TED TALK: Are you a giver or a taker?

Are you a giver or a taker?

In every workplace, there are three basic kinds of people: givers, takers and matchers, that is the introduction Adam Grant make in this TED TALK.

We find Paranoia everywhere; paranoia is caused by people Adam called “Takers”. Takers are self-serving  in their interactions, you know, people just worried with one's own interests. It’s all about what can you do for me? The opposite its a giver, somebody who approaches interactions by asking what can I do for you?

He says we all have moment of giving and taking but your style is how you treat most of the people most of the time. Take a moment to think about yourself, is the best way to know.

Is curious how common these extremes are, Adam found that most people are right in the middle between giving and taking. They choose this third style called "matching." If you're a matcher, you try to keep an even balance of give and take, that’s like I'll do something for you if you do something for me.

Experiments done in some jobs showed that Givers spend a lot of time trying to help other people and improve the team but after, unfurtunately they suffer along the way. Grant wonder if giver are the worst performers, who are the best? And yeah, definitely it’s no the takers. Takers tend to rise quickly but also fall quickly in most Jobs and they fall at the hands of matchers. If you're a matcher, you believe in "An eye for an eye" a just world. And so when you meet a taker, you feel like it's your mission in life to just punish the hell out of that person, so most of the people are matchers.

The first thing that's really critical is to recognize that givers are your most valuable people, but if they're not careful, they burn out. The second thing that matters if you want to build a culture where givers succeed, is you actually need a culture where help-seeking is the norm.

We could find agreedable people whom are giver “they say yes to everything” and disagreedable people whom are takers “They are also recognized quickly“ but there are other two combinations. There are disagreedable givers “people who are gruff and tough on the surface but underneath have others' best interests at heart” and the other combination are the agreedable takers, also known as the faker. This is the person who's nice to your face, and then will stab you right in the back.

“I believe that the most meaningful way to succeed is to help other people succeed. And if we can spread that belief, we can actually turn paranoia upside down. There's a name for that. It's called "pronoia." Pronoia is the delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being” conclude Adam Grant.