
Research has shown that revealing one’s vulnerability builds rapport and prestige with others since they are able to perceive one’s humanity.
This fact connects back to a typical behavioral feature of the givers: showing vulnerability.
It turns out that givers are more focused on finding ways to contribute to the group, as opposed to takers, who mainly think of finding ways to capture benefits for themselves. As givers are focused on collaborating, focus on their own self-image might become a low priority, which increases their chances of coming out weak or even clumsy.
The trick?
To, as a giver, be really on top of your game so that your competence cannot be put into question while showing your humanity through accepting that the main objective is, in fact, to contribute to the group and not only to yourself.
On communicating with others
Seeking advice is one of the most effective ways to transform a negotiation process from a zero-sum-game into a win-win deal. This happens because of the empathy that’s created by sharing one’s concerns with the other party.
Next time you’re out there looking to get the most of a particular situation that involves negotiation, try asking for advice to your counterpart. Try going to them and simply opening up in an earnest and honest way, with the sole purpose of opening your eyes to new alternatives that you haven’t seen yet. Then, evaluate how the negotiation ended up and let me know ;)
On otherish giving
Surviving as a giver is a challenge on itself because more often than not, givers end up burning out as they put too much pressure on themselves trying to satisfy everyone else’s needs at the expense of their own.
Otherish giving is the principle of a healthy balance between genuine giving for the sake of the group and a sense of self-preservation that tells the giver when to stop and how to properly channel his giving, for the sake of sustainability.
On empathy and motivating the givers
It was a real pleasure to read about the famous experiment that Grant held among the cold callers for a charity in a scholarships program. This is a renowned piece of research that’s mentioned in several books that we review here. To give you a little bit of context let me briefly share about the nature of the experiment.
There is this charity program that finds sponsors to donate so that students who otherwise would not be able to go to college, get a chance in doing so. The program basically uses volunteers who cold-call people all day long and make the charity’s pitch. The experiment was about finding ways to motivate the cold-callers and increase donations. To do this, Grant and his colleagues organized three groups:
- Group 1: the control group.
- Group 2: they would read about the benefits of the scholarships and how those impact the lives of the recipients.
- Group 3: they’d attend a presentation where a couple of actual recipients of the scholarships would share about their life experiences and how their lives were changed by them.
And although the overall conclusion of the experiment is that participants in group 3 collected more donations than the participants in the other groups, the remarkable conclusion here is that even among Group 3, givers were the ones with the highest donations. This means that they were the most impacted by seeing the scholarship recipient. And THIS is the truly powerful takeaway here: the more feedback about the impact of giving a giver receives, the more she gives.
This is such a beautiful discovery.
Re-encounters with previous reviews
Givers have a dedication to others and their teams that translates in a sense of responsibility that they appear to use as a motivator to work longer and harder than takers.
This is closely related to Grit, a concept that we’ve explored in the past when reviewing Angela Duckworth’s book. Grit explains the capacity of some individuals to sustain for longer at some activities than their peers, allowing them to ultimately reap the benefits of becoming experts in their fields. Through a combination of deliberate practice and immediate feedback, top performers display gritty behavior that allows them to stay committed to excelling in their domains.
Givers too find motivators and feedback loops that allow them to stay committed to their giving.
Fun fact
If you go to Grant’s website got the book you can take an assessment on how much of a giver/taker you are.
You know, just putting that out there.
Book references by that seem pretty worthwhile
- The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle
- Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
- To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink
- Quiet, Susan Cain
Thank you for reading and if you found this interesting, don’t hesitate to comment or reach out. I’ve found that a healthy discussion about a topic of our interest is the best way to digest the content.
I’m a Product Manager in Rakuten EXPRESS with a proclivity for web design and programming. I live in Japan and currently help a startup in AgTech and other in EdTech get off the ground. Happy to connect on LinkedIn or Instagram. And while you’re at it, here’s my website.
