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Even though they were supposed to be individual stars, their performance wasn’t portable. When star analysts moved to a different firm, their performance dropped, and it stayed lower for at least five years. In the first year after the move, the star analysts were 5 percent less likely to be ranked first, 6 percent less likely to be ranked second, 1 percent less likely to be ranked third, and 6 percent more likely to be unranked. Even five years after the move, the stars were 5 percent less likely to be ranked first and 8 percent more likely to be unranked. On average, firms lost about $24 million by hiring star analysts. Contrary to the beliefs of Fraenkel and other industry insiders, Groysberg and his colleagues conclude that “hiring stars is advantageous neither to stars themselves, in terms of their performance, nor to hiring companies in terms of their market value.”

But some of the star analysts did maintain their success. If they moved with their teams, the stars showed no decline at all in performance. The star analysts who moved solo had a 5 percent probability of being ranked first, while the star analysts who moved with teammates had a 10 percent probability of being ranked first—the same as those who didn’t move at all. In another study, Groysberg and his colleagues found that analysts were more likely to maintain their star performance if they worked with high-quality colleagues in their teams and departments. The star analysts relied on knowledgeable colleagues for information and new ideas.

The star investment analysts and the cardiac surgeons depended heavily on collaborators who knew them well or had strong skills of their own. If Frank Lloyd Wright had been more of a giver than a taker, could he have avoided the nine years in which his income and reputation plummeted? George Meyer thinks so.

After Meyer left
Saturday Night Live
in 1987, he hightailed it out of New York City and moved to Boulder, Colorado, to work on the Letterman movie script alone. Just like Frank Lloyd Wright, Meyer had isolated himself from his collaborators. But in stark contrast to Wright, Meyer recognized that he needed other people to succeed. He knew his performance was interdependent, not independent: his ability to make people laugh was due in part to collaborating with fellow comedy writers. So he reached out to people who had worked with him at the
Lampoon
and on his past shows, inviting them to contribute to
Army Man
. “I believe that collaboration is such a beautiful thing, especially in comedy,” Meyer told me. “In a community of funny people, you can get that rare synergy, jokes you never could have come up with on your own.” Four colleagues ended up helping Meyer with the inaugural issue. One of those colleagues was Jack Handey, who contributed an early installment of “Deep Thoughts,” which went on to become a wildly popular series of jokes. Meyer published “Deep Thoughts” three years before they became famous on
Saturday Night Live
, and they contributed to the success of
Army Man
.

The juxtaposition of George Meyer with Frank Lloyd Wright reveals how givers and takers think differently about success. Wright thought he could take his architectural genius from Chicago, where he worked with a team of experts, to a remote part of Wisconsin, where he was largely alone. Wright’s family motto was “truth against the world,” and it’s a familiar theme in Western culture. We tend to privilege the lone genius who generates ideas that enthrall us, or change our world. According to research by a trio of Stanford psychologists, Americans see independence as a symbol of strength, viewing
interdependence as a sign of weakness
. This is particularly true of takers, who tend to see themselves as superior to and separate from others. If they depend too much on others, takers believe, they’ll be vulnerable to being outdone. Like Wright, the star analysts who left their investment banks without their successful teams—or without considering the quality of the new teams they were joining—fell into this trap.

Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple people for a greater good. This appreciation of interdependence heavily influenced the way that Meyer collaborated. He recognized that if he could contribute effectively to the group, everyone would be better off, so he went out of his way to support his colleagues. When Meyer wrote for
Saturday Night Live
in the mid-1980s as a virtual unknown, he was almost always in the office, making himself available to give feedback. He ended up helping famous comedians like Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman, and Randy Quaid with their writing and delivery.

