In this episode, Matt Meeks and I dig into Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take“.
You can listen to the episode here:
For more on Matt, you can find him at SquareFrameMedia.com.
Also, here is the TED Talk from Adam Grant that we referenced a few times on the show:
Full Transcript:
Mickey: There are two great forces of human nature, self-interest and caring for others. And people are most successful when they’re driven by hybrid engine of the two. If takers are selfish and failed, givers are selfish. Successful givers are other ish. They care about benefiting others, but they also have ambitious goals for advancing their own best interests.
So that was a quote from Adam Grant’s book, give and Take, and with me today to discuss is Matt Meeks. So Matt, welcome, uh, tell the folks a bit about
Matt: Glad to be here. Thanks. Um, so I own, uh, with my business partner marketing agency. We’re up in North Georgia, so we work in more rural areas. Uh, we’re a full service agency and this is definitely one of my favorite books.
Mickey: Awesome. Yeah. People say about a lot of Adam Grant’s books, like, this is one of my favorites,
Matt: is true.
Mickey: tease me one of his, so yeah. That’s
Matt: Yeah. Well this is truly one of my top ones.
Mickey: okay. All right. I want, so, so why, tell me why this is one of your top books. What, what is it that impacts you
Matt: so it’s really interesting. I actually [00:01:00] watched the TED Talk. He did first. Um, and that’s how I
Mickey: watched that today actually, to kind of get me back up to speed, so,
Matt: yeah. don’t worry. I, I did too the other day just to make sure I,
I, you know, refreshed. But, um, I actually saw the TED talk first. I was like, oh, this is really interesting concept. And then I listened to, you know, an abbreviated, I think it was on Blink version of it.
And then I bought the book and read the book. Um, and then I ended up meeting one of his research students actually, and worked with her for a while. So it was really cool ’cause she was working on a project that had him involved and, you know, so I got really into it. But one of the reasons I love it is it actually shifted the way we hire, um, and the way that we onboard clients and that we vet them because I look for the three big ones.
Right. I’m, I’m looking, are these people givers? Are they matchers or are they takers? Uh, ’cause those are the things he kind of outlines that those are the three buckets people fall in. Um, so we try and kind [00:02:00] of scope people out with that so that we understand, okay, well we wanna avoid the takers.
Mickey: Yep.
Matt: we’re okay with matchers ’cause we do our jobs.
So if, if that’s how they
Mickey: So explain what a matcher is for anyone that hasn’t read the
Matt: Sure. Yeah. So, uh, breaking it down. So givers are obviously the people who are very open. They’re willing to help people out sometimes to their detriment. Like they’ll help somebody else accomplish their project without accomplishing their own work. I have some of those on my staff. Um, and then your matchers are people who it’s kind of tit for tat, right? If you give me this, then I’ll do this. If you don’t do this, then I’m not gonna do this. And that’s according to Adam and his research that’s about, that’s the majority of the world’s population. So they match.
So those are pretty easy people to work with. ’cause if you do what you’re supposed to do, then, then they’re gonna, you know, match you. Um, and then the takers are the ones you have to really watch out for because these are the selfish people who they’re just looking to, to extract value. They don’t ever put value back into a team, to an [00:03:00] organization. Um, they’re just looking to, to climb to the top to get what they want.
Mickey: and we’ll, we’ll link that Ted talk in the notes, but the Ted talk, he kind of, the way he goes through it is, is interesting. He talks about how givers are generally the worst performers. You think, oh my gosh, what does this mean? Takers are the best. But it turns out takers and matches are kind of in the middle.
Then the best performers are also givers. So givers, like you said, if they give
Matt: Both ends.
Mickey: they end up at the bottom. But really, if they give it away properly, but still take care of themselves, they tend to be the best performing people
Matt: Yep. Yeah, I love, one of his quotes is, you know, find the way, um, to give the best that you have. But not to say yes to everything, right? So it’s like the five minute favors.
So, hey, can you make a quick introduction? Can you take a quick look at this proposal, whatever, that we’re not spending hours and hours and hours.
