GIVE AND TAKE

Giver, matcher or taker: which are you?

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant argues that the key to success is helping others. That sounds like something a preacher might say to nudge folks to help with the youth or teach a Sunday school class or serve on the Wednesday food pantry team, but Grant is a 31-year old professor at the Wharton School.

Success, he says, has far less to do with looking after our own needs and instead asking the following question as we interact with others: Is there anything I can help you with?

“Helpfulness is Grant’s credo,” an article by Susan Dominus in the New York Times Magazine reports. “Helping is not the enemy of productivity, a time-sapping diversion from the actual work at hand; it is the mother lode, the motivator that spurs increased productivity and creativity.”

It turns out that people enjoy their work—and life—more when they are oriented towards helping others… giving to others. In his new book, “Give and Take,” Grant focuses “on the contribution of our work to other people’s lives” and says that “has the potential to make us more productive than thinking about helping ourselves.”

Grant says there are three kinds of people in the world: givers, matchers and takers. Givers “give without expectation of immediate gain; they never seem too busy to help, share credit actively and mentor generously.

“Matchers go through life with a master chit list in mind, giving when they can see how they will get something of equal value back and to people who they think can help them.  And takers seek to come out ahead in every exchange; they manage up and are defensive about their turf.”

One key, Grant observes, is to be a giver and yet also be aware of self-care and necessary boundaries. Without self-care, givers will burn out and without an orientation towards giving and serving, we become trapped in selfishness.

So who are you: giver, matcher or taker?

Paul is speaking to the Corinthians about a mission offering in 2^nd Corinthians 9, and he says:  “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion…”

So…who are you?

In Christ and for Christ,

Mark