Behind the scenes on
Saturday Night Live
, many writers were competing to get their sketches on the show. “There was a Darwinian element,” Meyer admits. “There might be ten sketches per show, and we would have thirty-five or forty sketches on the table. There was a bit of a battle, and I just tried to be a good collaborator.” When big stars like Madonna were slated to appear on the show, his colleagues flocked to submit sketches. Meyer submitted material for those shows, but he also put in extra effort on sketches for less electric guests, who tended to attract fewer sketches. Meyer took it upon himself to develop compelling sketches for less glamorous guests like Jimmy Breslin because that was where the show needed him most. “I just wanted to be a good soldier,” Meyer says. “When people weren’t as excited, that’s when I felt I had to step up my game.” He rose to the occasion, cowriting a hilarious sketch for Breslin that had James Bond villains on a talk show. Breslin played Goldfinger, offering tips on designing fortresses and griping about having his schemes thwarted by Bond. The sketch predated the hit
Austin Powers
spoof of Bond movies by more than a decade.

Meyer’s pattern of giving continued on
The Simpson
s
.
Among writers, the most popular task was typically to write the first draft of an episode, as it allowed them to put their creative stamp on it. Meyer would generate plenty of ideas for episodes, but he rarely wrote the first draft. Instead, feeling that his skills were needed more in rewriting, he took responsibility for the dirty work of spending months helping to rewrite and revise each episode. This is a defining feature of how givers collaborate: they take on the tasks that are in the group’s best interest, not necessarily their own personal interests.
This makes their groups better off
: studies show that on average, from sales teams to paper mill crews to restaurants, the more giving group members do, the higher the quantity and quality of their groups’ products and services. But it’s not just their groups that get rewarded: like Adam Rifkin, successful givers expand the pie in ways that benefit themselves as well as their groups. Extensive research reveals that people who give their time and knowledge regularly to help their colleagues end up earning more raises and promotions in a wide range of settings, from banks to manufacturing companies. “On
The Simpsons,
I think George surrendered himself to the show,” Tim Long says. “Intuitively, he understood that the best thing for him was for the show to be as good as possible.”

There’s a name for Meyer’s actions: in the world of mountaineering, it’s called
expedition behavior
.
The term was coined by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), which has provided wilderness education to thousands of people, including crews of NASA astronauts. Expedition behavior involves putting the group’s goals and mission first, and showing the same amount of concern for others as you do for yourself. Jeff Ashby, a NASA space shuttle commander who has flown more than four hundred orbits around Earth, says that “expedition behavior—being selfless, generous, and putting the team ahead of yourself—is what helps us succeed in space more than anything else.” John Kanengieter, who directs leadership at NOLS, adds that expedition behavior is “not a zero-sum game: when you give it away, you gain more in response.”

Part of Meyer’s success came from expanding the pie: the more he contributed to the success of his shows, the more success there was for the whole team to share. But Meyer’s expedition behavior also changed the way his colleagues saw him. When givers put a group’s interests ahead of their own, they signal that their primary goal is to benefit the group. As a result, givers earn the respect of their collaborators. If Meyer had competed to draft his strongest sketches for Madonna, his fellow writers might have viewed him as a threat to their own status and careers. By doing his best work for less coveted guests, Meyer was doing his colleagues a favor. Takers no longer felt that they needed to compete with him, matchers felt that they owed him, and givers saw him as one of them. “When you were breaking your story or rewriting your script in the room, George was always a welcome addition to the group,” says Don Payne, a
Simpsons
writer since 1998. “He would always come up with something that would make your scripts better. That’s what draws people to him; they respect and admire him.”

In addition to building goodwill, volunteering for unpopular tasks and offering feedback gave Meyer the chance to demonstrate his comedic gifts without leading colleagues to feel insecure. In one study, University of Minnesota researchers Eugene Kim and Theresa Glomb found that highly talented people tend to make others jealous, placing themselves at risk of being disliked, resented, ostracized, and undermined. But if these talented people are also givers, they
no longer have a target on their backs
. Instead, givers are appreciated for their contributions to the group. By taking on tasks that his colleagues didn’t want, Meyer was able to dazzle them with his wit and humor without eliciting envy.

