Give and Take Summary By Adam Grant

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Blog Title: Give and Take Summary By Adam Grant
Name: Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
Author: Adam Grant
Download  Give and Take at: Audible
Buy  Give and Take at: Amazon
Buy  Give and Take at: Flipkart
Book size: 384 pages

About Author:

Before talking about the book Give and Take summary let’s d about the book’s author Adam Grant. Grant has been Wharton’s Top-rated professor for six straight years. He is also a leading expert on how we can find motivation meaning in our lives and how we people can live more creative and generous lives. He is also recognized as one of the world’s 10 most influential management thinkers and Fortune’s 40 under 40, He is the author of three New York Times best-selling books that have sold over a million of copies and been translated into 35 languages. Give and Take book talk about like how helping others drive our own success. This book has been named as one of the best books of 2013 by Amazon, Apple, The Financial Times and the wall street Journal. Adam is also a host of Work Life, A Ted original Podcast, His Ted talks on Original thinkers and his givers and takers have been viewed more than 11 million that too in less than two years, in 2016 Ted Adam received a standing ovation from viewers and also voted as best speaker by the public.

Overview:

Give and Take- Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
Give and Take- Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

In Give and take book author is talking about how some people say and believe that one way to get ahead in life is to crush our enemies and claw our way to the top, people who have such kind of thinking believe that no matter how many people you need to crush to go to the top, author says that such thinking and belief is non-sense and ridiculous in this book author not only say but has also researched that how helping others drives your success too, author says that true achievers true success drivers are not centered as takers but they are centered as givers.

This book contains several chapters, let’s discuss this book chapters in detail

Chapter 1 Give and Take Summary:

Good Returns- The Danger and rewards of giving more than you get

In this chapter author has shared a story about David Hornik and shader, David hornik is an investor he used to invest in companies for living whereas Shader was in his late 30 and was starting his third startup and his two startups was a huge hit and for his third startup he was looking for an investor, and hornik seems to be an ideal investor for shader, so shader asked hornik to listen to his idea, after listening to shader’s idea hornik immediately agreed to sign contract with him, usually investors give deadline for contract so that the person can make decision fast, usually at such situation hornik should have given an deadline so that shader can make decision immediately and don’t find chance to go to other investors, but here hornik didn’t behave like this he didn’t give any deadline to shader in fact he asked shader to shop his offer around to other investors, hornik always believed that entrepreneur needs time to evaluate their option. Hence he worked as per his principle and gave time to shader to shop hos offer, after few days shader called hornik and said that he is extremely sorry but he won’t be signing deal with him, because he doesn’t find hornik challenging and he was confused between his mind and heart he chose mind, because he finds hornik a nice man but he finds him lenient too and this thing made shader think that such lenient behavior wouldn’t be good for startup’s or business, hence he chose other investors, Listening to this Hornik was devastated, he started giving a second guess, he started feeling that is he stupid, he started thinking that if I would have applied pressure to take the term sheet, then maybe he would have taken it, but hornik has spent his life building reputation so that he doesn’t face such situation. 

The author says according to conventional wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common, motivation, ability and opportunity, hence author says that if you want to become successful then we people should have a combination of hard work, talent and luck. But the story which author has shared has highlighted the fourth ingredient which is needed to become successful, and that fourth ingredient is how we approach our interaction with other people. The author says every time we interact with another person at work we have a choice to make, first choice do we try to claim as much as we can, or second do we contribute value without worrying about what we receive in returns?

Author says after spending many years in doing a research I had come up that people differ dramatically in their preferences for reciprocity- desire mix of taking and giving, author says there are usually two kids of people first takers and others are givers,  Takers usually likes to take more than giving, they like to tilt reciprocity in their own favor, they always like to put their own interest first then other’s needs, takers always have a believe that this world is full of competition and its very competitive, they believe in dog-eat-dog. They are self-promoters self-protective, takers believe that if I don’t look out for myself then no one will, hence author says compare to the story that if David Hornik would have been taker, then David would have given shader a deadline, he would have put his goal of landing the investment ahead of shader’s desire for a flexible timeline.

But Hornik wasn’t a taken, he was a giver, usually givers are relatively rare breed at workplace,  they always think about others first, they prefer to give more than they get, takers are self-focused, they always think about what others will give them, whereas givers usually focused on others, they pay more attention towards other people’s needs.

The author says that here preferences aren’t about money: the author says that givers and takers aren’t differentiated on the basis of how much money they contribute or how much they do charity, but givers and takers are differentiated on the basis on their attitude and action towards people.

In this chapter author says that we people usually underestimate the success of givers like david hornik,  we people usually have a stereotype mindset that givers are usually chumps and doormats, but that’s not the case there are so many example who have not only won people’s heart but also faced success such as mother Teresa, mahatma Gandhi,  author says anyone can become successful whether its giver taker or matcher, but there’s a huge difference when a taker becomes successful and when giver becomes successful, for instance, if taker become successful people envy them and look for ways to knock them down as soon as possible, but when people like david givers become successful, people feel happy for them, people admire them people never envy them they always think good for the, because when giver becomes successful it acts like ripple effect, it also enhance the success of other people around them, hence giver success acts more successful compare to takers success, giver can easily become successful because they don’t have enemies whereas success of takers are usually difficult because they make many enemies in their journey of achieving success. Hence author says that giving attitude and action drive your success too.

Chapter 2 Give and Take Summary

The peacock and the panda

In this chapter, the author has talked about how takers, givers and matchers build their networks.

What are matchers, takers and givers?

Matchers usually believed in Quid pro quo,  they are usually attuned to fairness and they always want equality in relationship means if they do any favor they will for sure want favor from you in future,  and if they receive favor from you, they find themselves under debt and will for sure return favor to you when needed, takers usually ask for things they are self-focused and self-protective whereas givers always give more than they get, they always do things for others without thinking about their own benefits.

Lessons from Give and Take Summary:

Give and Take Summary Lesson 1:  Author says that we don’t differentiate givers and taker on the basis of money because even takers donate in charities, but we differentiate takers and givers on the basis of their attitude and action towards others, taker always want his/her benefit whereas giver always focus on other benefits.

Give and Take Summary Lesson 2: Author says that most of the time we people are asked to stay confident to speak up to assert ourselves and sometimes it’s really necessary too but the author says that there is nothing more convincing than giving up power.

Give and Take Summary Lesson 3: The author says that if you become a giver, you win, not immediately but for sure you will win, and your success will not only become yours but for others as well, givers usually have a lot of genuine lovers and followers compare to takers.

This is the end of Give and Take Summary. To understand this book chapters in more detail then do buy this book from the given links:

Download  Give and Take at: Audible
Buy  Give and Take at: Amazon
Buy  Give and Take at: Flipkart

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