In the workplace, avoid the agreeable takers and embrace the disagreeable givers. Someone hard to work with is better than someone selfish.
Book: Give and Take
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist, and Wharton professor, classifies workers on two independent dimensions: givers vs. takers and agreeable vs. disagreeable.
- Givers help others and boost the team, while takers focus only on their own interests.
- Agreeable people are friendly and pleasant, while disagreeable people are rough around the edges.
Interestingly, Grant found that being friendly doesn't mean someone's a giver, and being grumpy doesn't mean someone's a taker. Givers and takers both can be either agreeable or disagreeable.
The worst employees are disagreeable takers, but agreeable takers can also be deceptively terrible. They pretend to be helpful while actually hurting the company. They are the most dangerous kind of person to have in an organization.
While the agreeable giver may seem like the ideal employee, Grant says they sometimes avoid conflict too much. On the other hand, disagreeable givers, though harder to work with, can be the most valuable to an organization.
Disagreeable givers are more likely to fight for their beliefs, question the status quo, push for difficult but needed changes, and give honest feedback. Therefore, even if they are challenging to work with, they are critical for organizations that need to avoid complacency and improve.
I first learned about this from Meta's head of product, Naomi Gleit, on Lenny's Podcast.