Talk to Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success like its author wrote you back.
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What it argues
Give and Take is Adam Grant's argument that the least intuitive kind of person — the giver, who helps others without expecting immediate return — actually ends up at the top of most social and professional hierarchies, not just the bottom. The surface-level version of this claim sounds like optimistic self-help, but Grant's case is more careful: he distinguishes between two types of givers, identifies why unsuccessful ones burn out, and explains what separates the doormat from the genuinely effective altruist.
Grant categorizes people into three styles: givers (who contribute more than they take), takers (who try to get as much as possible), and matchers (who balance giving and getting). His research shows that givers appear at both the bottom and the top of most outcomes. The givers at the bottom are the ones who help indiscriminately at the expense of their own priorities. The givers at the top are "otherish" — genuinely motivated by helping but strategic enough to protect their time and direct their giving where it creates the most value.
What it gets right
- 1.
Givers, matchers, and takers coexist in every workplace. Givers outperform over the long run but also underperform in the short run — the distribution is bimodal, not linear.
- 2.
The givers who burn out help indiscriminately. Effective givers — 'otherish' ones — are genuinely motivated by others but protect their time and direct help where it has highest impact.
- 3.
Takers are remarkably hard to identify in one-on-one interactions; they often act like givers when they need something. The tell is how they treat people with no power over them.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of several New York Times bestselling books, including Originals, Option B (with Sheryl Sandberg), and Think Again. Grant hosts the TED podcast WorkLife and writes regularly about work and psychology. Give and Take, published in 2013, established his reputation as one of the most influential voices in organizational psychology and was named one of the best books of the year by The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.
