Adam Grant
To get real diversity of thought, you need to find the people who genuinely hold different views and invite them into the conversation.
Takers believe in a zero-sum world, and they end up creating one where bosses, colleagues and clients don't trust them. Givers build deeper and broader relationships - people are rooting for them instead of gunning for them.
From a motivation perspective, helping others enriches the meaning and purpose of our own lives, showing us that our contributions matter and energizing us to work harder, longer, and smarter.
I believe that the most meaningful way to succeed is to help other people succeed.
Procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, to make unexpected leaps.
Originals are nonconformists, people who not only have new ideas but take action to champion them. They are people who stand out and speak up. Originals drive creativity and change in the world. They're the people you want to bet on.
Power frees us from the chains of conformity.
Being a nice person is about courtesy: you're friendly, polite, agreeable, and accommodating. When people believe they have to be nice in order to give, they fail to set boundaries, rarely say no, and become pushovers, letting others walk all over them.
Authenticity is a virtue. But just as you can have too little authenticity, you can also have too much.
Being a giver is not about saying yes to all of the people all of the time to all of the requests.
Kids who evolve into creative adults tend to have a strong moral compass.
When you procrastinate, you're more likely to let your mind wander. That gives you a better chance of stumbling onto the unusual and spotting unexpected patterns.
If you want your children to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passions, not yours.
To get important work done, most leaders organize people into teams. They believe that when people collaborate toward a common goal, great things can happen. Yet in reality, the whole is often much less than the sum of the parts.
Creativity may be hard to nurture, but it's easy to thwart.
If you want to be a generous giver, you have to watch out for selfish takers.
One of the signs of a bad coworker is a pattern of persistent undermining - intentionally hindering a colleague's success, reputation, or relationships.
If you've ever had a coworker actively interfere with your productivity, try to make you look bad, steal your ideas, or give you false information, you've been the victim of undermining.
If an organization values innovation, you can assume it's safe to speak up with new ideas, leaders will listen, and your voice matters.
Once people take ownership over the decision to receive feedback, they're less defensive about it.
Successful givers secure their oxygen masks before coming to the assistance of others. Although their motives may be less purely altruistic, their actions prove more altruistic, because they give more.
Creativity is generating ideas that are novel and useful. I define originals as people who go beyond dreaming up the ideas and take initiative to make their visions a reality.
When young women get called bossy, it's often because they're trying to exercise power without status. It's not a problem that they're being dominant; the backlash arises because they're overstepping their status.
Saying no frees you up to say yes when it matters most.
When you develop a reputation for being responsive and generous, an ever-expanding mountain of requests will come your way.
A resilient culture has a certain amount of resistance embedded in it. Not so much to capsize it, but enough so that it doesn't atrophy.
Instead of assuming that emotional intelligence is always useful, we need to think more carefully about where and when it matters.
In the eyes of many people, giving doesn't count unless it's completely selfless. In reality, though, giving isn't sustainable when it's completely selfless.
Being a magician taught me how powerful the element of surprise can be. In each book, I've tried to work that in - an unexpected twist in a story that reveals an insight, a counter intuitive study that turns your beliefs upside-down.
When I think about voting, I can skip it and still see myself as a good citizen. But when I think about being a voter, now the choice reflects on my character. It casts a shadow.
The great thing about a culture of givers is that's not a delusion - it's reality.
By admitting your inadequacies, you show that you're self-aware enough to know your areas for improvement - and secure enough to be open about them.
We all have original ideas. Even if we don't see ourselves as supercreative or as wild nonconformists, we have insights every day about how the world around us could be better. It might be a better way of running meetings in your office that would be less mind-numbing. It might be a little twist on a product or a service.
We all have thoughts and feelings that we believe are fundamental to our lives but that are better left unspoken.
Recognize that dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong, and go out of your way to reward them.
Complex tasks are often better handled in the back of our mind, and that's often true of creative tasks - when you have something complex to deal with in writing or research or responding to an email. I'll start working, put it aside, and sometimes I'll wake up the next morning with a solution, or I'll find one when I exercise.
It's true that every leader needs followers. We can't all be nonconformists at every moment, but conformity is dangerous - especially for an entity in formation.
Agreeable people are warm and friendly. They're nice; they're polite. You find a lot of them in Canada.
Frenemies are worse than enemies, and it's not just in the workplace.
Negative feedback can make people feel inferior.
We have many identities, and we can't be authentic to them all. The best we can do is be sincere in our efforts to earn the values we claim.
To grow, people need to be challenged.
When you're good at controlling your own emotions, you can disguise your true feelings. When you know what others are feeling, you can tug at their heartstrings and motivate them to act against their own best interests.
Conformity is dangerous.
Meditation isn't snake oil. For some people, meditation might be the most efficient way to reduce stress and cultivate mindfulness. But it isn't a panacea. If you don't meditate, there's no need to stress out about it.
No one wants to hear everything that's in your head. They just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth.
The opposite of an underminer is a supporter. When colleagues are supportive, they go out of their way to be givers rather than takers, working to enhance our productivity, make us look good, share ideas, and provide timely help.
I can't tell you that if you bring in a bunch of weird and different people, then a bunch of good things will happen. But I can tell you that if you hire a bunch of similar people and promote only the ones who are most similar, a bunch of bad things are likely to happen.
If you don't hire originals, you run the risk of people disagreeing but not voicing their dissent.