Nonprofit Organizational Assessment

Adam Grant
Adam Grant, author of the book Give and Take, distinguishes organizational cultures
into giver, taker and matcher cultures according to their norms of reciprocity. In a giver
culture, employees operate by "helping others, sharing knowledge, offering mentoring,
and making connections without expecting anything in return", whereas in a taker
culture "the norm is to get as much as possible from others while contributing less in
return" and winners are those who take the most and are able to build their power at the
expense of others. The majority of organizations are mid-way, with a matcher culture, in
which the norm is to match giving with taking, and favours are mostly traded in closed
loops.
In a study by Harvard researchers on units of the US intelligence system, a giver culture
turned out to be the strongest predictor of group effectiveness.
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