Give and Take

Grant divides people by reciprocity style into givers, who contribute more than they receive; takers, who extract more than they give; and matchers, who balance the two. His finding, drawn from research across sales, medicine, engineering and education, is that givers occupy both the bottom and the top of performance distributions, while takers and matchers cluster in the middle.

The explanation for the bimodal distribution is the book's core. Givers at the bottom are self-sacrificing, meaning they give without regard for their own interests, burn out and are exploited. Givers at the top are what Grant calls otherish, meaning they hold high concern for others and high concern for themselves simultaneously, help in ways that suit their strengths, and set boundaries against exploitation.

The mechanisms he identifies for giver success include broader and more valuable networks built through dormant ties and through helping without expectation; better collaboration, since givers take less credit and are therefore trusted with more; better talent development, since givers invest in people others have written off; and more effective influence through what he calls powerless communication, meaning asking questions and expressing tentativeness, which works better than assertiveness in most professional contexts.

He also covers the five-minute favour, meaning help that costs little and provides substantial value, and the identification of takers through observable signals. The research is Grant's own plus a synthesis of others, and some cited studies have replicated poorly. The three categories are cleaner than actual behaviour. The distinction between self-sacrificing and otherish giving is the practical contribution and answers the obvious objection to the thesis.

Organisational psychologist and professor of management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Give and Take presents evidence that people who default to helping others cluster at both the bottom and the top of performance distributions, and identifies what separates the two groups - directly useful for anyone designing incentives or picking partners. Think Again and Originals cover how people revise beliefs against new evidence and how unfamiliar ideas get championed inside established organisations.