Adam Grant, an academic star on the rise, has been making waves with his research in organisational psychology. His most recent work has explored the question of whether being ruthlessly self-interested is the most effective means of becoming successful. His study directly challenged the view that the route to becoming hyper-successful is paved with ruthless self-interest.
What Grant has found is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, being self-less is in fact often climb to the top and become exceptionally successful.
Grant distinguishes between three types of people you can expect to find in the workplace. He identifies Takers, Matchers, and Givers. Takers are the self-interested lot who are concerned with one-upping everyone and getting ahead where-ever possible. Matchers are the majority who are concerned with fairness, giving as much as they get, and demand reciprocity for their self-less actions. Givers on the other-hand are motivated by the interests of those they are trying to help. In the case of givers there is no expectations for reciprocity as is seen in the matchers.
Grant does admit that givers do sometimes end up at the bottom of the pecking order if they lack the capacity to give without becoming doormats or have the tendency to overextend themselves in giving. The crucial point however is that givers very often rise to the top. It is only givers that can become true leaders. Great leaders, that were truly successful and inspired great changes for the better all share this quality. Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, etc. are examples of the extraordinary success that comes on the back of being a powerful giver.
Matchers are generally too mired in compromise to rise to any great degree of success. Takers, while they might experience brief periods of success, at some point get found out and fall from grace and lose their influence.
There are a number of reasons that givers have a tendency to rise to the top. Givers are firstly correctly perceived by those around them as self-less and agenda-less. This earns them a deep loyalty and respect from their colleagues and acquaintances which makes them influential. Importantly givers are also trusted and as such they are listened to when they speak. When a recognised taker speaks the listeners will be weary as to what the persons angle is and will hesitate to listen and follow. Givers also have the powerful motivation of being committed to a greater good. The power of this motivation should not be underestimated. Self-interest can only inspire survival, commitment to an ideal can move mountains.
There is a paradox at the root of these insights though. The paradox is that to be truly self-interested we must actually be self-less. This means then that our self-less motive is in fact fundamentally self-interested. The recognition of this paradox does not deter from the self-less motive of the giver. The self-less motive of the giver is in the giver’s best interest but when the giver is being self-less their recognition of this theoretical insight is not the factor that determines their action. What determines the will of the giver is the interests of those they are concerned with giving to. Practically speaking then, the giver must and is concerned with the interests of those around them because they care about those around them, and it is this that makes them successful.
For a more detailed exploration of this topic please read: How To Be A “Giver” And Still Be Wildly Successful by Seth Stevenson