about players. Even though they’re competing in a zero-sum sport, he shares knowledge to help rival
teams make good decisions about players who have been on his team in the past. “On the field, I want
to beat up opposing teams. But off the field, I’m always trying to help them out.”
Today, Derek attributes his success in building a championship-winning professional sports team
to his shift from taking toward giving. Yet he still worries about what will happen if people outside
his inner circle find out about his shift in the giver direction. In fact, Derek Sorenson is a pseudonym:
before sharing his story, he asked me to disguise his identity. “I don’t want it to get out there that I’ve
given more money than I needed to a player,” he says.
These fears persist among many successful givers, but they’re not insurmountable. Consider
Sherryann Plesse, the financial services executive from the opening chapter who hid the fact that
kindness and compassion emerged as her top strengths. When I originally asked her to tell her story,
like Derek, she only agreed under the condition that she would remain anonymous. Six months later,
she changed her mind. “I’ve started an underground campaign of givers coming out of the closet,” she
said. “Being a giver has contributed to my personal and professional success. It’s liberating to talk
about it. I’m not afraid anymore.”
What changed her mind? When Sherryann first recognized her giver attributes, she was focused on
the risks: people expected her to be tough and results-oriented, and might see giving as a sign of
weakness. But when she started taking a close look around her company, she was struck by the
realization that all of her professional role models were givers. Suddenly, her frame of reference
shifted: instead of just seeing givers at the bottom, she recognized a surprising number of givers at the
top. This isn’t what we usually notice when we glance up at the horizon at successful people. By and
large, because of their tendencies toward powerful speech and claiming credit, successful takers tend
to dominate the spotlight. But if you start paying attention to reciprocity styles in your own workplace,
I have a hunch that you’ll discover plenty of givers achieving the success to which you aspire.

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Personally, the successful people whom I admire most are givers, and I feel that it’s my responsibility
to try and pass along what I’ve learned from them. When I arrived at Wharton, my charge was to teach
some of the world’s finest analytic minds to become better leaders, managers, and negotiators. I
decided to introduce them to reciprocity styles, posing the question that animated the introduction to
this book: who do you think ends up at the bottom of the success ladder?
The verdict was nearly unanimous: givers. When I asked who rises to the top, the students were
evenly split between matchers and takers. So I chose to teach them something that struck them as
heretical. “You might be underestimating the success of givers,” I told them. It’s true that some people
who consistently help others without expecting anything in return are the ones who fall to the bottom.
But this same orientation toward giving, with a few adjustments, can also enable people to rise to the
top. “Focus attention and energy on making a difference in the lives of others, and success might
follow as a by-product.” I knew I was fighting an uphill battle, so I decided to prove them wrong.
This book is that proof.

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