productivity? He gives more.
In the study of engineers, the givers didn’t always pay a productivity price. Flynn measured whether the engineers were givers, matchers, or takers by asking their colleagues to rate whether they gave more, the same, or less than they received. This meant that some engineers could score as givers even if they didn’t help others very often, as long as they asked for less in return. When Flynn examined the data based on how often the engineers gave and received help, the givers only took a productivity dive when they gave infrequently. Of all engineers, the most productive were those who gave often—and gave more than they received. These were the true givers, and they had the highest productivity and the highest status: they were revered by their peers. By giving often, engineers built up more trust and attracted more valuable help from across their work groups—not just from the people they helped.
This is exactly what has happened to Adam Rifkin with his five-minute favors. In the days before social media, Rifkin might have toiled in anonymity. Thanks to the connected world, his reputation as a giver has traveled faster than the speed of sound. “It takes him no time to raise funding for his start-ups,” Rouf says with a trace of astonishment. “He has such a great reputation; people know he’s a good guy. That’s a dividend that gets paid because of who he is.”
Rifkin’s experience illustrates how givers are able to develop and leverage extraordinarily rich networks. By virtue of the way they interact with other people in their networks, givers create norms that favor adding rather than claiming or trading value, expanding the pie for all involved. When they truly need help, givers can reconnect with dormant ties, receiving novel assistance from near-forgotten but trusted sources. “I’ll sum up the key to success in one word: generosity,” writes Keith Ferrazzi. “If your interactions are ruled by generosity, your rewards will follow suit.” Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Ivan Misner, the founder and chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization, needs just two words to describe his guiding philosophy: “Givers gain.”
After years of rearranging the letters in his name, Adam Rifkin has settled on the perfect anagram:
I Find Karma
.
3
The Ripple Effect
Collaboration and the Dynamics of Giving and Taking Credit
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
—John Andrew Holmes, former U.S. representative and senator
You probably don’t recognize George Meyer ’s name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work. In fact, odds are that someone close to you is a big fan of his ideas, which have captivated an entire generation of people around the world. Although I didn’t know it belonged to him until recently, I’ve admired his work since I was nine years old. Meyer is a tall, angular man in his mid-fifties who sports long, stringy hair and a goatee. If you ran into him on the street, you wouldn’t be able to place his face, but you might have a hunch that he’s a Grateful Dead fan. You’d be right: in the last five years of Jerry Garcia’s life, Meyer attended at least seventy different Grateful Dead concerts.
Meyer attended college at Harvard, where he was nearly suspended after he sold a refrigerator to a freshman and accepted payment, but never delivered it. He was almost suspended again when he used an electric guitar to shatter a window of a dorm room. A rare bright spot in his college career was being elected president of the
Harvard Lampoon
, the famous comedy magazine, but it was quickly tarnished by an attempted coup. According to journalist David Owen, Meyer’s peers “tried to overthrow him in a bitter and vituperative internal battle, because they thought he wasn’t responsible enough.”
After graduating from college in 1978, Meyer moved back home and
In the study of engineers, the givers didn’t always pay a productivity price. Flynn measured whether the engineers were givers, matchers, or takers by asking their colleagues to rate whether they gave more, the same, or less than they received. This meant that some engineers could score as givers even if they didn’t help others very often, as long as they asked for less in return. When Flynn examined the data based on how often the engineers gave and received help, the givers only took a productivity dive when they gave infrequently. Of all engineers, the most productive were those who gave often—and gave more than they received. These were the true givers, and they had the highest productivity and the highest status: they were revered by their peers. By giving often, engineers built up more trust and attracted more valuable help from across their work groups—not just from the people they helped.
This is exactly what has happened to Adam Rifkin with his five-minute favors. In the days before social media, Rifkin might have toiled in anonymity. Thanks to the connected world, his reputation as a giver has traveled faster than the speed of sound. “It takes him no time to raise funding for his start-ups,” Rouf says with a trace of astonishment. “He has such a great reputation; people know he’s a good guy. That’s a dividend that gets paid because of who he is.”
Rifkin’s experience illustrates how givers are able to develop and leverage extraordinarily rich networks. By virtue of the way they interact with other people in their networks, givers create norms that favor adding rather than claiming or trading value, expanding the pie for all involved. When they truly need help, givers can reconnect with dormant ties, receiving novel assistance from near-forgotten but trusted sources. “I’ll sum up the key to success in one word: generosity,” writes Keith Ferrazzi. “If your interactions are ruled by generosity, your rewards will follow suit.” Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Ivan Misner, the founder and chairman of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization, needs just two words to describe his guiding philosophy: “Givers gain.”
After years of rearranging the letters in his name, Adam Rifkin has settled on the perfect anagram:
I Find Karma
.
3
The Ripple Effect
Collaboration and the Dynamics of Giving and Taking Credit
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
—John Andrew Holmes, former U.S. representative and senator
You probably don’t recognize George Meyer ’s name, but you’re definitely familiar with his work. In fact, odds are that someone close to you is a big fan of his ideas, which have captivated an entire generation of people around the world. Although I didn’t know it belonged to him until recently, I’ve admired his work since I was nine years old. Meyer is a tall, angular man in his mid-fifties who sports long, stringy hair and a goatee. If you ran into him on the street, you wouldn’t be able to place his face, but you might have a hunch that he’s a Grateful Dead fan. You’d be right: in the last five years of Jerry Garcia’s life, Meyer attended at least seventy different Grateful Dead concerts.
Meyer attended college at Harvard, where he was nearly suspended after he sold a refrigerator to a freshman and accepted payment, but never delivered it. He was almost suspended again when he used an electric guitar to shatter a window of a dorm room. A rare bright spot in his college career was being elected president of the
Harvard Lampoon
, the famous comedy magazine, but it was quickly tarnished by an attempted coup. According to journalist David Owen, Meyer’s peers “tried to overthrow him in a bitter and vituperative internal battle, because they thought he wasn’t responsible enough.”
After graduating from college in 1978, Meyer moved back home and
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