The New York Times Magazine continues its unusual string of stories on medicine and psychology with another one yesterday on "prosocial motivation," otherwise known as "to give is better than to receive."
The story, by Susan Dominus, a staff writer, deals with the life and work of Adam Grant, who, she writes, is "the youngest tenured and highest rated professor" at the Wharton business school. Grant is a leader in the study of what Dominus calls "prosocial motivation–the desire to help others, independent of easily foreseeable payback."
One of his most famous studies involved a call center at the University of Michigan, where student employees were calling alumni to ask for donations. The usual means of boosting productivity had failed–cash prizes, competitive games. Grant tried something different. He brought in a student who had benefited from a scholarship financed by the call center's revenue. The student told them how the scholarship had changed his life, and how excited he was to become a teacher. "The results were surprising even to Grant. A month after the testimonial, the workers were spending 142 percent more time on the phone and bringing in 171 percent more revenue, even though they were using the same script."
As the piece goes on, the picture of Grant and his work becomes more complex. Grant really does seem to be a uniquely energentic and generous fellow, whom we might not all be able to emulate, however impressed we might be with his message. Dominus discusses the troubling possibility that Grant's research, when used to motivate corporate workers, could allow corporations to profit from their employees' generosity "to compensate for other failings–poor pay or demeaning work."
She also tries to incorporate into her life, she tells us, a more generous approach toward emailers asking for favors or other potential intrusions on her work. She finds surprising rewards, but becomes concerned that taking too much time to be a giver at work will leave her without time to feed her children at the end of the day. She also uncovers unusual anxiety in Grant, suggesting that he's somehow driven to be generous, that he finds it uncomfortable to say no.
It's a thought-provoking piece, and it's sure to drive readers to Grant's book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, to be published by Viking on April 9th.
While I found the story interesting and well written, I found two of the editors' decisions regarding the piece to be rather odd. The title–The Saintly Way to Succeed–was simply erroneous. This is not about generosity in the Christian sense of the term, but about generosity in corporate boardrooms, workplaces, and other highly secular settings. Readers could be forgiven for thinking that the piece was going to be about, say, Pope Francis's ideas about proper behavior in the workplace.
And the art used to illustrate the piece was bizarre. It consisted of a series of photographs of a duo called Key & Peele, who star in a television show on Comedy Central. The editors understandably felt an obligation to explain this bizarre decision, and they did so in small type on the magazine's cover:
The Comedy Duo Key and Peele: This is not a story about them. But if you need people to demonstrate the theme of a cover story, they might as well be funny.
That sounds like a one-liner at an editorial meeting that somebody foolishly decided to take seriously.
Alternatively, if you need people to demonstrate the theme of a cover story, they might as well have something to do with the story.
And a picture of Adam Grant might have been nice.
-Paul Raeburn
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