Meyer summarizes his code of honor as “(1) Show up. (2) Work hard. (3) Be kind. (4) Take the high road.” As he contributed in ways that
revealed his skills
without spawning jealousy, colleagues began to admire and trust his comedic genius. “People started to see him as somebody who wasn’t just motivated personally,” Tim Long explains. “You don’t think of him as a competitor. He’s someone you can think of on a higher plane, and can trust creatively.” Carolyn Omine adds, “Compared to other writers’ rooms I’ve been in, I would say
The Simpsons
tends to look longer for jokes. I think it’s because we have writers, like George, who will say, ‘No, that’s not quite right,’ even if it’s late, even if we’re all tired. I think that’s an important quality. We need those people, like George, who aren’t afraid to say, ‘No, this isn’t good enough. We can do better.’”

In a classic article, the psychologist Edwin Hollander argued that when people act generously in groups, they earn
idiosyncrasy credits
—positive impressions that accumulate in the minds of group members. Since many people think like matchers, when they work in groups, it’s very common for them to keep track of each member’s credits and debits. Once a group member earns idiosyncrasy credits through giving, matchers grant that member a license to deviate from a group’s norms or expectations. As
Berkeley sociologist
Robb Willer summarizes, “Groups reward individual sacrifice.” On
The Simpsons
,
Meyer amassed plenty of idiosyncrasy credits, earning latitude to contribute original ideas and shift the creative direction of the show. “One of the best things about developing that credibility was if I wanted to try something that was fairly strange, people would be willing to at least give it a shot at the table read,” Meyer reflects. “They ended up not rewriting my stuff as much as they had early on, because they knew I had a decent track record. I think people saw that my heart was in the right place—my intentions were good. That goes a long way.”

In line with Meyer’s experience, research shows that
givers get extra credit
when they offer ideas that challenge the status quo. In studies that I conducted with colleagues Sharon Parker and Catherine Collins, when takers presented suggestions for improvement, colleagues were skeptical of their intentions, writing them off as self-serving. But when ideas that might be threatening were proposed by givers, their colleagues listened and rewarded them for speaking up, knowing they were motivated by a genuine desire to contribute. “When I think about George in a writers’ room, nice is not what I would say. He’s spicier than that.” Carolyn Omine laughs. “But when George is tough, you know it is only because he cares so much about getting it right.”

In 1995, during the sixth
Simpsons
season, Meyer told his colleagues he would be leaving the show at the end of the season. Rather than seeing his departure as an opportunity for personal advancement, the writers didn’t want to let him go. They quickly joined forces to recruit him back, persuading him to return as a consultant. Soon they had him all the way back as a full-time writer. “At a very early point, they realized that George was too important to let out of the room,” Jon Vitti told the
Harvard Crimson
. “Nobody’s opinion is more valued than George’s.” Looking back on his experiences working with Meyer, Tim Long adds that “there’s something magical about getting the reputation as someone who cares about others more than yourself. It redounds to your benefit in countless ways.”

Although Meyer’s giving strengthened his reputation in the inner circles of show business, he toiled in anonymity in the outside world. In Hollywood, there’s an easy solution to this problem. Writers gain prominence by claiming credits on as many television episodes as possible, which proves that the ideas and scenes were their brainchild.

George Meyer shaped and sculpted more than three hundred
Simpsons
episodes, but in quiet defiance of Hollywood norms, he’s only credited as a writer on twelve of them. On hundreds of episodes, other writers got the credit for Meyer’s ideas and jokes. “George never took writing credits on
The Simpsons
, even though he was an idea machine,” Tim Long told me. “People tend to come up with ideas and jealously guard them, but George would create ideas, give them to someone else and never take credit. There’s a crucial stretch of
The Simpsons
over ten years where he’s not credited with a single joke, even though he was responsible for a huge number of them.”
*