I was reading Deep Work by Cal Newport when I first heard about Give and Take by Adam Grant. While I didn’t pick up the book immediately, I began to follow Adam Grant on Twitter and LinkedIn and was blown away by his ideas. They are simple, relatable and each message is packaged positively.

When I finally picked up Give and Take a few months ago, I read the book in a day and soaked up Grant’s wisdom like a sponge.

The book starts with identifying three types of people at the workplace — Givers, Takers and Matchers. Grant talks about which kind succeeds the most in their careers. One would assume that it would be the Takers, since they gain the most without giving a lot in return. I thought so too, but Grant proved otherwise with research and anecdotes of Givers whose careers grew by leaps and bounds. David Hornik, Abraham Lincoln and Adam Rifkin, the most well connected man on LinkedIn were among the many examples in the book.

The lesson is simple: By helping others and by having their best interest at heart without expecting anything in return, they cultivated such strong relationships that when they needed help, there was an abundance of it!

In subsequent chapters, Grant highlights the importance of collaboration. In teams, it’s crucial to give your colleagues credit. Givers tend to say “We did it”, Takers tend to say “I did it”. At each stage of your careers, mentoring people — friends, juniors — has a large impact on their careers and on yours as well. Grant reiterates these lessons with plenty of stories of people who succeeded in their careers by simply giving.

Being a giver is great, but not all is hunky dory. Grant talks about some of the downsides of being a Giver. Givers are often treated like doormats and they tend to burn out over a period of time. His solution is to choose causes that one believes in deeply to avoid the feeling of burnout.

Grant identifies Takers posing as Givers, who are people who do a favour only to get something in return. He speaks about Takers who manipulate Givers into getting the work done, without giving them the credit.

This review is simply not enough and I’d recommend everyone to read the book. As for me, I will be reading it once every year!