But a lot of times the, the top performers in givers, they’re actually doing relatively small things and they’re in an, they’re very good at this thing. They’re not [00:04:00] just saying yes to, you know, Hey, can walk my dog every Thursday if that’s not their specialty or schedule. Um, and that’s something even I’ve struggled with.
Uh, and, and I love the way he breaks it down into Ted Talk too, where he kind of does the foursquare grid and he’s like, there’s the agreeable giver, the disagreeable giver, and then you have the agreeable taker, which is the most scary ’cause they seem friendly and nice, but they still want to, to rob you blind, so to speak.
And then you have the disagreeable taker. Those are easy to spot, right? I mean, they’re, they’re harsh and they come off wrong the right of way. So you can kinda, oh, I don’t wanna deal with you. Um, and it was really interesting. I thought at first I was a matcher when I started, you know, really researching and digging into it.
And I found that I’m really more of a disagreeable giver
Mickey: Okay. All right. Nice.
Matt: because like, I won’t just challenge. Um, a lot of people being in what I do, I’m sure you deal with this too, in [00:05:00] marketing, people will be like, Hey, can you, can you just take a look at my website? Or, you know, could you just, you know, it’s just a little nonprofit.
Can you just take a look at our ads and just see what we’re doing? You know, they don’t really wanna pay, they don’t really wanna, um, invest. They don’t have the resources, which is fine. Um, but. I’m gonna immediately challenge, not just say, you know, yes, I’m gonna say,
well, why are you doing that? Why is, why is this project what you’re on?
What I’m gonna immediately start pushing back?
Not because I don’t want to help, but I’m not just gonna say yes. I have a bit of a disagreeable side to, to try and get to the truth and figure out what they need to do. So the book helped me unpack that. Uh, I.
Mickey: Gotcha. I think more based on that, I think I’m more of an agreeable giver where I’ll say yes, perhaps too
Matt: Okay.
Mickey: you want me to look at it? Sure. I’ll pick my brain. Let’s, let’s go. You know? And as time has gone on, as my kids have gotten older and our staff staff has grown, I have more free time.
So I’m able to do that. But especially I. 10 years ago when I had younger kids and a smaller team like that was problematic. You know, [00:06:00] I think it’s still problematic, but Yeah. Um, one thing I’ve been good about, I think is, is giving things away. So you mentioned like giving away resources and stuff, but not saying yes to everything.
Matt: mm-Hmm.
Mickey: a, quote in the book talking about David Hornick. He said, in an attempt to prove it, Hornick has become, excuse me, an attempt to prove it. Hornet has broken two of the most sacred rules in the venture business. In 2004, he became the first venture capitalist to start a blog. Venture capital was a black box.
So Hornick invited entrepreneurs inside. He began to share information openly online, helping entrepreneurs to improve their pitches by gaining a deep understanding of how venture capitalists think hornet’s, hornik’s partners and his firm’s general counsel, discouraged him from doing it. Why would he wanna give away trade secrets?
And so, but again, I think it’s worked out fabulously for him. And I try to do the same. And I know you do too. I see a lot of the content you post online, you give away a lot of the secrets, as it were. But then you become seen more as an expert, as a result. So it’s, it’s a fine line between giving it all away, but.
Giving away enough to, it’s like, oh, this, this Matt guy knows what he’s talking about, so I, I need to go talk to him further and it can be a good
Matt: Yeah, Yeah, [00:07:00] exactly. Some people ask, you know, I do a lot of stuff with like local chambers, especially smaller chambers who don’t
get. Um, a lot of like experts coming into them, right? Because they’re, they’re too small. There’s only 15 people showing up in a room, and so it’s hard to get somebody out of a Google or a big agency to, to show up. Um, so I do a lot of that stuff and people have challenged me in the past, like, why would you do this? How much business do you get out of it? And I’m like, that’s not really the point. Um, I’m trying to, to provide genuine value. And nine times out of 10, either someone comes up to me at the end and does want something. Or that persons up connecting me with somebody. Right.
