Nice guys finish last - or do they? Adam Grant says that giving is the key to success.
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In 2011, Fortune Magazine made a list of the best "networkers" in the world of business. Surprisingly, the person who topped the list was not an industry giant like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but a man named Adam Rifkin, a start-up CEO in Silicon Valley with a low profile and a small ego.
The secret behind Rifkin's success? He's a giver, says Adam Grant, one of the youngest tenured professors ever at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Give and Take. In his book, Grant advances a radical new theory about success: that nice guys--people who share credit rather than take it, and often do favors for others without expecting anything in return--actually do get ahead.
The Five Minute Favor
Here's one example of how giving helped Rifkin succeed. When the Internet was first gaining traction in the 1990s, Rifkin helped create some punk rock fan pages for a college student he didn't know but who contacted him for help. A few years later, when Adam Rifkin moved to Silicon Valley, he contacted the former college student and asked if they could meet. That college student, as it turned out, had just sold a company called Excite for $6.7 billion and was able to set Rifkin up with all sorts of connections, including a venture capitalist who funded his start-up.
Helping that young college student didn't cost Rifkin much in terms of money or time - a practice Rifkin refers to as a "five minute favor" -- and Grant says that's okay. "If you want to be a helpful, giving person, you don't have to be Mother Theresa or Gandhi. All you have to do is look for ways of adding a lot of value to other people's lives that cost you only a little," Grant says. For Rifkin, that included connecting people, finding mentors for others, and sharing articles and knowledge. Over time, these little favors added up in a big way.
The Flip Side: Kissing Up, Kicking Down
Of course, for every giver like Rifkin, there are also takers -- or worse, "fakers." Grant told us the story of another entrepreneur whose early life sounded like it was on a charitable track. Humble beginnings, putting himself through college, military and public service: this guy had all the trappings of a bona fide giver. So who was he? Here's a surprise: it was Ken Lay, the CEO who led to Enron to its downfall in a massive corruption scandal in 2001. Grant explains that, in this case, Lay was a faker - or a person who disguised himself as a giver to impress his superiors, but who was actually just "kissing up and kicking down" to advance his own career.
How can you tell if someone is a giver or a taker? Fortunately, there are some tell-tale signs. One 1996 study found that CEOs who were more narcissistic and selfish included larger photos of themselves in their board reports. Grant dug up an old report from Enron and compared it to one from a company led by Jon Huntsman, Sr., a famously charitable CEO. Check out the difference for yourself.
Want to hear more about givers and takers? Tune in to our full interview with Grant to find out more about how giving can help you get ahead. And discover what happened when Grant took a room full of ultra-competitive students at Wharton and challenged them to be more like Rifkin.
