This TED Talk features organizational psychologist Adam Grant, recorded live at TEDx at IBM

2016.

So I want you to look around the room for a minute and try to find the most paranoid person here.

And then I want you to point at that person for me.

Okay, don't actually do it.

But as an organizational psychologist, I spend a lot of time in workplaces, and I find paranoia everywhere.

Paranoia is caused by people that I call takers.

Takers are self-serving in their interactions. It's all about what can you do for me? The opposite is a

giver. It's somebody who approaches most interactions by asking what can I do for you. And I wanted

to give you a chance to think about your own style. We all have moments of giving and taking.

Your style is just how you treat most of the people most of the time, your default. So I have a short

test that you can take to figure out if you're more of a giver or a taker and you can take it right now.

This is the only thing I will say today that has no data behind it.

But I am convinced the longer it takes you to laugh at this cartoon,

the more worried we should be that you're a taker.

Of course, not all takers are narcissists.

Some are just givers who got burned one too many times.

And then there's another kind of taker that we won't be addressing today,

and that's called a psychopath. I was curious, though, about how common these extremes are,

and so I surveyed over 30,000 people across industries, around the world's cultures.

And I found that most people are right in the middle between giving and taking. They choose

this third style called matching. If you're a

...