And I don’t do it for that reason. I do it ’cause I genuinely enjoy teaching what I know and what I’m passionate about.
Mickey: would say I, I do similar, but I think a lot of what I get is I learn more from it. Even if I’m quote the smartest person about whatever topic, there’s gonna, people that ask a weird question I hadn’t thought
Matt: Yep.
Mickey: have a weird experience. Like I never thought of it that way and it sort of makes me that [00:08:00] much better for next time, which is better for everyone I interact with after that point.
Matt: yeah,
Mickey: it’s a win all the way around. But talking about chambers though, that, that’s another thing. You gotta be careful and not say yes ’cause. I know our chamber here in Cobb County, they have like three events every day. Like they’re just, yeah, I could just do that all day and never do any work, which would be the, the, the loser giver or
Matt: Yeah, exactly.
Mickey: so do
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. That’s definitely a, a challenge, um, that you have to, to monitor and be well, but that’s something me and my business partner talk a lot about is the best way to learn is to teach. You know, so we’ll try and put it on our team when we’re trying to get somebody to learn a new skill or whatever is,
okay, well you, here’s the course, we’ll pay for whatever, but you’ve got to teach somebody else in the team or the whole team, this concept. You know, so they have to regurgitate it. Um, something we’ve started doing and that’s been very helpful. Uh, ’cause
Mickey: done that with our meetup a few times too. We’re like, we need to learn this topic and so let’s, let’s teach it next month at our meetup, which means we need to prepare a lot and read a lot and learn and, you
Matt: test [00:09:00] it.
Mickey: us to learn so we can
Matt: Yeah. And then those questions are great. I love, I love the engagement ’cause Yeah. I always find somebody who’s like, I can’t click that button. They’re like, yeah, you can. I go look at their screen. I’m like, oh my God, you don’t have that button. Why does that not exist on your account?
Mickey: Right, Yep.
Matt: does Facebook not let you do that?
Or whatever, you know? It’s like, okay, whatever.
So, Yeah.
Mickey: So listen, listening was a big part of what he talked about in here too, and there were a couple, couple good quotes. The first one is about talking more, um, makes you feel like you’ve listened. He said. Logically learning about the people around you should depend on listening.
The less you talk, the more you should discover about the group, but Pennebaker found the opposite. The more you talk, the more you think you’ve learned about the group. By talking like a taker and dominating the conversation, you believe you’ve actually come to know the people around you, even though they barely spoke.
You opening up James Pennebaker muses his quote. Most of us find that communicating our thoughts is a supremely enjoyable learning experience. So,
Matt: Yeah.
Mickey: of course totally backwards,
Matt: It’s
Mickey: It’s interesting. So I’ve, I’ve tried to remember that like with clients and with leads and [00:10:00] stuff, if I let them talk, they’re gonna go away thinking, wow, that Mickey guy really
Matt: Mm-Hmm.
Mickey: You know, even though I didn’t necessarily say much. It, it can be a good
Matt: Yes. Yeah. I’ve had a a, um, my grandfather used to teach me that the best way to, to win somebody over is to make ’em think it was their idea. Um, and he said that was one of the key things was to always let the person talk and digest. And then you just kind of spin it back to them politely, and they’re like, yeah, that, and you’re like, that is a great idea.
We should do that.
Because it’s, it’s true. You listen and, you know, good salespeople, good consultants, whatever. Um, just good communicators in general. You should spend more time listening. I had a mentor long time tell me, or a long time ago, tell me, he’s like, you’ve got two ears and one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you speak.
Mickey: I like that. Yeah.
Matt: reason there’s, you know, some math there.
Mickey: And he had, and, and Adam had some good data to
Matt: Mm-Hmm.
Mickey: listening can help. It was a quote here, so he said, quote, Neil Rackham spent nine years studying [00:11:00] expert and average negotiators. He identified expert negotiators as those who were rated as highly effective by both sides, and had a strong track record of success with few failures.
