Something to readWorking with others
Give and Take
A book on why helping others can drive success at work, and how to keep giving without burning out
Why it’s worth your time
Being the helpful one at work can make you indispensable or leave you exhausted, and this book is about what separates the two. Adam Grant's answer starts with an uncomfortable pattern and ends somewhere hopeful, with practical ways to give without being used up. It's a good fit if you suspect your generosity is costing you more than it should.
How to help others at work without burning out
The book · About 8 hours of reading · Buy or borrow
How to get it
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- Start with Grant's TED talk.
His 13-minute talk, Are you a giver or a taker?, covers the core finding and his advice for protecting givers. If you want more, Grant's page for the book offers chapter 1 as a free download.
- Do one five-minute favor and make one ask.
This week, do one thing that takes you five minutes or less and helps someone a lot, such as an introduction, a quick tip or credit for work that went unnoticed. Then ask one person for help with something you're stuck on.
Good moments for this: when helping others is crowding out your own workin your first months on a new teamonce a week, for a small favor
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensWe’ll put it on your calendar and remind you before it starts.
- Every week it happens countsEach week you do it shows on your record, next to what you said matters.
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
A five-minute favor can add a lot of value without handing over your day. If helping is eating your own work, a few well-chosen favors may serve you and them better than saying yes to all of it.
What might make this harder
You don't owe the same person endless favors. In the talk, Grant says takers tend to be caught out by matchers in time; meanwhile it's fair to give that person less and give more where it's returned.
Questions people ask
What are givers, takers and matchers?
Adam Grant's three styles at work. Takers try to get as much as they can, matchers aim for an even trade, and givers contribute without expecting anything back.
What is the five-minute favor?
An idea Grant credits to the entrepreneur Adam Rifkin, in his TED talk: look for small ways to add a lot of value to someone else's day, things that take you about five minutes.
Is Give and Take based on research?
Yes, alongside a lot of stories. Grant's page for the book describes it as built on his own research, and in his TED talk he describes studies of engineers, medical students and salespeople.
What it says, and how it holds up
Do nice people finish last at work? Grant's answer, from his research as an organizational psychologist at Wharton, is that they often do, and that they also often finish first. Among the engineers he studied, the givers at the bottom were so busy with other people's work that they ran out of time for their own.
What separates the successful ones is how they give. They help in ways that cost them little and mean a lot, they're willing to receive help, and they're careful around takers. Grant's page for the book lists some of the stories he tells along the way, among them a top networker building his connections, the creative force behind one of television's most popular shows, who worked for years in anonymity, and how Enron's fall could have been spotted years ahead. The talk adds a point that's useful at work: niceness is a poor guide. Agreeable takers can be charming, and disagreeable givers may be the blunt colleague whose criticism you most need.
Both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly reviewed the book. By its own description the book mixes research with stories, and the stories are where it pays to slow down: a striking successful giver doesn't by itself show that giving caused the success. The book tends to be most convincing as a guide to giving sustainably, and less settled as a promise that giving pays.
Some teams reliably reward taking. There, becoming a better giver won't change the incentives, and the more honest question may be whether that team is the right place for you.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.