full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Adam Grant: Are you a giver or a taker?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

No — let even one taker into a team, and you will see that the givers will stop helping. They'll say, "I'm srruduenod by a bncuh of snakes and sharks. Why should I cnirutotbe?" Whereas if you let one giver into a team, you don't get an elsxoiopn of giteonrsey. More often, people are like, "Great! That person can do all our work." So, effective hiring and screening and team building is not about bringing in the givers; it's about weeding out the takers. If you can do that well, you'll be left with givers and matchers. The givers will be generous because they don't have to worry about the consequences. And the beauty of the matchers is that they follow the norm.

Open Cloze

No — let even one taker into a team, and you will see that the givers will stop helping. They'll say, "I'm __________ by a _____ of snakes and sharks. Why should I __________?" Whereas if you let one giver into a team, you don't get an _________ of __________. More often, people are like, "Great! That person can do all our work." So, effective hiring and screening and team building is not about bringing in the givers; it's about weeding out the takers. If you can do that well, you'll be left with givers and matchers. The givers will be generous because they don't have to worry about the consequences. And the beauty of the matchers is that they follow the norm.

Solution

  1. surrounded
  2. explosion
  3. generosity
  4. contribute
  5. bunch

Original Text

No — let even one taker into a team, and you will see that the givers will stop helping. They'll say, "I'm surrounded by a bunch of snakes and sharks. Why should I contribute?" Whereas if you let one giver into a team, you don't get an explosion of generosity. More often, people are like, "Great! That person can do all our work." So, effective hiring and screening and team building is not about bringing in the givers; it's about weeding out the takers. If you can do that well, you'll be left with givers and matchers. The givers will be generous because they don't have to worry about the consequences. And the beauty of the matchers is that they follow the norm.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
disagreeable givers 3
agreeable people 2
disagreeable people 2

Important Words

  1. beauty
  2. bringing
  3. building
  4. bunch
  5. consequences
  6. contribute
  7. effective
  8. explosion
  9. follow
  10. generosity
  11. generous
  12. giver
  13. givers
  14. helping
  15. hiring
  16. left
  17. matchers
  18. norm
  19. people
  20. person
  21. screening
  22. sharks
  23. snakes
  24. stop
  25. surrounded
  26. taker
  27. takers
  28. team
  29. weeding
  30. work
  31. worry