He recorded more than 100 negotiations and combed through them to see how the experts differed from the average negotiators. The expert negotiators spent more time trying to understand the other side’s perspective. Questions made up 21% of the expert’s comments, but less than 10% of the average negotiator’s comments.
So the expert negotiators spent, you know, twice as asked twice as many questions as the, as the normal ones, you know, as the, as the average ones, which is, I mean, it’s a huge difference. You hear 10 to 21%, but that, that’s double, that’s twice as many questions they’re asking as experts versus the, the average ones are probably being more telling them what they need versus asking questions and listening, which is, again, tough to do sometimes.
I mean, we’ve seen, you just talked about that people that wanna pick your brain.
It’s easy to say, I’ve seen this before. I have the answer. Let me just talk to you for 20 minutes and get it over with. But they’re not gonna think you really heard them and understood their problem unless you take the time to, to sit and
Matt: Exactly. Well, and even on the, [00:12:00] you know, for what we do for a living on the marketing side, a lot of brands end up being in positions where they just talk. I mean, they’re just blasting information.
They don’t engage in conversation with their, their customer or their user. And even that makes a huge difference, right?
It’s like you, you as a brand need to be a giver, not a taker. You’re not just looking to get a sale out of somebody. You need to provide value. And so when we can get a client to really shift and understand that, it makes a massive difference. You know, their social media changes the way we post, what we post, how we do emails, and the engagement builds so much more of an authentic connection between, you know, the brand and the user. Um.
Mickey: Yeah. Blast is an interesting word we hear. If we hear a client say, I wanna sit on some email blasts, I’m like. They may not mean it that way, but that’s not what we want. We don’t wanna send email blasts, we wanna send newsletters and start conversation and share knowledge and not just blast people.
And they usually say, that’s what I meant. But, so I think it’s more just a word that’s used, but Blast is, is a good way to put it. ’cause that’s what companies
Matt: Mm-Hmm.
Mickey: like you said, on social media. I think even more
Matt: Oh gosh. [00:13:00] Yeah.
Mickey: you wanna turn it into a conversation versus just, yeah, here’s our latest thing, here’s another latest thing, here’s another latest
Matt: Right. Bye. Bye bye. It’s like, that’s what everybody else is saying too, so you’re just feeding to the noise.
Um, one of the other things that I found really interesting in the book that I have dealt with is that you have to protect givers from burnout.
Um, so like, again, I have some, some agreeable givers on my team who will just say yes, right. From a business side, it can be challenging because all those hours don’t make it in as billables.
Mickey: Right.
Matt: They
just kept saying yes and yes. Oh yeah, sure we can. Oh yeah, I can get you that. I can get you that. And I’m like, that is not in the scope of the project or our retainer.
Mickey: Actually, the way I’ve heard is not scope creep. Scope creep is like when clients ask for more. What I think we run into trouble is scope seep. When we kind of, we are giving away extra scope to the client with our ideas, which can be good to a degree. It builds, you know, builds some trust.
But if you keep doing it, yeah, it’s all free stuff you’re giving away and you can only, you gotta, these people wanna be paid too, so you
Matt: right. [00:14:00] Exactly. And So. I mean, a big thing I actually heard from one of my clients is I’m like, I always wanna do what’s right by the client, even if it costs.
Mickey: Mm-hmm.
Matt: okay. ’cause I just think that, that, that works in the long term. Um, that’s how I’d wanna be treated, you know, so I, I try and communicate that too, but for setting up systems and boundaries to, to protect, you know, those givers on your team, um, from burning out that they get so overwhelmed in tasks.
So like, I try and sit down, I’ve not been super good about this, but I’ve been trying to sit down more with my team and go through their, our project management system, right? And just say what, what’s on your to-do list so that I can spot the things that I’m like, what? Wait, why are we still doing that?
Like that’s, that’s not a thing we get paid to do. Or why are you handling that? That’s really so-and-so’s job. And it always comes down to, well, I mean, it’s just a little thing and then it kind of morphed into this thing and I don’t wanna let him down. I’m like, okay, that’s fine, but let’s, let’s have a [00:15:00] conversation with the client and figure out, you know, how to fix this.
