Give and Take--A Must Read

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, is by wunderkind Wharton professor Adam Grant. The thesis of this book is that helping others and focusing on their interests can lead to greater success than being self-focused).

I’ve been teaching professional skills in the college classroom for years. My introduction of personal branding and social networking is based on an underlying mind set of (1)helping others, and (2) people do business with those whom they know, like, and trust. You can easily see that I think Grant’s book is spot on.

The next topic to be covered in Skills For Young Professionals is about placing the interests of others before your own. In other words, you should strive to help and serve others. Adam Grant calls this being a giver instead of a taker.

Adam Grant’s book has been endorsed by Susan Cain, “As brilliant as it is wise, this is not just a book–it’s a new and shining worldview.”

I propose that you purchase Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, by Adam Grant, and we shall read it together. Every few days I’ll briefly summarize a chapter and write a commentary on it. You can become engaged as you offer up your own comments below. I think it sounds like fun. A bit like being in college again.

The book can be purchased in print or electronic formats from the bookseller of your choice.

We’ll have assignments. You should read a chapter by a certain date, and I’ll post chapter summaries on the same date. The schedule is:

• Wed, Feb 25, Chapter 1: Good Returns: The Dangers and Rewards of Giving More Than You Get.
• Mon, Mar 2, Chapter 2: The Peacock and the Panda: How Givers, Takers, and Matchers Build Networks.
• Wed, Mar 4, Chapter 3: The Ripple Effect: Collaboration and the Dynamics of Giving and Taking Credit.
• Mon, Mar 9, Chapter 4: Finding the Diamond in the Rough: The Fact and Fiction of Recognizing Potential.
• Wed, Mar 11, Chapter 5: The Power of Powerless Communication: How to be Modest and Influence People.
• Mon, Mar 16, Chapter 6: The Art of Motivation Maintenance: Why Some Givers Burn Out but Others Are On Fire.
• Wed, Mar 18, Chapter 7: Chump Change: Overcoming the Doormat Effect.
• Mon, Mar 23, Chapter 8: The Scrooge Shift: Why a Soccer Team, a Fingerprint, and a Name Can Tilt Us in the Other Direction.
• Wed, Mar 25, Chapter 9: Out of the Shadows.

I’ll reserve the Friday of each week to blog about other things.

by David Albrecht, Ph.D.

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