Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success

In this chapter, Grant highlights the ability of givers to recognize potential in others. He identifies C. J. Skender, an accounting professor at University of North Carolina and Duke, as a consummate giver. He’s highly supportive, invests a lot in his students, and makes his classes entertaining and engaging. He emphasizes grit, hard work, and determination over natural talent. Many of his students have gone on to become successful. Grant calls out two of them: Reggie Love, who went on to work as Obama’s personal aide, and Beth Traynham, who, despite not having a knack for math, won a gold medal for her top performance on the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam.

To illustrate the effectiveness of teachers with giver tendencies, Grant cites a study by psychologist Benjamin Bloom, as well as findings from the book The Talent Code (2009) by Daniel Coyle, which show that teachers who are givers are excellent at motivating young students because they create an interesting, fun, and supportive learning environment.

He cites another study from the early 1980s, conducted by Dov Eden. Eden randomly selected training groups in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and told the training leaders that these groups had “high potential.” These groups then went on to perform better than the other groups. A similar study, conducted with a group of young students, randomly designated 20% of the students as having potential for “intellectual blooming” (growth); these students went on to increase their IQ points year after year at a rate higher than their peers. In both studies, the trainers and teachers treated the “high potential” groups better, supported them more, and expected more out of them than they did the other groups; as a result, the randomly selected groups outperformed their counterparts. A similar effect was shown in a study of employees. Researchers randomly told some employees that they were hired because they were high performers; those employees went on to perform better and achieve higher levels of success compared to their counterparts who were not given the same expectations.

Grant compares the different reciprocity styles and the way they view potential. He says that takers are more likely to doubt others and treat them with suspicion, distrust, or jealousy. Matchers are more likely to see potential in others, but they wait to invest in them until they see signs of promise. Givers don’t wait; they see potential in everyone.

He highlights giver Stu Inman. Inman is known for making two infamous mistakes in selecting players for the NBA draft. However, this reputation overshadows a track record as an excellent spotter of hidden potential. Grant argues that because Inman was willing to look beyond stats and dig into the psychological profiles of his potential draft picks, searching for giver qualities, he was able to spot overlooked but promising players.

Grant contrasts Inman’s style with Michael Jordan’s; as a player and as a team owner, Jordan had taker tendencies. Grant claims that givers are more willing to admit mistakes and move on from losses for the good of the organization, whereas takers tend to double down on their mistakes and invest even more time and money into them for fear of losing face. Jordan did this with his first draft pick, Kwame Brown. Jordan kept giving Brown more chances and more playing time even as Brown underperformed. By contrast, Inman was willing to acknowledge when he made mistakes; he reduced the playing time of underperforming players and traded them away when needed.