It feels unfair when relationships aren’t reciprocal. Why should I spend extra effort helping others when they aren’t doing the same for me?
And that’s why it’s powerful.
Everybody gets this in theory. We know that other people are more likely to help us if we help them first. The Golden Rule and all that.
But we don’t want to help others when we are exhausted, stressed, overloaded and barely surviving each day. It feels like an additional burden to make things easier for others when our own jobs are already so demanding.
And yet if you can make that extra effort to help others towards their goals, you activate their reciprocity instinct. They will match your efforts to work together because they don’t want to be seen as unfair.
Dr. Robert Cialdini calls reciprocity a “click-whirr” mechanism in his book, Influence: it’s so innate to humans that it will automatically get activated if you give something to someone (as he intuited from watching the Hare Krishnas give people flowers in airports before asking them for a donation).
Adam Grant says the same thing in his book Give and Take – the vast majority of people are neither givers nor takers, but matchers. So if you give first (and set boundaries to protect yourself against takers), you can activate their matching instincts and create a network of giving and mutual support that leads to far better outcomes for everybody.
If you feel exhausted because people are not helping you, change the situation by starting to help them. They probably feel as overloaded as you, so receiving help may create some capacity for them, and the reciprocity instinct will kick in so they use that capacity to help you.
What’s an example from your own career where you changed a situation by helping others?