Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success / Adam Grant
RATINGS
Overall: 4 / 5 stars
Text Level: Hard
Entertainment: Medium
Self-Help: High
Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Psychology, Leadership, Self Help, Success, Management, Inspirational
Page Count: 320
Buy on: Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Is this book right for me and/or my inmate?
This book is great for people struggling to find a healthy balance between giving and taking in many different types of relationships.
Review By: Alpas (Inmate)
What starts with an interesting overview of sociological studies of different reciprocity (giving) styles, ends with a ‘how-to’ guide to developing healthier ways to give.
The beginning of this book offers an insightful look at how givers operate in different sectors, times, and situations. We learn to see how takers, matches and givers have different goals, methods, and general philosophies throughout life. While this part of the book is incredibly interesting (especially individual stories about different figures throughout history), the real value is in the lessons about how to give/match in healthy ways.
Based on the different ways to give, givers can end up finding lasting success or be played by burnout, failure, and being taken advantage of. This is especially crucial information for us in prison as many of us have struggled with all-or-nothing thinking. Personally, this is a huge area in which I aim to find growth. These old habits of being black and white with our decisions have led to too many of our incarcerations. And that is where this book has allowed me to find new perspectives as well as new habits. Instead of being rigid with our reciprocity styles, we can learn to adopt our reciprocity styles based on the people and situations we face. This can really help those of us who fall into self-sacrificing behavior and burnout when giving. Giving itself is not the issue, but how we go about it. Sometimes, we must learn to match others and be limited with how often we give when it is detrimental to ourselves. If we apply scheduling times to offer help, say no and be efficient, we can continue our tendencies in sustainable, healthy ways.
As for those that lean into the taker or matcher reciprocity styles, this book develops a great argument for them to consider shifting. Grant explains this through stories, statistics, and even how giving can benefit us (as long as it is genuine). There are some amazing practices, habits, and resources to help any individual make these changes.
This book has helped every person I’ve recommended it to so far, no matter if they are a ‘ruthless’ taker or a ‘self-sacrificing’ giver. There are lots of wisdom, tools, and convincing arguments in Give and Take to make some level of change. These changes will make you, your relationships, and eventually the entire world a bit healthier!
Book Quotes:
“Instead of just giving away value like selfless givers, otherish givers create value first. By the tie they give slices of the pie away, the entire pie is big enough that there’s plenty left to claim for themselves: they can give more and take more.” (p 214)
“Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might follow as a by-product.” (pg 256)