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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Liz Wiseman
Read between
June 2 - June 4, 2023
As stated in this book, indeed, people are often “overworked and underutilized.” Some corporations have made hiring the most intelligent individuals a core strategy on the basis that smarter people can solve problems more quickly than the competition. But that only works if the organizations can access that intelligence.
The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker. The most valuable assets of the 20th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable asset of a 21st-century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.1
As I read this book, a key insight was that Multipliers are hard-edged managers. There is nothing soft about these leaders. They expect great things from their people and drive them to achieve extraordinary results. Another insight that resonated with me was that people actually get smarter and more capable around Multipliers. That is, people don’t just feel smarter; they actually become smarter. They can solve harder problems, adapt more quickly, and take more intelligent action.
Consequently, the role of leader has shifted, too—moving away from a model where the manager knows, directs, and tells and toward one where the leader sees, provokes, asks, and unleashes the capabilities of others.
As companies do the math, they realize that they simply can’t afford leaders who waste talent, suppress vital innovation, and slow business growth. After all, why would a company pick results-driven leaders who diminish people when they could have leaders who both deliver results and grow people around them?
Perhaps these leaders understood that the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.
Yes, certain leaders amplify intelligence. These leaders, whom we have come to call Multipliers, create collective, viral intelligence in organizations. Other leaders act as Diminishers and deplete the organization of crucial intelligence and capability.
We’ve all experienced these two types of leaders. What type of leader are you right now? Are you a genius, or are you a genius maker?
What could you accomplish if you could get twice as much from your people?
In addition, Multipliers see intelligence as continually developing. This observation is consistent with what Dweck calls a “growth mindset,” a belief that basic qualities like intelligence and ability can be cultivated through effort.12 They assume that people are smart and will figure it out. To their eyes, their organization is full of talented people who are capable of contributing at much higher levels.
The Diminisher is a Tyrant who creates a stressful environment. The Multiplier is a Liberator who creates a safe environment that fosters bold thinking.
The Diminisher is a Micromanager who jumps in and out. The Multiplier is an Investor who gives others ownership and full accountability.
The Multiplier approach to management isn’t just an enlightened view of leadership. It is an approach that delivers higher performance because it gets vastly more out of people and returns to them a richly satisfying experience. As one early reader of this book noted, these leaders aren’t about “cupcakes and kisses.”
“I made a decision at this very young age that I would use my God-given talent to help everyone on the team be a better player.”13 And this decision eventually earned him the nickname Magic—for his ability to raise the level of excellence of every team he ever played on and of every person on those teams. It’s not that these Multipliers shrink so that others can be big. It’s that they play in a way that invites others to play big, too.
But perhaps the best way to approach the book is to look beyond the idea that you or your colleagues are Multipliers, and instead spot yourself at times in the guise of Diminisher. The greatest power of these ideas might be in realizing that you have the mind of a Multiplier but have been living in a Diminisher world and have lost your way. Perhaps you are an Accidental Diminisher.
The Five Disciplines of the Multipliers 1. The Talent Magnet: Attracts and optimizes talent 2. The Liberator: Requires people’s best thinking 3. The Challenger: Extends challenges 4. The Debate Maker: Debates decisions 5. The Investor: Instills accountability
The Results By extracting people’s full capability, Multipliers get twice the capability from people as do Diminishers.
In any organization, there are Talent Magnets, people who attract the best talent, utilize it to its fullest, and ready it for the next stage. These are leaders who have a reputation not only for delivering results but for creating a place where young, talented people can grow. They are accelerators to other people’s careers.
Ignore Boundaries In their quest to assemble the finest talent, Talent Magnets are blind to organizational boundaries. They see multiple forms of intelligence everywhere. Talent Magnets live in a world without walls and without hierarchical or lateral restrictions. Instead, they see talent networks.
For this reason, Multipliers leading cross-functional projects and intercompany ventures may be in key staff roles, or they may be at the top of the org chart. The common denominator is that they look beyond boundaries for talent.
Our research consistently confirmed that Diminishers cause people to operate at about 50 percent of their full intelligence and capability. Removing a highly intelligent employee or leader can be difficult, but it can have huge payoffs. On a work team of eleven people, removing a Diminisher can give back the equivalent of five full-time people, with ten people operating at 100 percent. You may lose one mind, but you gain back five. It is a law of numbers.
“Ignore me as needed to get your job done.”
“Yes, there will be a few times when I get agitated because I would have done it differently, but I’ll get over it. I’d rather you trust your judgment, keep moving, and get the job done.” Talent Magnets remove the barriers that block the growth of intelligence in their people.
