13 Books Like Give and Take by Adam Grant (Givers Really Do Win)
Books
Adam Grant’s Give and Take split the working world into
three kinds of people — givers, takers and matchers — and then dropped
the finding everyone remembers: givers are at the bottom of the ladder
and the top.
The ones at the bottom give without boundaries and get used up. The
ones at the top give strategically, choose who they invest in, and end
up with the best reputations and the most support.
If you’re looking for books like Give and Take, you want
more of that: evidence that generosity is a strategy, not a sacrifice.
Here are thirteen. The first one takes Grant’s idea past the office and
into your bloodstream.
1. GRP The Golden Rule
Paradox — Ross Fischer
Grant proved givers win at work. GRP
The Golden Rule Paradox proves they win everywhere else too.
Nine years of research, and the pattern never breaks. The people who
put others’ needs first end up the biggest beneficiaries: happier,
healthier, living longer, more successful. The people who take at
everyone else’s expense end up paying for it, whether it’s a marriage, a
bank, or a whole economy.
GRP actually builds on Grant’s study directly (it’s in Chapter 6, in
the section on boundaries), then goes where Give and Take
didn’t: the mortality data, the brain scans, the 1929 and 2008 crashes,
and the strategies for practicing it at home, not just at work.
Grant’s “otherish” giver is a GRP giver with an MBA. Here’s
the science behind it.
2. The Go-Giver — Bob
Burg and John David Mann
A ninety-minute business parable about a hungry young salesman who
learns that the secret to getting is giving. If you want Give and
Take as a story instead of a study, this is it.
3. Drive — Daniel H. Pink
Pink’s book on motivation is the natural companion to Grant’s:
autonomy, mastery and purpose beat carrots and sticks. The “purpose”
chapter is where the two books shake hands.
4. Hidden Potential — Adam
Grant
Grant’s newer book, and the better one for most readers. It’s about
how far people can go when someone invests in them, which is Give
and Take seen from the receiving end.
5. Leaders Eat Last — Simon
Sinek
The Marine Corps rule that officers eat after their troops, expanded
into a whole theory of leadership. Sinek’s “circle of safety” is what a
giver culture looks like at the company level.
6. Influence — Robert B.
Cialdini
The classic on persuasion, and Chapter 2 — reciprocity — explains the
mechanics behind everything Grant observed. People feel compelled to
give back. Cialdini shows you why that’s wired in.
7. Mindset — Carol S. Dweck
Not about giving on its face, but Grant leans on Dweck throughout.
Givers tend to have growth mindsets; takers tend to need to be the
smartest person in the room. Read them together and you’ll see it.
8. Dare to Lead — Brené Brown
Brown’s research on vulnerability in leadership. Her finding that
“clear is kind” is what Grant’s successful givers do that the doormats
don’t: they set boundaries.
9. The Culture Code — Daniel
Coyle
How the best teams on earth — Navy SEALs, Pixar, the San Antonio
Spurs — build belonging. Coyle’s Spurs chapter is the same Gregg
Popovich that GRP spends several pages on, and for the same reason.
10. Humble Inquiry — Edgar H.
Schein
A short book on asking instead of telling. Schein was MIT’s grand old
man of organizational culture, and this is the most practical thing he
wrote. Givers ask questions. This is how.
11. Think Again — Adam Grant
Grant’s book on changing your mind. It’s here because the takers in
Give and Take have one thing in common: they can’t. Worth
reading if you’ve ever lost an argument you were right about.
12. The Happiness Advantage
— Shawn Achor
Harvard’s research on why happy people outperform. Achor’s “social
investment” chapter — the people who survive pressure are the ones who
lean into relationships, not away — is Grant’s giver data from
a different lab.
13. The
Power of Giving — Azim Jamal and Harvey McKinnon
Two fundraising veterans on how giving creates abundance in every
area of life. Less rigorous than Grant, more personal, and a good one to
hand to someone who’d never pick up a business book.
The pattern underneath all
of them
Grant found the paradox in the workplace: the people who give the
most are the ones who win the most, as long as they’re smart about
it.
GRP’s nine years of research found the same paradox in your health,
your marriage, your money, and in history itself. The giver ends up the
biggest beneficiary. Every time.
That is GRP.
Watch Ross break it down on the GRP YouTube
channel, read what
the heck GRP is, or get the book: GRP
The Golden Rule Paradox on Amazon, paperback and Kindle.
Ross Fischer
Author · GRP
Nine years assembling the evidence behind the book — across neuroscience, epidemiology, behavioral economics, history and the natural world. He writes as a teacher and a father rather than an academic.
Read the whole argument
One idea, followed from your marriage all the way to the 2008 financial crisis.
Get the book on Amazon Request the press kit