Today we continue reviewing the book Give and Take by Adam Grant. We talked about how givers, takers and matchers differ in their abilities to influence people. On the two paths of dominance and prestige, takers specialize in powerful communication to establish dominance. They send powerful verbal and non-verbal signals. As  a result, takers tend to be more effective than givers in gaining dominance.But is that the most sustainable path to influence ? The opposite of this style is called powerless communication. Powerless communicators tend to speak less assertively, expressing plenty of doubt and relying heavily on advice of others. They signal vulnerability, revealing their weaknesses and making use of disclaimers, hedges and hesitations. By using powerless communication they build up prestige and they do so in four domains of influence. presenting, selling, persuading and negotiating. Because they value the perspective and interests of others, they are more inclined towards listening rather than imposing their views.
The value of vulnerability is evident form Pratfall effect. In a taped recording of two students - one a expert and another an average in auditioning for a Quiz Bowl team, the audience liked the expert over the average but when both of them make a gaffe such as spilling coffee on their new suit, the audience liked the average candidate even less and the better candidate even more. This vulnerability made the expert more human and approachable.
Givers tend to demonstrate this better than takers who are more assertive. In an interview for an opportunity to lead multiple business units, a marketing manager answered the opening question to enumerate his successes in a less assertive manner often extolling his team. Although he was the front runner, he did not get the job. At the same time, he earned prestige and his team became more successful than earlier.
We now discuss why givers are at a higher risk of burn out than others. Givers climb up based on their unique style of building networks, collaboration, communication, influence and helping others achieve their potential.  They end up making sacrifices for their collaborators. Adam says that success is not only about capitalizing on the strengths of giving but also avoiding pitfalls Too much giving is too much expense of energy and consequently the givers are at a higher risk of exhaustion and productivity loss leading them to the bottom of the chain.  Based on this Adam separates the givers into two categories - the pathological givers which he calls the selfless givers due to their unhealthy focus on others and the otherish givers which he refers to as those who are mostly givers but still holding to some of their interests. In this latter group, there is more balance between concern for others and for self as opposed to that in the former group and they are better positioned to flourish.
#codingexercise
double Pow(int x, int y)
{
  double res = 1.0;
  if y == 0 return res;
  for (int i =0; i< Math.Abs(y); i++)
      res = res * x;
   if (y > 0){
       return res;
   } else{
       return (1/res);
   }
}