Give and Take: WHY HELPING OTHERS DRIVES OUR SUCCESS

They all stutter.
Stuttering is a speech disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population. Growing up, Dave
Walton was teased and ridiculed for stuttering. When he graduated from college, he applied for a
sales job, but was turned down. “The interviewer told him he would never make it in sales because
of his stutter,” his wife Mary says. When Dave decided to apply to law school, many of his friends
and family members raised their eyebrows, hoping he wouldn’t have to do any public speaking. In
law school, it seemed that their fears were prescient. Dave recalls that during his first mock court
argument, the judge started crying. “She felt bad for me.”
Most people see stuttering as a disability, and we marvel at people like Jack Welch and James
Earl Jones, whose confident demeanors typically bear little trace of their speech difficulties. But the
truth is far more interesting and complex. Many people who stutter end up becoming quite successful,
and it’s not always because they have conquered their stuttering. In the trade secrets trial, when Dave
stammered and tripped over a couple of arguments, something strange happened.
The jurors liked him.
At the end of the trial, several jurors approached him. “They told me that they really respected me
because they knew that I had a stutter,” Dave says. “They stressed that my stutter was minor but that
they noticed it and that they talked about it. The jurors said they admired my courage in being a trial
lawyer.”
Dave didn’t win the trial because of his stutter. But it may have created a stronger connection with
the jury, helping to tip the balance in his favor. When the jurors commended him, Dave was
“surprised and a little embarrassed... My first thought was, ‘I don’t remember stuttering that much.’
As the jurors walked away from me, I realized that I had something that was natural and genuine. It
was an epiphany—my stutter could be an advantage.”
In this chapter, I want to explore how Dave Walton’s experience reveals critical but
counterintuitive clues about influencing others—and how Dave exemplifies what givers do differently
when they seek influence. In To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink argues that our success depends heavily
on influence skills. To convince others to buy our products, use our services, accept our ideas, and
invest in us, we need to communicate in ways that persuade and motivate. But the best method for
influence may not be the one that first comes to mind.
Research suggests that there are two fundamental paths to influence: dominance and prestige.
When we establish dominance, we gain influence because others see us as strong, powerful, and
authoritative. When we earn prestige, we become influential because others respect and admire us.
These two paths to influence are closely tied to our reciprocity styles. Takers are attracted to, and
excel in, gaining dominance. In an effort to claim as much value as possible, they strive to be superior
to others. To establish dominance, takers specialize in powerful communication: they speak
forcefully, raise their voices to assert their authority, express certainty to project confidence, promote
their accomplishments, and sell with conviction and pride. They display strength by spreading their
arms in dominant poses, raising their eyebrows in challenge, commanding as much physical space as
possible, and conveying anger and issuing threats when necessary. In the quest for influence, takers
set the tone and control the conversation by sending powerful verbal and nonverbal signals. As a
result, takers tend to be much more effective than givers in gaining dominance. But is that the most
sustainable path to influence?
When our audiences are skeptical, the more we try to dominate them, the more they resist. Even