Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman & Greg McKeown is a book every leader should read. In it, the authors compare what they call Multipliers and Diminishers. They look at how some leaders are able to get maximum effort from their teams and people and how others don’t even scratch the surface.
Multipliers make us better and smarter. They bring out our intelligence. While diminishers drain intelligence and capability out of the people around them. Their focus on their own intelligence and their resolve to be the smartest person in the room had a diminishing effect on everyone else. For them to look smart, other people had to end up looking dumb. So the question this book asks: How do some leaders create intelligence around them, while others diminish it?
According to the authors, there are 5 things that set Multipliers apart from other leaders:
- They attract talent.
- They liberate their teams to reach their potential and beyond.
- They challenge their teams.
- The create healthy debate in their teams and meetings.
- They invest in their team members.
Here are some specific things I learned about becoming a Multiplier from my reading:
- The biggest leadership challenge of our times is not insufficient resources per se, but rather our inability to access the most valuable resources at our disposal.
- Leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe: 1. Most people in organizations are underutilized. 2. All capability can be leveraged with the right kind of leadership. 3. Therefore, intelligence and capability can be multiplied without requiring a bigger investment.
- Multipliers don’t necessarily get more with less. They get more by using more—more of people’s intelligence and capability. Diminishers appear to believe that really intelligent people are a rare breed and I am one of the few really smart people. They then conclude, other people will never figure things out without me.
- Multipliers lead people by operating as Talent Magnets, whereby they attract and deploy talent to its fullest regardless of who owns the resource. People flock to work with them directly or otherwise because they know they will grow and be successful.
- Multipliers establish a unique and highly motivating work environment where everyone has permission to think and the space to do their best work.
- Multipliers operate as Challengers by seeding opportunities, laying down a challenge that stretches an organization, and generating belief that it can be done. In this way, they challenge themselves and others to push beyond what they know.
- Multipliers make decisions in a way that readies the organization to execute those decisions. They operate as Debate Makers, driving sound decisions through rigorous debate. They engage people in debating the issues up front, which leads to decisions that people understand and can execute efficiently.
- Multipliers deliver and sustain superior results by inculcating high expectations across the organization. By serving as Investors, Multipliers provide necessary resources for success. In addition, they hold people accountable for their commitments. Over time, Multipliers’ high expectations turn into an unrelenting presence, driving people to hold themselves and each other accountable, often to higher standards and without the direct intervention of the Multiplier.
- Talent Magnets are attracters and growers of talent and intelligence. Leaders who serve as Multipliers provide both the space and the resources to yield this growth. But Talent Magnets go beyond just giving people resources. They remove the impediments, which quite often means removing the people who are blocking and impeding the growth of others.
- Talent Magnets remove the barriers that block the growth of intelligence in their people.
- Diminishers are owners of talent, not developers of talent.
- How smart you are is defined by how clearly you can see the intellect of others.
- Multipliers understand that people grow through challenge.
- Multipliers invest in the success of others.
- When leaders fail to return ownership, they create dependent organizations.
- The Diminisher operates from a very different assumption: People will never be able to figure it out without me.
- When you delegate, you probably let people know what you are expecting of them. But take this to the next level and let people know that they (not you) are in charge and accountable.
- When we protect people from experiencing the natural ramifications of their actions, we stunt their learning.
