I recently stumbled across an
article published in the Harvard Business Review (April 2013 edition) that
struck an instant chord with me. Innocuously titled ‘In the company of givers
and takers’, the article dealt with the sticky subject of employee collaboration
– and how it can be both boon and bane for organizations. Given the nature of
work I do ranks high on the collaboration scale in delivering most of its
work-product, I felt compelled to provide a succinct recap of the major takeaways from
the article here.
To hit the nail on its head, the
author Adam Grant (Professor at the
Wharton School of Business, Pennsylvania), broadly delineates employees
into exhibiting workplace behavior that characterizes them as either ‘givers’ or ‘takers’. Givers are the ones that offer assistance to their fellow
colleagues (sometimes even unsolicited), share knowledge, make valuable
recommendations– in short contribute to others without seeking anything in return.
Takers, on the other hand, seek assistance from their peers for most jobs,
often only with the intent of getting their own work done, or in an inane
attempt to ‘protect’ their expertise. Knowledge management ‘silos’ are a direct
consequence of employees demonstrating ‘taker’ behavior.
These two workplace-personality
traits – to ‘give’ or ‘take’ – can be linked to the two great forces that
govern human nature: self-interest and caring for others. In choosing to exhibit either type of trait,
employees are merely extending a portion of who they are, as humans, in an
environment they come in contact with the most – their offices. Adam views the
collision of these two ‘forces’ at the workplace to be potentially damaging for
organizations – neither collegian generosity on the part of the giver, nor
continued reluctance to contribute on the part of the taker can help in
fostering effective collaboration at the workplace.
Organizations are fully aware of
the need to encourage ‘giver’ behavior in their workforces – the article quotes
several real-life examples where givers have been at the heart of teamwork,
innovation, quality improvement and service excellence in their respective
groups leading to as much as a 50% jump in annual revenues (in selected
instances). However, there is a perceived cost to the exercise in the minds of
the employee – studies reveal that most are discouraged from exhibiting such
behavior by ‘relative’ performance evaluation mechanisms (or ‘dog-eat-dog
scoring systems’ as Adam puts it) that reward competition, not collaboration. The
evidence available seems to suggest exactly that: in a study of salespeople in
one company, it was found that the ones who had brought in the least business
were often ‘givers’.
However, this is where things get
interesting - the same study found that the salespeople who generated the most
revenue were also givers. These
‘super’ salespeople were consistently outperforming others while also helping their colleagues succeed. How were they doing
it? Adam identifies three qualities that hold back the under-performing giver
from succeeding:
- Givers need to become more assertive – overcoming timidity and not sacrificing self for fear of disrespecting others is essential in not being taken for granted.
- Givers need to define boundaries for their assistance – including what, when, who and how they provide help. It’s even better if they act as ‘matchers’ instead of merely giving help – by expecting something equally obliging in return from the taker.
- Givers need to avoid the ‘empathy’ trap – instead, they must change their frame of reference to that of the person they are assisting. This change in perspective can hugely influence giver behavior for the better – in terms of cost, quality and time.
In conclusion, Adam Grant
re-emphasizes the need to exhibit ‘productive’ giver behavior for the benefit
of his/her organization – giving that isn’t unconditional or conscience-easing
but assisting colleagues in a way that empowers them to do the same in return.
The full article is available online at: https://hbr.org/2013/04/in-the-company-of-givers-and-takers.
As I come to the end of this
piece, I realize that writing this article for the benefit of the ‘greater
good’ does not make me a giver – it makes me one only when I know how to
extract favors in return too. J
