you’re getting something in return. The goal of the group is to instill the value of giving: you don’t
have to be transactional about it, you don’t have to trade it. If you do something for somebody in the
group, then when you need it, someone in the group will do something for you.”
For takers and matchers, this type of relentless giving still seems a bit risky. Can givers like
Adam Rifkin maintain their productivity, especially when there are no guarantees that their help will
come back around to benefit them directly? To shed light on this question, Stanford professor Frank
Flynn studied professional engineers at a large telecommunications firm in the Bay Area. He asked
the engineers to rate themselves and one another on how much they gave and received help from one
another, which allowed him to identify which engineers were givers, takers, and matchers. He also
asked each engineer to rate the status of ten other engineers: how much respect did they have?
The takers had the lowest status. They burned bridges by constantly asking for favors but rarely
reciprocating. Their colleagues saw them as selfish and punished them with a lack of respect. The
givers had the highest status, outdoing the matchers and takers. The more generous they were, the
more respect and prestige they earned from their colleagues. Through giving more than they got,
givers signaled their unique skills, demonstrated their value, and displayed their good intentions.
Despite being held in the highest esteem, the givers faced a problem: they paid a productivity
price. For three months, Flynn measured the quantity and quality of work completed by each engineer.
The givers were more productive than the takers: they worked harder and got more done. But the
matchers had the highest productivity, beating out the givers. The time that the givers devoted to
helping their colleagues apparently detracted from their ability to finish jobs, reports, and drawings.
The matchers were more likely to call in favors and receive help, and it appeared to keep them on
track. On the face of it, this seems like a stumbling block to the giver style of networking. If givers
sacrifice their productivity by helping others, how can it be worth it?
Yet Adam Rifkin has managed to be a giver and stay highly productive as the cofounder of several
successful companies. How does he avoid the tradeoff between giving and productivity? He gives
more.
In the study of engineers, the givers didn’t always pay a productivity price. Flynn measured
whether the engineers were givers, matchers, or takers by asking their colleagues to rate whether they
gave more, the same, or less than they received. This meant that some engineers could score as givers
even if they didn’t help others very often, as long as they asked for less in return. When Flynn
examined the data based on how often the engineers gave and received help, the givers only took a
productivity dive when they gave infrequently. Of all engineers, the most productive were those who
gave often—and gave more than they received. These were the true givers, and they had the highest
productivity and the highest status: they were revered by their peers. By giving often, engineers built
up more trust and attracted more valuable help from across their work groups—not just from the
people they helped.
This is exactly what has happened to Adam Rifkin with his five-minute favors. In the days before
social media, Rifkin might have toiled in anonymity. Thanks to the connected world, his reputation as
a giver has traveled faster than the speed of sound. “It takes him no time to raise funding for his start-
ups,” Rouf says with a trace of astonishment. “He has such a great reputation; people know he’s a
good guy. That’s a dividend that gets paid because of who he is.”
Rifkin’s experience illustrates how givers are able to develop and leverage extraordinarily rich
networks. By virtue of the way they interact with other people in their networks, givers create norms
michael s
(Michael S)
#1