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223c855
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By asking people questions about their plans and intentions, we increase the likelihood that they actually act on these plans and intentions.
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Adam M. Grant |
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5aa38c9
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Givers tend to use more powerless speech, talking with tentative markers like these: * Hesitations: "well," "um," "uh," "you know" * Hedges: "kinda," "sorta," "maybe," "probably," "I think" * Disclaimers: "this may be a bad idea, but" * Tag questions: "that's interesting, isn't it?" or "that's a good idea, right?" * Intensifiers: "really," "very," "quite"
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Adam M. Grant |
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d714539
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seeking advice is among the most effective ways to influence peers, superiors, and subordinates.
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Adam M. Grant |
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2ab9553
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Advice seeking is a form of powerless communication that combines expressing vulnerability, asking questions, and talking tentatively.
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Adam M. Grant |
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396d4e6
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Teaching at any level on any subject is the most rewarding thing you can do," Inman told Thompson. "I just love to see the expression on the face of a student who gets it for the first time. Just watching the learning process come to full bloom gives me such a rush."
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Adam M. Grant |
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83f3f95
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research shows that people who regularly seek advice and help from knowledgeable colleagues are actually rated more favorably by supervisors than those who never seek advice and help.
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Adam M. Grant |
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7cde6b2
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escalation of commitment to a losing course of action. Over the past four decades, extensive research led by Staw shows that once people make an initial investment of time, energy, or resources, when it goes sour, they're at risk for increasing their investment. Gamblers in the hole believe that if they just play one more hand of poker, they'll be able to recover their losses or even win big. Struggling entrepreneurs think that if they just..
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Adam M. Grant |
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2e922e2
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Sunk costs do have a small effect--decision makers are biased in favor of their previous investments--but three other factors are more powerful. One is anticipated regret: will I be sorry that I didn't give this another chance? The second is project completion: if I keep investing, I can finish the project. But the single most powerful factor is ego threat: if I don't keep investing, I'll look and feel like a fool.
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Adam M. Grant |
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db9ab02
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value the perspectives and interests of others, givers are more inclined toward asking questions than offering answers, talking tentatively than boldly, admitting their weaknesses than displaying their strengths, and seeking advice than imposing their views on others.
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Adam M. Grant |
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7071b57
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When the average candidate was clumsy, audiences liked him even less. But when the expert was clumsy, audiences liked him even more. Psychologists call this the pratfall effect.
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Adam M. Grant |
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325df6c
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The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle writes that "From a scientific perspective, it was as if the researchers had traced the lineage of the world's most beautiful swans back to a scruffy flock of barnyard chickens."
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Adam M. Grant |
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c1f37ba
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Malcolm Gladwell showed us in Outliers, research led by psychologist Anders Ericsson reveals that attaining expertise in a domain typically requires ten thousand hours of deliberate practice.
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Adam M. Grant |
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06bd1e9
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what motivates people to practice at such length in the first place? This is where givers often enter the picture.
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Adam M. Grant |
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7f49439
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This doesn't feel like I'm persuading you. As Aronson explains, you've been convinced by someone you already like and trust: Yourself.
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Adam M. Grant |
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0702b0f
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questions are effective persuasive devices.
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Adam M. Grant |
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83fcc03
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If you want to engage your audience, if you really want to grab their attention, you have to know the world they live in, the music they listen to, the movies they watch,
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Adam M. Grant |
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be4a374
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Seeking advice is a subtle way to invite someone to make a commitment to us.
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Adam M. Grant |
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0a03486
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When selling, givers ask questions in a way that conveys the desire to help customers, not take advantage of them. When persuading and negotiating, givers speak tentatively and seek advice because they truly value the ideas and viewpoints of others.
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Adam M. Grant |
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a9861e0
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Since takers tend to be self-absorbed, they're more likely to use first-person singular pronouns like I, me, mine, my, and myself--versus first-person plural pronouns like we, us, our, ours, and ourselves.
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Adam M. Grant |
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6aa47f5
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When people focus on others, as givers do naturally, they're less likely to worry about egos and miniscule details; they look at the big picture and prioritize what matters most to others.
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Adam M. Grant |
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24fd90c
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two different ways to recognize takers. First, when we have access to reputational information, we can see how people have treated others in their networks. Second, when we have a chance to observe the actions and imprints of takers, we can look for signs of lekking. Self-glorifying images, self-absorbed conversations, and sizable pay gaps can send accurate, reliable signals that someone is a taker.
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Adam M. Grant |
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8c7a2e3
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takers and matchers make hard-and-fast assumptions about just who will be able to provide the most benefit in exchange. At its core, the giver approach extends a broader reach, and in doing so enlarges the range of potential payoffs, even though those payoffs are not the motivating engine.