Mickey: Yep. I think for us too, it’s helped. We have at at least a couple people on our team, our project manager among others, that is good about reaching out to us and saying, Hey, this other person on the team is getting overwhelmed with work. Like, I wanna let you know so you can step in and help. Like, ’cause we don’t often see that.
I mean, she’s running all the projects, we’re out doing podcasts and stuff, so we don’t necessarily always see that. So it’s nice to have the team looking out for each other and say, Hey, I’m letting you know this Other person’s maybe getting a little overwhelmed. You may wanna look at shifting some things around or doing something to help ’em before they get burned out.
And having people like that on the team is. Just
Matt: Yeah. That’s something.
We need to implement better. Our team has gotten so big. It’s like I can’t, I can’t track everybody, you know, in a good way. Not micromanager, but I just, I can’t keep up with, with everything. So it would be, we just hired a project manager, gosh, two, three months ago, um, to try and come in and help take that burden
Mickey: Yep.
Matt: like the data’s there.
Mickey: [00:16:00] We meet with our team individually every quarter, but I. That’s often not enough, even if it, you know, they’d be overwhelmed for two or three months before we had a chance to
Matt: yeah, they’re burnt already.
Mickey: yeah, it’s too late then. So it’s great to have
Matt: Yeah, for sure. But yeah.
Mickey: more area I wanted to hit and then Yeah.
I’ll let you kind of wrap up. Whatever you have is about seeking advice. I thought that was a good
Matt: mm.
Mickey: I. They say from the book, quote, takers may fear that seeking advice might make them look weak, dependent, or incompetent. They’re wrong. Research shows that people who regularly seek advice and help from knowledgeable colleagues are actually rated more favorably by supervisors than those who never seek advice and
Matt: Yeah.
Mickey: Then related was another quote that said The fear of being judged as weak or naive prevents many people from operating like givers at
Matt: Mm-Hmm.
Mickey: Um, yeah. We have, again, we encourage our team to, to seek advice and ask questions and. A couple people on our team, Robert and Cammy, come to mind from our team.
They’re always asking questions and that’s fantastic. They almost feel like they’re being a burden. I’m like,
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Mickey: mean, asking questions is fantastic for all of us, and I encourage the whole team to keep it going because they, they’re, I’m glad that they’re not afraid to do it, and I don’t think anyone on our team is, [00:17:00] but it’s, I can sort of see it though, where you would feel like, I shouldn’t ask that question.
They might think I’m dumb ’cause I don’t know the answer, but I’d rather that than mess
Matt: Right. Well, I mean, I spent years in corporate, right? I worked for
Verizon, some different organizations, many, many decades ago. It feels like, um, that it absolutely was. I mean, you asked a, a dumb question and culturally like you’d see half the people in the room go, Ugh. You know?
And so you create that environment.
But in our team as well as yours. Um, we tell people on the onboarding process a few things we say, um, one that you don’t wanna hoard knowledge, share it. So if you learn something interesting, you learn something new, blast it in the team chat, you know, um, and then there are no dumb questions, but the one not ask that. we tell ’em right up front, that if you’re asking questions, that actually brings us great relief. If you’re just going uhhuh, Uhhuh, [00:18:00] that scares us.
Mickey: Gotcha.
Matt: scares us deeply because either you’re not actually understanding, uh, or you’re not listening, one of the two, because nobody gets it all. Like that’s just not just on communication style alone. Nobody’s an excellent communicator all the time, so people have to ask questions.
So we try and reinforce that, and then something else we try and tell our team. To kind of drive that point home is when we’re hiring them, we tell ’em, you’re gonna make mistakes and they’re gonna cost us money. We already know that. So just don’t hide them. like that’s the only reason we would get upset is if you hide them. If you come to me and go, Matt, I screwed up. This billboard’s wrong. I messed this ad up, we overspent, whatever. We’ll pay the money and fix it. That’s fine. Don’t hide it. That
I have a problem with, but you’re gonna make mistakes. I already know that. So we, you, you have to foster an environment within your team to your point that asking [00:19:00] questions is a good thing. Being a giver is a good thing. It’s not punished and it’s also protected that it’s not taken advantage of, that you don’t have somebody on the team, you know, extracting value out of one person, draining them.
