Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
Metadata
- Title: Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
- Author: Liz Wiseman
- Book URL: https://amazon.com/dp/B01KT18416?tag=malvaonlin-20
- Open in Kindle: kindle://book/?action=open&asin=B01KT18416
- Last Updated on: Monday, January 12, 2026
Highlights & Notes
have become convinced that 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.
people are often “overworked and underutilized.”
Victor Hugo once said, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
observation: There is more intelligence inside our organizations than we are using.
after assessing hundreds of executives, we found that managers were utilizing just 66 percent of their people’s capability on average. In other words, by our analysis, the managers are paying a dollar for their resources but extracting only 66 cents in capability—a 34 percent waste. When considering only their direct reports, that number increases to 72 percent. As we’ve tracked this indicator over the last five years, we’ve seen a slow, steady improvement, rising from 72 percent in 2011 to 76 percent in 2016.5
Contributors of all ages and stages want their ideas to matter, their voices to be heard, and workplaces where they can grow.
While you cannot change another person, you can change your response and smooth the sharp edges of your diminishing boss or colleague.
Unlocking individual potential is not just a matter of personal will and individual behavior change; it is a function of entire systems, and reshaping collective will is hard work.
It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person.1 —BONO
Derek’s navy experience illustrates that a change in command can often cause a change in capability. He was stupefied with fear under one leader, but smart and capable under another.
Some leaders seemed to 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. We’ve all worked with these black holes.
Perhaps these leaders understood that the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.
George grew people’s intelligence by engaging it. He wasn’t the center of attention and didn’t worry about how smart he looked. What George worried about was extracting the smarts and maximum effort from each member of his team.
It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access you have to what other people know. It isn’t just how intelligent your team members are; it is how much of that intelligence you can draw out and put to use.
Multipliers get more from their people because they are leaders who look beyond their own genius and focus their energy on extracting and extending the genius of others.
Multipliers extract all of the capability from people.
What could you accomplish if you could get twice as much from your people?
Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has found that bad environments suppress children’s IQs. When poor children were adopted into upper-middle-class households, their IQs rose 12 to 18 points.7 Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan has reviewed studies that show: 1) students’ IQ levels drop over summer vacation, and 2) IQ levels across society have steadily increased over time. The average IQ of people in 1917 would amount to a mere 73 on today’s IQ test.
The Logic of Addition This is the dominant logic that has existed in corporate planning: that resources will be added when new requests are made. Senior executives ask for more output and the next layer of operational leaders request more headcount. The negotiations go back and forth until everyone settles on a scenario such as: 20 percent more output with 5 percent more resources. Neither the senior executive nor the operational leaders are satisfied. Operational leaders entrenched in the logic of resource allocation and addition argue: 1. Our people are overworked. 2. Our best people are the most maxed out. 3. Therefore, accomplishing a bigger task requires the addition of more resources.
“The resource allocation task of top management has received too much attention when compared to the task of resource leverage… . If top management devotes more effort to assessing the strategic feasibility of projects in its allocation role than it does to the task of multiplying resource effectiveness, its value-added will be modest indeed.”
Better leverage and utilization of resources at the organizational level require adopting a new corporate logic, based on multiplication. Instead of achieving linear growth by adding new resources, leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe that you can more efficiently extract the capability of your people and watch growth skyrocket by multiplying the power of the resources you have. Here is the logic behind multiplication: 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.
Resource leverage is a far richer concept than merely “accomplishing more with less.” Multipliers don’t get more with less; they get more by using more. More of people’s intelligence and capability, enthusiasm and trust. As one CEO put it, “Eighty people can either operate with the productivity of fifty or they can operate as though they were five hundred.” And because these Multipliers achieve better resource efficiency, they enjoy a strengthened competitive position against companies entrenched in the logic of addition.
Diminishers appear to believe that really intelligent people are a rare breed and that they are of that rare breed. From this assumption they conclude that they are so special, other people will never figure things out without them.
