Givers, Takers, and Your Team's Health
TL;DR - Takers can and will ruin your team's morale and performance, but you don't have to let them.
I recently discovered
's TED talk, Are you a giver or a taker?, from January of 2017 and I was fascinated. The talk has been around a while but I figured if I haven't seen it then maybe other's haven't either.Here is a summary that I hope will entice you to watch, or if time allows, to read through his book from 20131.
TL;DW (too long; didn't watch)
Scientists like to analyze human behavior by identifying personality traits. One approach is grouping us into givers, takers, and matchers. I try to practice leadership with a psychology focus and I'd never heard of this, but it sure does resonate with my experience.
Takers mostly look for what they can GET FROM others without reciprocity
Givers mostly look for what they can DO FOR others without reciprocity
Matchers mostly look for an even balance of FAIR EXCHANGE
Research shows that givers have a very positive impact on your team and your business, likely comprising your best performers while at the same time making the rest of your team more productive.
Research also shows that takers have the opposite effect, creating a drag on your whole team. I suspect that they can also drive away your givers.
The same result appears in many metrics, including profits, customer satisfaction, employee retention, and even operation expenses. In short:
Givers == GOOD for your team
Takers == BAD for your team
Grant suggests using the personality trait of agreeableness2 as a mechanism to filter out takers when building your team. Disagreeable takers can be easy to spot while agreeable takers are harder. He suggests that we can detect takers by asking a question:
"Can you give me the names of four people whose careers you have fundamentally improved?"
The filter on the answer is this:
"The takers will give you four names, and they will all be more influential than them, because takers are great at kissing up and then kicking down."
Following this thread leads to a lot of useful material that I will not repeat because this is intended to be a short piece. However, here is a suggestion: do an internet search on the phrase, "how to identify takers" and read through some of the results.
The takeaway is that taker behaviors are toxic to your team. If your team has one then it is likely in your best interest to take remedial action. The path to remediation is not simple so we will explore that in a follow up. 🙂
Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, Penguin Books, 2013.
Agreeableness is a personality trait that can be described as cooperative, polite, kind, and friendly. People high in agreeableness are more trusting, affectionate, altruistic, and generally displaying more prosocial behaviors than others.