What is a Giverfly?

A Giverfly is a caring leader on a never-ending journey to becoming a successful giver. 

Inspired by Adam Grant’s book, Give and Take, we created the noun Giverfly. 

In Give and Take, Adam shares that in an organization there are three types of people; Givers, Matchers, and Takers. 

He proceeds to share a Giver is a person who gives without any expectation of anything in return. A Matcher is a person who only gives if they expect to get something in return. A Taker is a person who only takes and doesn’t give anything in return. 

Who are the most successful and least successful people according to Adam?

Givers, Matchers, or Takers? 

Adam’s answer is Givers are the most successful people and Givers are the least successful people. 

According to Adam unsuccessful Givers never say no, give all they got and eventually burn out and can’t give like they naturally want to. Think of the small business owner who says yes to every customer demand. Or takes every meeting or answers the same question over and over again. Or the teacher who accepts every after-school project and soon enough has no time for themselves or their family because they can’t say no. 

On the other hand, successful Givers build a system around themselves. Think of the caring leader who films a video to share answering a question they regularly get versus answering the same question over and over again. Or coaches their assistant to share the answer versus the question getting to them. They don’t take every meeting, instead, they have regular office hours and regularly scheduled meetings to hold space at the right time for their team to speak with them versus in the moment all the time. 

For us Givers, it’s not easy to be a successful Giver because at our core we want to help. It’s natural to say yes, it’s not natural to say no. 

A Giverfly is a caring leader on a never-ending journey to becoming a successful giver.