Reading guide for Give and Take by Adam M. Grant

Reading Guide Questions

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. In your life, who have you seen achieve the most success in the long run—the matchers, the takers, or the givers?
2. What are the situations in which you operate more like a matcher, versus a taker or a giver? What triggers bring out each style for you?
3. Who are the most successful givers that you know?
4. How do you spot a taker? In your experience, what clues do they leak?
5. In your world, whose giving goes the most unrecognized?
6. How might you help recognize these givers in your life? How do you think they might respond?
7. Once you have spotted a taker, how do you deal with them? What do you find are the best strategies for protecting yourself against them?
8. What type of giving do you find most meaningful and enjoyable? Is it connecting people, sharing knowledge, providing feedback, mentoring, problem-solving, or finding ways to recognize others?
9. How might you let others know that you enjoy this type of giving?
10. Help-seeking is the most common starting point for giving; without it, people don't know what others need and how they can help. What would happen if you created a marketplace for giving and receiving by organizing a group of 10-15 people and inviting everyone to make a request and try to help each other? Who would you invite, and what would you ask for?
11. If you were looking to do a five-minute favor for someone else, what would be it be?
12. How do you decide who to help—is it the person who needs the most, the person you can help the most, or someone else?
13. When someone asks you for help, how do you typically decide whether to help them yourself or try to connect them to someone else?
14. When many requests are on your plate, how do you avoid burnout?
15. How do you strike a balance between looking for the potential in others and being realistic about their intentions and capabilities?
16. Do you tend to sprinkle your giving behavior out over time or concentrate it into a single day? Why?
17. Have you noticed any gender differences in styles of give and take? Any differences between industries or countries?
18. What do you think are the biggest misconceptions people have about givers? How might you help change their minds?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Penguin Books. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.