Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

by Liz Wiseman

Create Space

Demand Best Work

Distinguish best work from outcomes

Generate Rapid Learning Cycles

The number one difference between a Nobel prize winner and others is not IQ or work ethic, but that they ask bigger questions. PETER DRUCKER

first, asking the big questions and second, showing that a solution is possible.

people get smarter by being challenged

How does the Challenger engage the full brainpower of the organization?

1) seed the opportunity; 2) lay down a challenge; and 3) generate belief.

people grow through challenge.

Multipliers don’t just give answers.

They provide just enough information to provoke thinking and to help people discover and see the opportunity for themselves.

is to allow someone else to discover it for him-or herself.

you don’t get the most out of people if you just tell them what to do. You get full effort if you help people discover opportunity and, then, challenge themselves.

Multipliers ask the questions that challenge the fundamental assumptions in an organization and disrupt the prevailing logic.

Reframe Problems

reframe them to show the opportunity presented by the challenges.

Multipliers provide a starting point, but not a complete solution.

Multipliers establish the challenge at hand in such a way that it creates a huge stretch for an organization.

They establish a compelling challenge that creates tension.

RAISING THE BAR

It appeared that being asked to identify their personal Mission Impossible ignited the charge to make it possible.

CLEARING THE BAR

By asking them to create their personal Mission Impossible, he allowed them to embrace and step into the challenge themselves.

And by acknowledging the impossible nature of the mission, he gave people permission to try without fear of failure.

they extend a clear and concrete challenge.

they ask the hard questions that need to be answered to achieve the challenge,

they don’t answer them. They let others fill in the blanks.

What is my mission impossible? What is my bar? Am I going to accomplish it or am I going to sit on the sidelines. What is it? Job. Toastmasters. Working out. New career.

extends these challenges by asking the youth hard questions

“He taught me to think for myself.”

showed that Multipliers use their intelligence to make challenges concrete for others.

This confidence is essential because the challenge will demand the entire organization to extend beyond its current reach and capability.

Diminishers give answers.

Good leaders ask questions.

Multipliers ask the really har...

They ask questions so immense that people can’t answer them based on their current knowledge or where they currently stand.

This is like the district success plan. The questions are very open ended questions. They make you think.

a vacuum is created.

It is a vacuum between what people know and what they need to know to answer the question.

Let Others Fill in the Blanks

They shift the burden of the thinking to others.

The intellectual onus now sits with their team to understand the challenge and find a solution.

Laying down a challenge means more than directing people to do it. It includes asking the hard questions that no one yet has the answers to and then backing off so that the people within the organization have the space to think through the questions, take ownership, and find the answers.

The burden of thinking has been shifted to the organization.

creating the intellectual muscle for the challenge.

Generate ...

Multipliers generate belief—the belief that the impossible is actually possible.

taking the challenge down to the ground level.

You have to take it down and show that it can be done. You have to show them a pathway and show why it can be done.

“helicoptering” down to reality, Multipliers create a meaningful proof point that a bold challenge can be successfully met.

Lay Out ...