In addition to seeing intelligence as a scarce commodity, our research showed that Diminishers regard intelligence as something basic about a person that can’t change much; they believe it is static, not able to change over time or circumstance. This attitude is consistent with what Dr. Carol Dweck, noted psychologist and author, calls a “fixed mindset,” a belief that one’s intelligence and qualities are carved in stone.11 Diminishers’ two-step logic appears to be that people who don’t “get it” now, never will; therefore, I’ll need to keep doing the thinking for everyone. In the Diminisher world, there is no vacation for the smart people!
If Diminishers see the world of intelligence in black-and-white, Multipliers see it in Technicolor. Multipliers have a rich view of the intelligence of the people around them. They don’t see a world where just a few people deserve to do the thinking. 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.
Multipliers look at the complex opportunities and challenges swirling around them and think, There are smart people everywhere who will figure this out and get even smarter in the process.
These core assumptions are essential to unearth and understand because, quite simply, behavior follows assumptions. If someone wants to lead like a Multiplier, he or she can’t simply mimic the practices of the Multiplier. An aspiring Multiplier must start by thinking like a Multiplier. In twenty years of watching and coaching executives, I have observed how leaders’ assumptions affect their management. When someone begins by examining and potentially upgrading their core assumptions, they will more easily adopt the five disciplines of the Multiplier with authenticity and impact.
The Diminisher is an Empire Builder who acquires resources and then wastes them. The Multiplier is a Talent Magnet who utilizes and increases everyone’s genius.
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 Know-It-All who gives directives. The Multiplier is a Challenger who defines opportunities.
Diminishers are Decision Makers who try to sell their decisions to others. Multipliers are Debate Makers who generate real buy-in.
The Diminisher is a Micromanager who jumps in and out. The Multiplier is an Investor who gives others ownership and full accountability.
One of the most critical insights from our study of Multipliers is how hard-edged these managers are. They expect great things from their people and drive them to achieve extraordinary results. They are beyond results-driven; they are tough and exacting. Indeed, Multipliers make people feel smart and capable, but they don’t do it by being “feel-good” managers. They look into people and find capability, and they want to access all of it and utilize people to their fullest. They see a lot, so they expect a lot.
“When you left his office you felt so much taller.”
But then after one particular game, as the players were leaving the gym and heading out to their cars, Earvin noticed the faces of the parents who had come to watch their sons play basketball but instead ended up watching this superstar. He said, “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.
Not only is this trait prominent among Multipliers, it is one of the traits that is most negatively correlated with the mindset held by Diminishers. Multipliers aren’t necessarily comedians, but they don’t take themselves or situations too seriously. Perhaps because they don’t need to defend their own intelligence, Multipliers can laugh at themselves and see comedy in error and in life’s foibles, and their sense of humor has a liberating effect on others.
Leaders who operate with a sense of humor create an environment where people can contribute at their fullest.
Multipliers use humor to create comfort and to spark the natural energy and intelligence of others.
We learned that it is indeed possible to be both overworked and underutilized. Latent talent exists everywhere. Organizations are replete with underchallenged resources.
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
not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. WOODROW WILSON
“What is getting in the way of your being successful?”
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.
Multipliers operate as Talent Magnets to attract talented people and then use them to their fullest capacity, that is, working at their highest point of contribution. Multipliers have access to the best talent, not because they are necessarily great recruiters but because people flock to work for them. As Meg Whitman found Mitt Romney, people seek out a Talent Magnet, knowing that their capabilities will be appreciated and also that their value will appreciate in the marketplace.
In 1914, when venerated British explorer Ernest Shackleton decided to embark on an expedition to traverse Antarctica, he placed a recruitment advertisement in The Times (London), which read: Men wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.
The cycle of attraction begins with a leader possessing the confidence and magnetism to surround him- or herself with top talent, or “A players”—sheer raw talent and the right mix of intelligence needed for the challenge.
