Research has long demonstrated the value of a generous spirit. After providing gifts, favors, services, or assistance to others, we become more liked, more appreciated, and even physically healthier. What’s more, those who have received from us typically stand ready to repay when we need something from them. This last benefit flows from the rule for reciprocation, which prescribes the willingness of people to pay back the form of behavior they have first received.
All human societies instill this rule in their members from childhood for a simple reason: It confers great competitive advantages on a group by encouraging profitable exchanges and mutually beneficial trade-offs between group members in vital arenas of interaction such as commerce, defense, and care. In the context of a workplace environment, this means that if you’ve complied with a colleague’s request for help on one of their projects—let’s say by providing effort, resources, or special information—then they should be significantly more willing to comply with a request for help that you might make of them in the future on a project that’s important to you.
With so many of the reasons for being a giver securely in the plus column, it would be easy to think that a large amount of giving on the job is the surefire route to success. Unfortunately, human psychology is almost never so simple. The truth is, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, even in the case of assistance. Take as evidence a study done by organizational psychologist Frank Flynn, who examined the consequences of favor-doing among employees at a large telecommunications firm. He measured the number of favors that workers did for one another along with a pair of noteworthy consequences. The first was the effect of favor-doing on the giver’s social status within the organization—in other words, the giver’s perceived worth to the company in the eyes of his or her coworkers. As you might have expected, those employees who were rated as more generous with their time, energy, and assistance to others were seen as more valuable. Achieving acknowledged social status in the workplace is no small feat and is a testament to the interpersonal gains that come from being a prodigious giver.
But the second consequence of giving that Flynn examined—productivity on the job—did not paint so sunny a picture. Eight measures of individual productivity, including assessments of both the quantity and quality of assigned work, showed that those employees with the highest-rated levels of assistance were significantly less productive than their colleagues. Why? Because they were so busy lending aid to others’ projects that they were unable to pay sufficient attention to their own.
What are we to make of this state of affairs? If being a particularly openhanded giver on the job results in high social status but simultaneously reduces one’s personal productivity on assigned tasks, what are we best advised to do? It turns out that there is a clear answer, one that emerged from another component of Flynn’s study. It identified a small single factor that amplified both the social status and the productivity of a giver. That single factor wasn’t the number of favors done. Instead, it was the number of favors exchanged. Employees who first provided beneficial aid on coworkers’ projects and then got beneficial aid in return maximized the profitable effects of the giving process—not just for themselves but for everyone concerned—by rating high on both status and production. Recall, this outcome is very much in keeping with the rule for reciprocity that is vital to all successful groups precisely because it fosters mutually advantageous exchanges.
The implications of these results for each of us are clear. First, we should be liberal and proactive givers on the job. And note the crucial importance of being the first movers in the process. Going first activates the rule for reciprocity and thereby boosts the potential number of favor exchanges that are so central to mutual success in the workplace.
Second, it is important to characterize the help provided, assistance given, or valuable information delivered in ways that heighten the likelihood that it will be reciprocated fully in the future. This requires making a small, but important, change to the all-too-common response that we typically give when people thank us for our efforts. It is a change that has the ability to provide some startlingly big improvements both in terms of future cooperation and future influence attempts. Here are three suggestions for possible changes to your response, each to be offered upon receiving thanks for help you have given first.
In summary then, the key to optimizing the giving process in the workplace is to arrange for exchange, which itself involves two small but crucial steps that can make for big differences: (a) Be the first to give favors, offer information, or provide service, and (b) be sure to verbally position your favor, information, or service as part of a natural and equitable reciprocal arrangement.
There is another important implication of this research as well. As Flynn points out, as part of their formal performance evaluation process, many organizations ask managers to rate their employees on numerous factors, including how much help employees provide to their colleagues. Flynn suggests that managers should formally evaluate employees not just on how much help they give to others, but also on how often they ask for help from others. Communicating both criteria to the organization’s workforce, along with an explanation about why both are important, should go a long way to maximizing productivity by encouraging the provision of help as well as requests for help throughout the organization.
As authors, we hope that you will find a lot of benefit applying these SMALL BIGs both in your professional as well as your personal lives, and if you found this chapter to be particularly helpful, please let us respond by saying, “[choose here from 1-3 above].”