Organisational psychologist at Wharton. 'Give and Take' shows that the people who give most end up both at the top and at the bottom, and the difference between them is worth understanding.
Definition
Adam Grant is a professor of organisational psychology at the Wharton School. 'Give and Take' (2013) sorts people into three groups by how they approach giving and receiving: givers, who contribute without calculating the return; takers, who take more than they give; and matchers, who trade evenly. Most people are matchers.
The finding that made the book famous is not that givers win. It is that givers sit at both ends of the scale. The most successful people are givers, and so are the least successful. Takers and matchers land in the middle. In a study of more than 160 engineers in California, the least productive were precisely those who gave more than they received.
The difference between the two kinds of giver is not how much they give, but whether they give in a way that does not drain them. Someone who says yes to everything becomes a doormat. Someone who gives where they are strongest, and dares to say no elsewhere, builds a network no other strategy comes close to.
Grant also offers a term worth keeping: the disagreeable giver. The person who is prickly to deal with but has your interests at heart. Uncomfortable in the short run and invaluable in the long, because they say what the agreeable ones leave unsaid. In 'Think Again' (2021) Grant takes it further: the ability to change your mind is a skill, not a weakness, and anyone who never does has stopped learning.
Grant describes the kind of supplier we want to be, including the part that costs something.
We give away what we know. The glossary you are reading is free and has no paywall. Røkte manages systems we did not build ourselves, from vendors who are our competitors elsewhere. Our first house rule is 'give more than you take', and the fourth says we build networks before we need them, which is Grant's finding written as a habit.
But we sell the products. The doormat giver is not a model for a company, and that is the half of the curve rarely quoted. The knowledge is open; the work is not free.
The disagreeable giver is who we want to be in a customer meeting. 'Professional honesty is worth more than polished answers' is our first house rule for a reason: a supplier who says yes to everything gives you what you asked for rather than what you needed. It is more uncomfortable to hear that an approach will not hold, and that is the conversation worth something a year later.
We look for the same in a partner. Our seventh house rule says we dare to surround ourselves with people who are better than us. A partner who only confirms does not make us better.
In practice
Grant describes the kind of supplier we want to be, including the part that costs something.
We give away what we know. The glossary you are reading is free and has no paywall. Røkte manages systems we did not build ourselves, from vendors who are our competitors elsewhere. Our first house rule is 'give more than you take', and the fourth says we build networks before we need them, which is Grant's finding written as a habit.
But we sell the products. The doormat giver is not a model for a company, and that is the half of the curve rarely quoted. The knowledge is open; the work is not free.
The disagreeable giver is who we want to be in a customer meeting. 'Professional honesty is worth more than polished answers' is our first house rule for a reason: a supplier who says yes to everything gives you what you asked for rather than what you needed. It is more uncomfortable to hear that an approach will not hold, and that is the conversation worth something a year later.
We look for the same in a partner. Our seventh house rule says we dare to surround ourselves with people who are better than us. A partner who only confirms does not make us better.
