Jan Hills says HR might need to rethink its approach to talent to favour an unexpected mindset based on give and take
A new book is turning our thinking about success on its head. The book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success by Adam Grant is certainly getting a lot of press coverage. Why? Well it covers a topic that has wide ranging consequences for leadership development and HR policy. But I suspect that is not the only reason. It also talks about issues that are important to anyone who works in a company. That is, what is the route to success? The answer is rather counterintuitive.
Grant suggests that the work world is made up of three types of people. ‘Givers’, who he defines as being highly attuned to reciprocity and focused on other people’s welfare and success; they help when the benefits are weighted in favour of the other person. This is not about money but about time, expertise and support. Givers thrive on sharing and helping.
‘Takers’ on the other hand help strategically, when the effort of helping is compensated for by the benefits they gain. Grant says, they feel that to succeed, they need to be better than others. To prove their competence, they self-promote and make sure they get credit for their efforts. Most takers aren’t cruel or cutthroat but self-protective. “If I don’t look out for myself first,” takers think, “no one will.”
Grant’s third style is called the ‘matcher’. These are the majority of people in the work place and they provide the balance between the other two extremes. These people know the importance of fairness. It is their mode of operation. They protect themselves through reciprocity. They help someone and know they will be helped in return or believe that ultimately help will be given back to them. But if a taker doesn’t help or even hinders them they take action to prevent it happening again. They will also do this if they see a giver being poorly treated.
The lines between the styles are fluid according to Grant and will be influenced by circumstances but his evidence shows that at work, most people develop a ‘reciprocity style’ and this primary style can play as much of a role in success as hard work and talent.
So what does this have to do with talent identification? Well it would suggest that we need to ensure we have a balance of different types in the organisation and that the criteria for identifying talent at least includes the traits associated with givers and matchers. Most frameworks do not have this level of detail, focusing more on behaviours than mindset.
In our work using our Success Profile methodology we are able to identify the mindset and beliefs of the most successful and having done profiles for many organisation we can identify which style is likely to dominate in an organisation and whether that is supporting the strategic ambitions.
Having tested these ideas on a few of our clients and shown them our findings, the majority find it hard to believe that givers are that successful in their organisation. However, there were a few notable exceptions and organisations that recognised they were tilting the balance with interventions on culture or leadership.
One sector where this research should prove a useful tool has to be banking where clearly the shift they are trying to make is from an imbalance across the styles.
Whether these styles and mindsets formally get incorporated in to leadership framework or culture initiative is hard to say but it is a useful tool for HR professionals who are looking for a language and evidence base with reluctant clients.