Mickey: Right. Yeah. I love the mistakes thing costing you money. I think it was Ogilvy. I can’t remember who said it, but. Someone had made a huge mistake and cost the company thousands of dollars and they, he was asked like, aren’t you gonna fire him? He is like, what are you talking about? I just spent thousands of dollars training him on how not to make that mistake again.
Like,
Matt: Not fire him.
Mickey: yeah. Now if it’s malicious, that’s different, but if someone makes a mistake, they learned a bunch and yeah, they’re gonna be the least likely person to make that mistake again, so that’s fantastic.
Matt: So it’s like we, we understand that going in. And one of the other quotes that, um, I don’t know if it’s in the book, I don’t remember, but I, I know it’s in his TED Talk, he talks about, you know. People are worried about getting the right people on the bus, right?
That’s the old saying of, you know, do you have the right people on the bus or in the right seat? And he said, really, you should be focused on keeping the wrong people off the bus.
that’s that’s actually where [00:20:00] your energy is because generally speaking, again, the majority of the population’s gonna be match. So they, they make fine teammates. As long as everybody’s playing on an even field and doing what they’re supposed are gonna be fine, givers are gonna be okay.
You. It’s really focusing your attention on, do I have a sneaky taker and do I let them in the environment? And so that’s something, like I said, this book really shifted. The way I look at hiring and company culture is really important to us. The team dynamic, I. Um, so we spend a lot of time vetting somebody, like in the interview process, we actually will have somebody come in and spend a day shadowing before we offer them the job, because I want feedback from the entire team on What do you think?
Are they weird? Are they cool? Do you have good conversation? You know, do you notice any weird ticks? Like, what’s, what’s up? Um, because I don’t wanna introduce a rogue element if I can help it.
Mickey: Yep. That’s for sure. I think, I think I’ll cut. [00:21:00] We’ll kind of end it there. I like one more quote from the book that kind of ties into that. He says, quote, as Samuel Johnson purportedly wrote, the true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do ’em Absolutely no good. And so if finding people that are.
Super polite to the janitor, to the waitress of the restaurant, all that kinda stuff. It tells you a lot and it’s hard to see that right away. I would hope if you go out to a restaurant with an interviewee, they’re gonna be nice no matter what, but they may expose themselves easily. But yeah, just being how you treat people that can’t help you is, is kind of the key here
Matt: That’s a great way to put it.
Mickey: questions and helping folks out and yeah. So fantastic
Matt: Yes. Oh, it is?
Mickey: I. I’ll say anything about Adam Grant is a must read. He doesn’t, he doesn’t read that many books, so, but he certainly turns ’em out, but they’re fantastic. And so I encourage, encourage everyone to check it out.
And again, we’ll put that Ted Talk. It’s like a 14 minute Ted Talk something. It’s pretty
Matt: it’s, very reasonable.
Mickey: show notes. So yeah, hit the show
Matt: And he is. a great speaker. it’s very engaging. He’s not it’s not dull by any stretch.
Mickey: Oh yeah, his podcast is fantastic. I, I’ll listen to anything he has to say. So yeah, it’s, it’s all good stuff.
So, Matt, I appreciate your time today.
Matt: Absolutely appreciate it. [00:22:00] Yep. you.
can find us@squareframemedia.com. Um, we’re on Facebook as well, but we’re one of the sad little agencies that we’re so busy with everybody else’s stuff. We don’t post on social media.
Mickey: That’d be the typical agency. So yes. There you
Matt: We have a website. Don’t judge us too harshly.
Mickey: There you go. Appreciate it. Talk to you
Matt: Appreciate it. Bye.
Mickey: See ya.
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