According to Brian Uzzi, a management professor at Northwestern University, networks come with three major advantages: private information, diverse skills, and power. By developing a strong network, p...
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 enlarge...
Psychological safety—the belief that you can take a risk without being penalized or punished.
A young Goldman Sachs banker named Joseph Park was sitting in his apartment, frustrated at the effort required to get access to entertainment. Why should he trek all the way to Blockbuster to rent a m...
When takers win, there’s usually someone else who loses. Research shows that people tend to envy successful takers and look for ways to knock them down a notch. In contrast, when givers like David Hor...
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.
Thinking about oneself invokes the logic of consequence: Will I get sick? Doctors and nurses can answer swiftly with a no: I spend a lot of time in a hospital, I don’t always wash, and I rarely get si...
Meyer summarizes his code of honor as (1) Show up. (2) Work hard. (3) Be kind. (4) Take the high road. As he contributed in ways that revealed his skills without spawning jealousy, colleagues began to...
It’s not what a player is, but what he can become… that will allow him to grow.
In 1927, Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik demonstrated that people have a better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. Once a task is finished, we stop thinking about it. But when it is inter...
If you want a child to share a toy, instead of asking, Will you share? ask, Will you be a sharer?
By asking people questions about their plans and intentions, we increase the likelihood that they actually act on these plans and intentions.
Being a giver is not good for a 100-yard dash, but it’s valuable in a marathon.
Grit: having passion and perseverance toward long-term goals.
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, y...
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.
To get Firefox or Chrome, you have to demonstrate some resourcefulness and download a different browser. Instead of accepting the default, you take a bit of initiative to seek out an option that might...
To generate a handful of masterworks, Mozart composed more than 600 pieces before his death at thirty-five, Beethoven produced 650 in his lifetime, and Bach wrote over a thousand.
This is the core challenge of speaking up with an original idea. When you present a new suggestion, you’re not only hearing the tune in your head. You wrote the song. You’ve spent hours, days, weeks,...
There’s a particular kind of explanation that works especially well in enforcing discipline. When the Oliners examined the guidance of the Holocaust rescuers’ parents, they found that they tended to g...