> They’re more likely to fight for what they believe in, challenge the status quo, and push the organization to make painful but necessary changes, he says.<p>A long time ago, I had a new employer that wanted me to hotfix non-critical code changes to a live, popular website via FTP with no version control, no nothing. Like a single typo could crash a high traffic site. I told them this was extremely dangerous and irresponsible, and refused to do any changes until we got the system under version control with a reasonable way to deploy changes. This caused a huge standoff and I basically put my foot down and told them that I wouldn't be deploying any changes until I got the client's website under version control--they could dock my pay for the extra time it took, I didn't care. Anyhow, I set up version control and a deployment strategy that we could rollback (this only took a day or so). Then I made the changes and educated the team on how to safely push changes to the site.<p>A month or so later they decided to not renew my contract, but by then the feeling was quite mutual.<p>I told this story while interviewing at what would be my next employer and it worked as points in my favor.<p>EDIT: FWIW I consider myself a generally agreeable giver until a certain threshold is crossed. One such threshold is stuff that moves into what I consider to be ethically irresponsible behavior. Perhaps you would call this a "selectively agreeable/disagreeable giver." There are "disagreeable givers" that pick their battles wisely in terms of when to apply friction and when to go along with the team. On the flip side there are those that will apply friction to every little thing and might relish in complaining and "I told you so"s and cowboying up their own solutions for every small disagreement.<p>EDIT2: Clarifying that the "hotfixes" were non-critical, normal code changes.
I'm always skeptical of things like this that attempt to distill the full range of human personality and behavior into a simple table with four values. I haven't done any studies, but I feel like this sort of thing is disprovable by simple counter-example: as soon as I come across a single person who does not fit into this box, the universality of the box is already clearly wrong. I've come across many such people, whose behavior in the work place can't be described by the combination of two adjectives. (In fact, it's the only kind of person I've come across.)
I think the author left out the other side of the argument...maybe the Wharton professor didn't in the original presentation of the idea.<p>How does the company treat the employee? I've found that the employee will generally try to mirror how the company treats them. If they feel the company is taking advantage of them, then they might start acting like a Taker just to balance out the relationship.<p>If they freely give to the company, and the company gives back, then that could start a positive feedback loop.<p>Sometimes, the company is structured so that the company can't give back, i.e. rigid HR policies about raises/promotions that limit a meritocracy. If the opportunity cost of switching company's is higher, then the employee is probably going to milking the company for everything it's worth to try to even out the relationship.
As a disagreeable giver, I have learned to accept a lot of things, mainly that I am widely misunderstood. A funny thing I’ve come to learn is to always seek employers who are themselves committed and passionate beyond convention. The gap between the results of finding such an employer and working for an average drone spans the almost the entire spectrum. Passionate people always get me, and I think they have been greatly rewarded for it. I will do anything for those people; I’ll even knowingly waste their time if I <i>really</i> like them, but that’s asking a lot.
I'm a disagreeable giver. I've just left a job which didn't appreciate this. Funny thing is, everyone on my level said all the time how much they appreciate my openness with knowledge and desire to teach my skills. I found that odd because I consider it completely normal. The people above me hated it, though. Some of them shot down my efforts to enable basic knowledge sharing in the company. Most of the time I just made it very obvious that I could see them with their clothes off, though, and there were a lot of naked people above me.
The best I've worked with have a knack for presenting making their contrary ideas agreeable.<p>While the jerks assume they are being attacked for their beliefs, the smart ones understands the value of group effort.
Usually, the employee screening at the entry level relies on assessment of education history of the prospect.<p>The problem is that educational excellence often selects for agreeableness, as there is no real reward of contrarianism in education.<p>From bullshit Liberal Arts essays where you are graded in function of the level of endorsement of the brain farts of the professor in question to even the CS projects that are supposed to be made in a specific technology, often some JavaEE crap avoiding using more powerful languages or ecosystems like Python, Elixir or Clojure.<p>I wonder how many billions has the economy lost as a result.
I have managed a disagreeable giver. I very much appreciated his upfront style and his passion. But whenever he was exposed to the rest of the organisation people took him as hostile and arrogant. Ultimately me backing him made me untenable. Moral is that working with contrarians are good but be careful.
There's another point that's relevant. If someone isn't producing the goods, they need need to make themselves liked somehow. Joke around, pat people on the back for whatever they do, generally act positive. That way people might not notice they're not pulling their weight.<p>This happened at a place I worked at, and it was compounded by the others being too agreeable to call him out. When I eventually did it ended badly for me.
Most orgs favor takers IMHO.<p>It is more compatible with how project managers run things: "Here's your tasks, tell me when they will be done, don't do other tasks (like helping your peers) or the deadline will slip." That way of working is almost antithetical to givers.<p>These places prefer agreeable takers-- that's why people always say stuff like "I have a lot on _MY_ plate!"
I've worked at places where people are "too busy" to help with anything, and where nobody asks me for help with anything. I can't imagine anybody prides themselves on that sort of culture, but it seems common. My first job after graduation, I was lucky to be in a place where giving and asking for help/advice was normalized. The more cocooned and protective of their job, and the more distrusting of the organization people are, the less I suppose they want to share information.
<i>"Disagreeable givers, on the other hand, can be a pain in the ass, but valuable to an organization, Grant says."</i><p>The problem is this person doesn't exist. Most people that are constantly disagreeable are just bluster and talk and don't get anything done. Occasionally disagreeable is useful, though.