Books Like
Give and Take

If you liked Give and Take, the closest books are The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann, Think Again by Adam Grant, Multipliers by Liz Wiseman, You Are Capable of More by Chris Sund, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, and Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek.

The finding that made the book

Grant sorted people into givers, takers, and matchers and expected the givers to finish somewhere in the middle, and instead found them clustered at both extremes, filling up the bottom of most success measures and the top of them at the same time. That result is what makes the book worth reading, because it means generosity is not a strategy in itself, it is a raw material that can go either way.

What separates the two groups turns out to be boundaries. The givers at the bottom respond to whoever asked most recently and cannot say no, and the givers at the top choose who and when, protect what matters to them, and are willing to disappoint people. Same trait, opposite outcomes, and the difference is entirely in whether the giving was chosen or simply reactive.

One

The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann

The same argument written as a short business fable, built around five laws, of which the first, that your value is set by how much more you give than you take in payment, is the one that sticks. It takes an hour and it is the most giftable book in this category by a distance.

Grant has the research and Burg has the version people actually pass along. If parables put you off, skip it, but plenty of people have received this at exactly the right moment.

Two

Think Again by Adam Grant

Same author and the closest of his others in method. This one is about the skill of changing your mind, and about how much of what limits people is an attachment to conclusions they reached long ago and have never gone back to examine.

If what you liked was how Grant works, taking a familiar idea and showing you the research says something more complicated, this is the natural next one.

Three

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

Wiseman studies why some leaders make everyone around them smarter and others quietly make everyone smaller, and her best contribution is the accidental diminisher, the well-meaning person who jumps in to help and takes the thinking away from someone who needed to do it themselves.

It is the applied version of Grant for anyone managing people, and most readers find themselves somewhere in the diminisher list, which is uncomfortable and useful.

Five

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi

The most tactical book here and the one most likely to make you slightly uneasy, because Ferrazzi is explicit that relationships are built on purpose and that generosity is the mechanism. His central move is giving first without keeping score, and then he tells you exactly how to do it.

Read it if Give and Take convinced you and you want something operational. Skip it if the deliberateness bothers you.

Six

Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek

Sinek’s argument is that a leader’s real job is creating enough safety that people can do their best work rather than spending their energy protecting themselves, and the title comes from officers eating after their people.

The biology sections are looser than the reporting and some readers find them stretched. The core claim about safety holds up and connects directly to what Grant found about environments where givers thrive.

Seven

The Second Mountain by David Brooks

Brooks on what happens when the first mountain, the one built from career and achievement, turns out not to be enough, and on the second one that gets climbed for other people. The most personal and least practical book on this list.

Read it if the question underneath Give and Take stopped being about your career and started being about your life.

Which one to pick

If you want one, read The Go-Giver, mostly because you will finish it, and the idea in it is the one worth carrying around.

Common questions