Turning the Tables on Success
In
today’s workplace, what goes around comes around faster, sinking takers and
propelling givers to the top.
In the old world of work, good guys
finished last. “Takers” (those in organizations who put their own interests
first) were able to climb to the top of hierarchies and achieve success on
the shoulders of “givers” (those who prefer to contribute more than they
receive). Throughout much of the 20th century, many organizations were made up
of independent silos, where takers could exploit givers without suffering
substantial consequences.
But the nature of work has shifted
dramatically. Today, more than half of U.S. and European companies organize
employees into teams. The rise of matrix structures has required employees to
coordinate with a wider range of managers and direct reports. The advent of
project-based work means that employees collaborate with an expanded
network of colleagues. And high-speed communication and transportation
technologies connect people across the globe who would have been strangers in
the past. In these collaborative situations, takers stick out. They avoid doing
unpleasant tasks and responding to requests for help. Givers, in contrast, are
the teammates who volunteer for unpopular projects, share their knowledge and
skills, and help out by arriving early or staying late.
After studying workplace dynamics
for the past decade, I’ve found that these changes have set the stage for
takers to flounder and givers to flourish. In a wide range of fields that span
manufacturing, service, and knowledge work, recent research has shown that
employees with the highest rates of promotion to supervisory and leadership
roles exhibit the characteristics of givers—helping colleagues solve problems and
manage heavy workloads. Takers, who put their own agenda first, are far less
likely to climb the corporate ladder.
The fall of takers and the rise of
givers hinges on a third group, whom I call “matchers.” Matchers hover in the
middle of the give-and-take spectrum, motivated by a deep-seated desire for
fairness and reciprocity. They keep track of exchanges and trade favors back
and forth to keep their balance sheet at zero, believing that what goes around
ought to come around. Because of their fervent belief in an eye for an eye,
matchers become the engine that sinks takers to the bottom and propels givers
to the top.
Takers violate matchers’ belief in a
just world. When matchers witness takers exploiting others, they aim to even
the score by imposing a tax. For example, matchers spread negative reputational
information to colleagues who might otherwise be vulnerable, preventing takers
from getting away with self-serving actions in the future. On the flip side,
most matchers can’t stand to see generous acts go unrewarded. When they see a
giver putting others first, matchers go out of their way to dole out a bonus,
in the form of compensation, recognition, or recommendations for promotions. Of
course, these responses aren’t limited to matchers. Givers, too, are motivated
to punish takers and reward fellow givers. But I’ve found that in the
workplace, the majority of people are matchers, which means that they are the
ones who end up dispensing the most taker taxes and giver bonuses. In an
interdependent, interconnected business environment, what goes around comes
around faster than it used to.
At Google, for example, an engineer
named Brian received eight bonuses in the span of a single year, including
three in just one month. He volunteered his time to train new hires and help
members of multiple cross-functional teams learn new technologies, and his
peers and managers responded like matchers, granting him additional pay and
recognition. Consistent with Brian’s experience at Google, a wealth of research
shows that in teams, givers earn more respect and rewards than do takers and
matchers. As Stanford University sociologist Robb Willer notes, “Groups reward
individual sacrifice.”
Interdependent work also means that
employees will be evaluated and promoted not only on the basis of their
individual results, but also in terms of their contributions to others. This
reduces the incentives for takers to exploit givers, encouraging them to focus
instead on advancing the group’s goals. As a result, takers engage in fewer manipulative
acts—which reduces the risks to givers—yet they still contribute less than
givers. This allows givers to gain a reputation for being more generous and
group-oriented. And a rich body of evidence has shown that these qualities are
the basis for sound leadership.
In fact, when givers become leaders,
their groups are better off. Research led by Rotterdam School of Management
professor Daan van Knippenberg has shown that employees work harder and more
effectively for leaders who put others’ interests first. This, again, is a
matching response: As van Knippenberg and Claremont Graduate University
professor Michael Hogg found, “going the extra mile for the group, making
personal sacrifices or taking personal risks on behalf of the group” motivates
group members to give back to the leader and contribute to the group’s
interests. And a thorough analysis led by Nathan Podsakoff, a professor at the
University of Arizona, of more than 3,600 business units across numerous
industries showed that the more frequently employees give help and share
knowledge, the higher their units’ profits, productivity, customer
satisfaction, and employee retention rates.
By contributing to groups, givers
are also able to signal their skills. In a study led by researcher Shimul Melwani
of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, members of five dozen teams working on
strategic analysis projects rated one another on a range of characteristics and
behaviors. At the end of the project, team members reported which of their
colleagues had emerged as leaders. The single strongest predictor of leadership
was the amount of compassion that members expressed toward others in need.
Interestingly, compassionate people were not only viewed as caring; they were
also judged as more knowledgeable and intelligent. By expressing concern for
others, they sent a message that they had the resources and capabilities to
help others.
Today, these signals are ever more
visible: Givers are aided by the fact that the anonymity of professional life
is vanishing. In the past, when we encountered a job applicant, a potential
business partner, or a prospective service provider, we had to rely on
references selected by that candidate. When takers burned bridges with one
contact, they could eliminate that person from their reference list. But now,
online social networks offer a much richer database of references. Odds are
that through a quick search of our LinkedIn or Facebook networks, we can find a
common connection with knowledge of that person’s reputation. By reaching out
to the mutual contact to obtain an independent reference on the candidate’s
past behavior, decision makers can screen out takers and favor givers. Of the
billion Facebook users around the world, 92 percent are within four degrees of
separation—and in most countries, the majority of people are just three degrees
apart.
Such tools have made it tough for a
taker to hide in the shadows. At Groupon, for example, Howard Lee was
heading the South China office, and received a slew of applications for sales
jobs. He searched his LinkedIn network for common connections, and located
quite a number of them. When he discovered that certain candidates had a
history of self-serving behavior, he quickly moved on, focusing his time and
energy on candidates with track records as givers.
Taken together, these trends are
changing the characteristics that we value in people. Two of the defining
qualities of great leaders are the ability to make others better and the
willingness to put the group’s interests first. Because givers today add
increasing value in leadership roles and interdependent work, hiring processes
can be modified to assess which candidates are inclined to contribute more than
they receive. For development, promotion, and retention, leaders and managers
should focus less on individual skills and talents, and more on the extent to
which employees use their skills and talents to lift others up—rather than
cutting them down. The employees with the greatest potential to excel and rise
will be those whose success reverberates to benefit those around them.
Along with investing in people who
are already disposed toward operating like givers, it will be of paramount
importance to create practices that nudge employees in the giver direction. In
many organizations, owing to their tendencies to claim credit and promote
themselves, successful takers are more visible than successful givers. To make
sure that employees are aware that it’s possible to be a giver and achieve
success, it may be necessary to locate and recognize respected role models who
embody an orientation toward others. That way, when what goes around comes
around faster than it used to, it will be for the benefit of employees and
their organizations.
Adam Grant
is Wharton’s youngest tenured professor and the author of Give and Take: A
Revolutionary Approach to Success (Viking, 2013). http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00175?pg=all
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