Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

successful givers shift their frames of reference to the recipient’s perspective.

If you insist on a quid pro quo every time you help others, you will have a much narrower network.” When matchers give with the expectation of receiving, they direct their giving toward people who they think can help them. After all, if you don’t benefit from having your favors reciprocated, what’s the value of being a matcher?

Spotting the Taker in a Giver’s Clothes If you’ve ever put your guard up when meeting a new colleague, it’s probably because you thought you picked up on the scent of self-serving motives.

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, people can gain invaluable access to knowledge, expertise, and influence. Extensive research demonstrates that people with rich networks achieve higher

In a study I led of salespeople in North Carolina, compared with takers and matchers, givers brought in two and a half times less annual sales revenue. They were so concerned about what was best for their customers that they weren’t willing to sell aggressively.

Reactivating a dormant tie actually required a shorter conversation, since there was already some common ground.

Regardless of whether they were negotiating for themselves or others, the men requested starting salaries averaging $49,000. The women followed a different path. When they were negotiating for themselves, they requested starting salaries averaging only $42,000—16.7 percent lower than the men. This discrepancy vanished when the women negotiated on b

One of Rifkin’s maxims is “I believe in the strength of weak ties.” It’s in homage to a classic study by the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Strong ties are our close friends and colleagues, the people we really trust. Weak ties are our acquaintances, the people we know casually.

Reciprocity is a powerful norm, but it comes with two downsides, both of which contribute to the cautiousness with which many of us approach networking. The first downside is that people on the receiving end