Once people joined Hexal, they discovered another one of the Strüengmanns’ unconventional practices. Hexal doesn’t have jobs per se, and they don’t have an org chart. This isn’t like some elite organizations that choose not to publish their org chart for fear that some other company will snatch up their talent. Hexal didn’t have an org chart because the Strüengmanns didn’t believe in them. Jobs were loosely created around people’s interests and unique capabilities. They called their approach the “ameba model.”
These Talent Magnets: 1) look for talent everywhere; 2) find people’s native genius; 3) utilize people at their fullest; and 4) remove the blockers.
the message is clear: IQ is a practical but limited measure of the true intelligence of our species. We are simply smarter in more ways than can be measured through an IQ test.
This economics major and football coach at Columbia University was renowned for his ability to lead and guide Silicon Valley’s elite technologists. Bill reflected, “Their minds can do something that mine can’t. They have a genius that I don’t.”
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.
As far as Talent Magnets are concerned, org charts are irrelevant. Why? Because everyone works for them—or at least every person whose genius they can uncover. The mind of the Multiplier works like this: If I can find someone’s genius, I can put them to work.
Multipliers aren’t deterred if someone doesn’t officially report to them on an org chart. These leaders see an unlimited talent pool that they can draw from. Everyone works for a Multiplier.
native genius or talent is something that people do, not only exceptionally well, but absolutely naturally. They do it easily (without extra effort) and freely (without condition). What people do easily, they do without conscious effort. They do it better than anything else they do, but they don’t need to apply extraordinary effort to the task. They get results that are head-and shoulders above others, but they do it without breaking a sweat.
you watch someone in action, ask these questions: What do they do better than anything else they do? What do they do better than the people around them? What do they do without effort? What do they do without being asked? What do they do readily without being paid?
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “fish discover water last.” But if people aren’t aware of their genius, they are not in a position to deliberately utilize it. By telling people what you see, you can raise their awareness and confidence, allowing them to provide their capability more fully.
“Larry commented publicly about my speed.” John was surprised when the coach started talking in front of the other guys about how fast he was. He continued, “I thought I had good speed, but not great speed. But because Larry singled it out, it inspired me to develop a distinct self-concept: I was fast.
You know you’ve hit a genius nerve when they say, “Really? Can’t everyone do this?” or “But this is no big deal!” Finding people’s native genius and then labeling it is a direct approach to drawing more intelligence from them.
Are there people on your team who could lead a revolution if they were unleashed on the right opportunity? Are there people on your team who aren’t being used at their highest?
She chose her assistant directors not only for their strengths but because we each had strengths in areas where she was weak.” She then finds a place where each person’s genius will shine.
Marguerite then makes it clear to each person why she has been selected for that role. She not only notices their talent; she labels it for them.
Her praise of others’ work is specific, and it is public.
almost every organization there are people who overrun others, consuming the resources needed to fuel the growth of people around them. Like weeds in a garden bed, they choke the development of the intelligence around them.
Energy, he began with what he calls “gene pool engineering.” K. R. explains, “A players attract other A players. Their smarts and passion make other smart, passionate people want to work here. So your first fifty employees are the most important, and hardest.”
Individual genius can be deceptive. At first look, it would appear costly to remove one supersmart player, even if she has a diminishing effect on a team. But one needs only to do the math to see the high cost of destructive genius. 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.
If you want to unleash the talent that is latent in your organization, find the weeds and pull them out. Don’t do it quietly. Like K. R. Sridhar, huddle the team immediately, and let them know that you’ve removed someone because he or she was holding back the team. Give people permission to think fully again.
“Nothing grows under a banyan tree.” It provides shade and is comfortable, but it allows no sun in for growth. Many leaders are banyan trees; they protect their people, but nothing grows under them. One corporate VP had a favorite saying, quoted often and written on her door: “Ignore me as needed to get your job done.” This simple mantra signaled an important trust in the judgment and capability of others.