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Adam M. Grant |
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ab2debf
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Peter Drucker, these "knowledge workers, unlike manual workers in manufacturing, own the means of production: they carry that knowledge in their heads and can therefore take it with them."
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Adam M. Grant |
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1cc8818
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Dormant ties offer the access to novel information that weak ties afford, but without the discomfort
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Adam M. Grant |
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52bdf03
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Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it's valuable in a marathon.
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Adam M. Grant |
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1dcc885
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by asking for help, you're creating an opportunity for them to express their values and feel valued. By asking for a five-minute favor, you impose a relatively small burden--and if you ask a matcher, you can count on having an opportunity to reciprocate.
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Adam M. Grant |
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6138dde
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takers sometimes win in independent roles where performance is only about individual results, givers thrive in interdependent roles where collaboration matters.
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Adam M. Grant |
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d2a3b87
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Steve Jones, the award-winning former CEO of one of the largest banks in Australia, wanted to know what made financial advisers successful. His team studied key factors such as financial expertise and effort. But "the single most influential factor," Jones told me, "was whether a financial adviser had the client's best interests at heart, above the company's and even his own."
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Adam M. Grant |
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be5ae04
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you can't just ignore someone because you don't think they're important enough.
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Adam M. Grant |
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1481cf0
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So if givers are most likely to land at the bottom of the success ladder, who's at the top--takers or matchers? Neither. When I took another look at the data, I discovered a surprising pattern: It's the givers again. As we've seen, the engineers with the lowest productivity are mostly givers. But when we look at the engineers with the highest productivity, the evidence shows that they're givers too.
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Adam M. Grant |
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cfd21cd
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The worst performers and the best performers are givers; takers and matchers are more likely to land in the middle.
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Adam M. Grant |
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28e8dc2
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when givers like David Hornik win, people are rooting for them and supporting them, rather than gunning for them. Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around them.
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Adam M. Grant |
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6a09180
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Takers have a knack for generating creative ideas and championing them in the face of opposition. Because they have supreme confidence in their own opinions, they feel free of the shackles of social approval that constrict the imaginations of many people.
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Adam M. Grant |
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48c12a6
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Even in seemingly independent jobs that rely on raw brainpower, our success depends more on others than we realize.
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Adam M. Grant |
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ef55440
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The surgeons couldn't take their performance with them. They weren't getting better at performing coronary artery bypass grafts. They were becoming more familiar with particular nurses and anesthesiologists, learning about their strengths and weaknesses, habits, and styles. This familiarity helped them avoid patient deaths, but it didn't carry over to other hospitals.
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Adam M. Grant |
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5a9c02c
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hiring stars is advantageous neither to stars themselves, in terms of their performance, nor to hiring companies in terms of their market value.
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Adam M. Grant |
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822a74f
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analysts were more likely to maintain their star performance if they worked with high-quality colleagues in their teams and departments. The star analysts relied on knowledgeable colleagues for information and new ideas. The star investment analysts and the cardiac surgeons depended heavily on collaborators who knew them well or had strong skills of their own.
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Adam M. Grant |
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9840879
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matchers: their core values emphasize fairness, equality, and reciprocity. When takers violate these principles, matchers in their networks believe in an eye for an eye, so they want to see justice served.
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Adam M. Grant |
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b851921
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We tend to privilege the lone genius who generates ideas that enthrall us, or change our world. According to research by a trio of Stanford psychologists, Americans see independence as a symbol of strength, viewing interdependence as a sign of weakness.
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Adam M. Grant |
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aeb085e
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If you're a matcher, you'll also punish takers for acting unfairly toward other people.
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Adam M. Grant |
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8c114ea
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If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won't succeed. We can't pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships.
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Adam M. Grant |
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732ab65
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One of the best things about developing that credibility was if I wanted to try something that was fairly strange, people would be willing to at least give it a shot at the table read," Meyer reflects. "They ended up not rewriting my stuff as much as they had early on, because they knew I had a decent track record. I think people saw that my heart was in the right place--my intentions were good. That goes a long way."
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Adam M. Grant |
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4b62266
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By giving away credit, Meyer compromised his visibility. "For a long time, George's towering contribution to what some see as the most important TV show of the period was not as well known as it should have been," Long recalls. "He was generating a tremendous amount of material, and not really getting credit."
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Adam M. Grant |
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cbe8864
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We were in the audience, your closest colleagues and devoted associates, who worked hard and faithfully for the same goal that you desired," Youngner began. "Do you remember whom you mentioned and whom you left out? Do you realize how devastated we were at that moment and ever afterward when you persisted in making your coworkers invisible?"
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Adam M. Grant |