The Four Practices of the Talent Magnet 1. Look for Talent Everywhere • Appreciate all types of genius • Ignore boundaries 2. Find People’s Native Genius • Look for what is native • Label it 3. Utilize People to Their Fullest • Connect people with opportunities • Shine a spotlight 4. Remove the Blockers • Get rid of prima donnas • Get out of the way
If she rolled her eyes or sighed sharply after someone’s comment, everyone in the room noticed and avoided saying anything they thought would produce the same reaction. She had more power than she had realized. She had become an Accidental Diminisher.
Multipliers, by contrast, liberate people from the oppressive forces within corporate hierarchy. They free people to think, to speak, and to act with reason. They create an environment where the best ideas surface and where people do their best work. They give people permission to think.
“All good ideas start as bad ideas. That’s why it takes so long.”
“He believes that with high expectations come high results. He demands our best. He makes it clear that if we put in our hardest effort, we will succeed.”
Liberators: 1) create space; 2) demand people’s best work; and 3) generate rapid learning cycles.
Ray is well-known as a brilliant strategist and is perhaps one of the most articulate communicators in his business. But instead of overplaying himself and his own ideas, he creates room for others and uses his presence where it can have the greatest potency and impact for the team.
“How smart you are is defined by how clearly you can see the intellect of others.”
“You want your people to fail early, fast, and cheap—and then learn from it.”
Tyrants impose an “anxiety tax” wherever they go, because a percentage of people’s mental energy is consumed trying to avoid upsetting the Tyrant.
By doing this, you can create space for others to comfortably disagree with your “soft opinions” and establish their own views. Reserve “hard opinions” for when they really matter.
Becoming a Liberator 1. Play fewer chips 2. Label your opinions 3. Talk up your mistakes 4. Make space for mistakes
As leaders, probably the most important role we can play is asking the right questions and focusing on the right problems.
have observed four elements of a great debate. A great debate is: ENGAGING: The question is compelling and important to everyone in attendance. COMPREHENSIVE: The right information is shared to generate a holistic and collective understanding of the issues at hand. FACT BASED: The debate is deeply rooted in fact, not opinion. EDUCATIONAL: People leave the debate more focused on what they learned than on who won or lost.
Multipliers create safety, but they also maintain pressure for a reality-based, rigorous debate. Multipliers make sure everyone is wearing a seat belt because they are about to put their foot on the accelerator.
Create Safety for Best Thinking (The Yin) Demand Rigor (The Yang) • Share their view last after hearing other people’s views • Ask the hard questions • Encourage others to take an opposing stand • Challenge the underlying assumptions • Encourage all points of view • Look for evidence in the data • Focus on the facts • Look at the issue from multiple perspectives • Depersonalize the issues and keep it unemotional • Attack the issues, not the people
Instead of framing issues for debate and decisions, Diminishers tend to raise issues abruptly, then dominate the discussion before forcing a decision.
There are three rules in shared inquiry: 1. THE DISCUSSION LEADER only asks questions. This means that the leader isn’t allowed to answer his or her questions or give his or her interpretation of the story’s meaning. This keeps the students from relying on the leader’s answers. 2. THE STUDENTS must supply evidence to support their theories. If the student thinks that Jack went up the beanstalk a third time to prove his invincibility, he or she is required to identify a passage (or more than one) in the text that supports this idea. 3. EVERYONE participates. The role of the leader is to make
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ASK PEOPLE TO SWITCH POSITIONS. Invite people to consider the issue from another point of view. It will reduce personal attachment and increase collective ownership.
“Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”
“A leader is someone who helps others lead.”
When people are given ownership for only a piece of something larger, they tend to optimize that portion, limiting their thinking to this immediate domain. When people are given ownership for the whole, they stretch their thinking and challenge themselves to go beyond their scope.
When Investors stretch the role, they stretch the person in it. This bigger role creates a vacuum that must be filled.
When leaders teach, they invest in their people’s ability to solve and avoid problems in the future. This is one of the most powerful ways that Multipliers build intelligence around them.
“Hey, that is good thinking.” So he begins by praising the edge of great thinking. Then he affirms their ownership of the business problem at hand by saying, “I’d love to know whether we should invest in X or Y. I mean, you’re smart. You can figure this out.” These words are heard again and again by his team: “You’re smart. You figure it out.” Their ideas are validated and the onus for solving the issue is back with them.
Never give someone an A-W-K without an F-I-X. Don’t just identify the problem; find a solution.
Nature teaches best. When we let nature take its course and allow people to experience the natural consequences of their actions, they learn most rapidly and most profoundly. When we protect people from experiencing the natural ramifications of their actions, we stunt their learning. Real intelligence gets developed through experimentation and by trial and error.
