Are you a giver or a taker? | Adam Grant

Summary

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant describes three common ways people approach workplace relationships:

• Givers ask, “What can I do for you?”
• Takers focus on what others can do for them.
• Matchers try to keep an even balance of favors, following a “you help me, I help you” approach.

Most people are matchers. Grant’s research across workplaces found that givers appear at both ends of the performance spectrum. They are often among the lowest performers because they spend so much time helping others that they neglect their own work, but they are also often among the highest performers.

Takers may rise quickly, but matching colleagues tend to retaliate, so takers’ behavior eventually catches up with them. Meanwhile, teams and organizations generally do better when people share knowledge, mentor one another, and offer help.

Grant argues that the goal is not simply to hire more givers, but to create conditions in which generosity is sustainable and rewarded.

How to Help Givers Succeed

• Protect givers from burnout. Encourage bounded, manageable acts of generosity rather than expecting people to sacrifice themselves. Grant cites the “five-minute favor”: a small action that can create substantial value, such as making a useful introduction, sharing knowledge, offering feedback, or recognizing someone’s overlooked work.
• Make asking for help normal. Many people hesitate because they fear seeming incompetent or imposing on others. But Grant says that 75–90% of organizational giving begins with a request. Leaders can make help-seeking safer by establishing clear ways to ask and making assistance part of people’s roles.
• Screen out takers. Grant’s research suggests that a taker can damage a team more than a giver can improve it. When team members expect exploitation, they become less willing to help. A culture of generosity is therefore better protected by preventing takers from undermining it than by simply adding givers.
• Judge motives, not just manners. Agreeableness—being warm and pleasant—is different from whether someone is motivated to give or take. A person can be:
  • an agreeable giver, who is pleasant and helpful;
  • a disagreeable giver, who may be blunt but has others’ interests at heart and offers needed criticism;
  • an agreeable taker (“faker”), who is charming but self-serving; or
  • a disagreeable taker, whose self-interest is often more obvious.
• Look at how people treat those with less power. In hiring, Grant suggests asking candidates to name four people whose careers they have significantly improved. Givers are more likely to mention people lower in the hierarchy, while takers may name more influential contacts. He also recommends noticing how someone treats service workers.

Grant’s broader lesson is that success need not mean winning at others’ expense. It can mean helping other people succeed. In a healthy culture of givers, people’s belief that colleagues are supporting their well-being—what Grant calls “pronoia”—can be based on reality rather than paranoia.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Adam Grant — main speaker and organizational psychologist.
• Adam Rifkin — entrepreneur cited by Grant for the idea of the “five-minute favor.”
• Unnamed research participants and colleagues — including engineers, medical students, salespeople, nurses, and colleagues who conducted studies with Grant.
• Leslie Gauthier — credited as translator in the subtitles.
• Camille Martínez — credited as subtitle reviewer.