in Deloitte history. Today, Geller is a partner in Deloitte’s human capital consulting practice, where
the business he leads globally and in the United States has been ranked number one in the
marketplace. Yet a colleague describes him as a guy “who frequently shuns the spotlight in favor of
his colleagues.” As Deloitte’s global and U.S. HR transformation practice leader, Geller has taken the
J-Net to a new level and is a strong advocate for Deloitte’s formal global knowledge management
processes and technologies. With a mix of admiration and incredulity, one analyst notes that “although
he is incredibly busy, he holds regular meetings with analysts so he can help them through any issues
they may be facing at the time.” Geller is reluctant to take credit for his accomplishments, but after
some prodding, acknowledges that “being generous is what has made me successful here.”
Although Lillian Bauer and Jason Geller are both givers, they found themselves on very different
trajectories. Why did giving stall her career, while accelerating his?
The intuitive answer has to do with gender, but that’s not the key differentiator—at least not in the
conventional sense. Lillian Bauer fell into three major traps that plague many givers, male and
female, in their dealings with other people: being too trusting, too empathetic, and too timid. In this
chapter, my goal is to show you how successful givers like Jason Geller avoid these risks, and how
givers like Lillian learn to overcome them by acting less selfless and more otherish. Becoming a
doormat is the giver’s worst nightmare, and I’ll make the case that an otherish approach enables
givers to escape the trap of being too trusting by becoming highly flexible and adaptable in their
reciprocity styles. I’ll also argue that an otherish style helps givers sidestep the land mines of being
too empathetic and too timid by repurposing some skills that come naturally to them.
michael s
(Michael S)
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