The Pie is Not Fixed

I've been reading an interesting book lately, Give and Take by Adam Grant. To put it simply, Grant identifies three major reciprocity styles among humans: givers, takers, and matchers.

Takers and taking behavior is fairly obvious; these individuals are out to gain as much for themselves with much concern for their peers. They try to accumulate success through self-directed and often selfish behavior.

Givers are much less obvious; much of their 'giving' takes place behind the scenes. They tend to help others even and especially when they have no stake in the matter and have nothing to gain by stepping in.

And matchers, which Grant says most of us are, help others to a point. We tend to weigh the costs and benefits of helping our peers; we'll step in to assist someone if there is some chance of benefiting personally, but hesitate if we stand to lose. Matchers tend to punish taking behavior and be influenced by givers to give.

Have you heard of the pygmalion effect? It's the phenomenon that high expectations of someone causes them to perform better. In the context of the original study, Rosenthal (the researcher) found that by simply designating certain students as high-performers (telling the teachers they scored highly on an IQ test) was enough for the teachers to invest more into these students, even if those students had not scored well.

What a powerful insight! And as explored in Give and Take, much of society thinks that talent comes first, and talent coupled with hard work equals success. But what if we are poorer judgers of talent than we thought? What if talent is hard work in disguise? And what if success were a byproduct of the investments other people have put into certain individuals?

And for teachers and future teachers and to me: what a reminder to not underestimate a student's potential. With many teachers, there seems to be this determinism: certain students are born with greater aptitude and certain students are not. Hogwash. It is truly that we perceive the smart as smart—then we skew the scales by investing more into these students.

We assume that the pie is fixed. That there are a fixed proportion of geniuses, middling people, and fools. Precisely not! In fact, to divide a classroom or a society like this ignores the patent reality: the only thing holding back low-performers is a legitimate chance to do well.

Giving is not a zero-sum game. Giving increases the size of the pie. In fact, we have no idea how big it can become; and what motivation this is to strive for more, to give more, and to lay more on the line. So let's stop pretending the pie is fixed—it's not.