Years ago, someone you barely knew spent an hour helping you. Maybe they reviewed your portfolio, introduced you to the right person or explained how they got their first freelance client. You never really found a way to pay them back. They didn't seem to expect it.
What if paying them back isn't the point? What if the best way to return it is to pass it on?
What the research found
Wayne Baker, a professor at the University of Michigan, studies generalized reciprocity: help that doesn't go back to the original giver, but forward to someone else.
In a 2014 paper in Organization Science, Baker and Nathaniel Bulkley tested two reasons people help others in a group. One is paying it forward: you received help, so you help someone new. The other is rewarding reputation: you help people who are known for helping. They found that paying it forward had stronger and longer-lasting effects.
In other words, help tends to travel. When someone helps you, it makes you more likely to help someone else, who may in turn help another person. A small favor can start a chain.
You don't have to repay every kindness. You can pass it on.
The reciprocity ring
Baker and colleagues created an exercise called the Reciprocity Ring, now used in organizations and classrooms. A group gathers, and each person makes a specific request for help with something they can't do alone. Others offer what they know, who they know or what they have. Then everyone follows up.
Baker's work on asking for help, which he wrote about in his book All You Have to Do Is Ask, suggests many people hold back from asking because they underestimate how willing and able others are to help. The ring makes asking normal: everyone asks, and everyone gives.
Bring it into your own circle
You don't need a formal program. Try a small version:
- Pass on one thing you've learned. Offer twenty minutes to someone who's a step behind you on a path you've walked.
- Make an introduction. Connect two people who could help each other.
- Ask your group a clear question. In a club, class or online community, post one specific request and offer help in return.
- Host a mini ring. Gather four or five people, give everyone two minutes to ask for something specific, then go around and offer ideas and contacts.
- Say thank you by passing it on. Next time someone helps you, tell them you'll do the same for someone else, and then do it.
Where an accountability partner helps
An accountability partner is a two-person version of this exchange: you help each other move forward. They can also help you turn good intentions into action, such as the introduction you keep meaning to make, or the ask you keep putting off, and check in on how it went.
This week
Think of one person who helped you along the way. Instead of finding a way to repay them, find one person you can help in a similar way this week. Make the offer, specific and time-limited, and follow through.