Why we should be effective givers
The stress of giving
This past month, I have been thinking about giving. It is easy to view December and gift giving like Sheldon Cooper, from The Big Bang Theory. In a memorable episode, Sheldon discovers that Penny is going to give him a Christmas present and is horrified. His horror comes from his belief that the social convention is to “match” gifts. Thus, if Penny is getting him a gift, he must figure out the approximate value of the gift that he thinks she will get him and buy her a gift of approximate equal value. In Sheldon’s mind, failing at the match will mean failing at the holidays. He is so worried about “matching” that he buys a number of presents of different values so he’ll have the right match to give after he gets her present.
Most people don’t buy multiple presents for each person in order to perfectly “match” value. However, many are stressed by gifting, tipping, and bonusing during the holiday.
It turns out that our thoughts about gift giving may reflect how we interact in the workplace.
Adam Grant’s Give and Take
Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist and business professor at Harvard. He studies what makes some people and organizations more successful than others. He believes hard work, talent, and luck are three of the main drivers of success.. However, our ability to interact and work in teams is equally important.
In studying how people work in teams, he has found that people fall into three broad styles of interacting with others. He wrote about these styles, which he calls reciprocity styles, and their ramifications in his 2013 book, Give and Take.
Reciprocity styles
Dr. Grant surveyed over 30,000 people from different countries and in different industries about their reciprocity styles.
Givers
Approximately a quarter of people are givers. Givers approach most interpersonal interactions by thinking about what they can do to help. Givers share and contribute to others without asking for anything in return. They get joy out of the act of helping. Givers are the people that answer a phone call or email and are willing to give advice. They are eager to teach or make an introduction.
In the Big Bang Theory episode referenced above, Penny is a giver. She has Leonard Nimoy’s signature on a napkin and wants to give it to Sheldon simply because she knows it will make him happy. She is not looking for anything in return.
Takers
A smaller number of people, 19% in Dr. Grant’s survey, are takers. Takers approach interpersonal interactions thinking about what the other person can do for them. They are always trying to get more, to get other people to do things for them without sharing expertise or time in return. They often relentlessly self-promote, hog credit, and may be seen as narcissistic.
Matchers
The majority of people, 56%, are matchers, like Sheldon. Matchers think about staying equal and quid pro quo. They want to give but not to be taken advantage of. Although matchers themselves don’t want to give more than seems equal, they often believe that givers should succeed. Success seems a fair response to the giving behavior. Furthermore, they believe takers should not be rewarded for taking more than they deserve so they often work to make sure that takers are punished.
It is important to note that these are not fixed personality traits. These are behavioral styles that people follow most of the time. However, these styles can change over time and may also be different for people in different situations.
Which reciprocity style is most successful?
After identifying these reciprocity styles, Grant was interested in knowing whether reciprocity style impacted success. Because most people are matchers but want givers to succeed, you might predict givers would be most successful. However, because givers donate both time and expertise, you could also predict that they would be less financially successful.
In an interesting meta-analysis of organizational behavior, Nathan Podsakoff did find that employee giving was highly correlated with improved business outcomes. Customer satisfaction was higher and turnover rates were lower. While this study showed that businesses are better off with employees who are givers, Grant wanted to know if givers are personally more successful. He studied reciprocity styles and how they impacted the productivity of engineers, financial performance of sales people, and the grades of medical students.
Grant’s results were somewhat surprising. He did find that givers were overrepresented at the top of their classes and professions. However, givers were also overrepresented at the very bottom with matchers and takers landing in the middle.
How to be an effective giver
Giving can lead to success for many reasons. Sharing knowledge within teams makes everyone more knowledgeable and effective. While givers help selflessly, the matchers they give to want to both reward this behavior and give back to balance the scales again. Giving leads to loyalty, engagement, and strong networks.
However, givers can give at their own personal expense. They may not reserve enough time for their own projects or need. Givers risk being taken advantage of by takers. They may advocate hard for others but not enough for themselves and may not charge for their services appropriately. When Grant looked specifically at medical students, he found that those students that were always helping others might not leave enough time to study themselves. Engineers that were always willing to answer questions and help team mates with projects often couldn’t get their own projects done.
Grant found that successful givers used these four main strategies compared to those givers that were not successful.
1) Effective givers helps others but set boundaries
For the engineers, this involved setting blocks of “quiet hours” for deep work. These were time periods where they were not available to others but able to concentrate uninterrupted on their own projects. This allowed them very productive periods of time surrounded by times when they were available and refreshed to assist others.
In another interesting study, people were randomized to either perform one random act of kindness per day for 5 days or to perform 5 random acts in one day. The researcher found that people actually felt happier when their giving was “chunked” into a block. Thus, chunking time helps work effectiveness, project completion, and happiness levels
2) Effective givers are cautious with takers
Effective givers learn to recognize takers and and switch to a “matching” style in these scenarios. They do not let themselves be taken advantage of.
3) Effective givers are more likely to be “perspective takers” than “empathizers.”
When people imagine what the other is thinking and what their interest is (perspective taking), they are more likely to make a rationale decision for how to help. When people empathize, they actually imagine what the other person is feeling rather than just understanding their interest. While this empathy allows them to form a close bond, it can cloud decision making when interviewing a job candidate, evaluating someone for a job promotion, or thinking about a client’s bill. By thinking about what the other person needs rather than just what they feel, we pause longer to figure out a solution that helps without harming ourselves.
4) Effective givers help others but they also ask for help.
Asking for help not only alleviates the burder of doing everything yourself but also allows others to give. When a giver asks for help, it helps to create a culture where both asking for and giving help is expected.
Veterinarians as givers
I believe that many veterinarians are givers. We are people who want to help others. We deeply empathize with our clients and get joy out of helping pets heal.
My prediction is that if Grant did a similar study of veterinarians, he would find similar results – veterinarians who are effective givers are often very successful. Those veterinarians who are givers but don’t employ these four protective strategies may be those who struggle the most with burnout and low income.
Based on this research, we should not curtail our impulses to help and give. Giving a hand up to a colleague, going above and beyond for a client, and helping in our communities will not only help each of these people but will also build networks and good will. However, we are more likely to be successful when we find ways to protect and “chunk” our time, when we don’t let clients who are takers abuse our good will, when we deal with clients using perspective taking as well as empathy, and when we are not afraid to ask for help.
Additional thoughts on effective giving and burnout
I believe Grant’s insight into burnout is very important. Grant found givers do not burn out due to work hours. Givers usually burn out if they don’t feel their work is making the difference they intended to make. This is part of the reason that blocking time was so effective for engineers with a giving style– it allowed them to both more efficiently perform their own work without negatively impacting their ability to collaborate and help in teams.
For veterinarians and veterinary practice owners, finding a few hours every week that are religiously guarded and used for projects and deep work is a key to success. These few hours of uninterrupted time may allow you to finish projects, strategize, and just regroup. They will likely make the giving you are able to offer your clients, pets and staff at other times much greater.
Don’t have time to read this book?
Check out this TED talk, which is a nice summary of the findings of the book.
This is a longer video but also very interesting.
And this is a nice article from Harvard Business Review.