She told new staff members, “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.
Multipliers operate from a belief that talent exists everywhere and they can use it at its highest if they can simply identify the genius in people. Diminishers think People need to report to me in order to get them to do anything.
Divide and conquer is the modus operandi of Empire Builders. They bring in great talent and carve out a fiefdom for them, but they don’t encourage people to step beyond these walls. Rather than give broad scope to their management team, Empire Builders ensure that they, themselves, are the point of integration. You can often spot an Empire Builder because he or she either operates exclusively through one-on-one meetings or runs staff meetings as an official report-out from each fiefdom.
When leaders play the role of the Empire Builder, they bring in great resources, but they underutilize them because they fundamentally undervalue them. They continue to operate in a “one brain, many hands” organizational model that stunts the growth of both intelligence and talent around them. Diminishers build organizations where people go to die. This is why Diminishers are costly to organizations. The assets in their portfolio don’t increase in value.
The promise of a Multiplier is that they get twice the capacity, plus a growth dividend from their people as their genius expands under the leadership of the Multiplier.
You can kick-start the cycle by learning to be a genius watcher and spotting the native genius of everyone around you.
Perhaps you’ve been wishing you could remove this person from the team. Instead of asking, “Is this person smart?” try asking, “In what way is this person smart?” You might discover something that breaks the cycle of assumptions.
Try supersizing someone’s job. Assess their current capabilities and then give them a challenge that is a size too big. Give an individual contributor a leadership role; give a first-line manager more decision-making power. If they seem startled, acknowledge that the role or responsibility might feel awkward at first. Then step back and watch them grow into it.
Talent Magnets encourage people to grow and leave. They write letters of recommendation and they help people find their next stage to perform on. And when people leave their group, they celebrate their departures and shout their success to everyone.
Talent Magnets don’t run out of talent by moving their people on to bigger, better opportunities, because there is a steady stream of talent wanting to get into their organization.
The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment. JOHN DEWEY
Soft opinions signal to his team: Here are some ideas for you to consider in your own thinking. Hard opinions are reserved for times when he holds a very strong view.
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.
Robert’s calmness is not synonymous with softness. He is as intense and focused as any other successful sales executive. The difference is where his focus lies. His fellow executive continued, “He’s hard on the issues but easy on people. You believe that he has your back so when you inevitably make a mistake, he’ll help you fix it first and not lash out at you.
Tyrants create a tense environment that is full of stress and anxiety. Liberators like Robert, on the other hand, create an intense environment that requires concentration, diligence, and energy. It is an environment where people are encouraged to think for themselves and also where people experience a deep obligation to do their best work.
The Liberator creates an environment where good things happen. They create the conditions where intelligence is engaged, grown, and transformed into concrete successes. What are the conditions for this cycle of learning and success? They might include: Ideas are generated with ease. People learn rapidly and adapt to new environments. People work collaboratively. Complex problems get solved. Difficult tasks get accomplished.
He comes with strong ideas of his own, but he makes it clear that bad ideas are an okay starting point. He says, “All good ideas start as bad ideas. That’s why it takes so long.” He establishes an open, creative environment, but he still demands extraordinary work from his team. One of his crew members said, “He expects people to be doing their best. And you know it when you aren’t giving your best.”
“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.”
They appear to hold two ostensibly opposing positions with equal fervor. They create both comfort and pressure in the environment. In the eyes of the Liberator, it is a just exchange: I give you space; you give me back your best work. Liberators also give people space to make mistakes. They create an environment of learning, but they expect people to learn from the mistakes. Another fair trade: I give you permission to make mistakes; you have an obligation to learn from the mistakes and not repeat them.
It isn’t enough just to free people’s thinking. They create an intense environment that requires people’s best thinking and their best work. They generate pressure, but they don’t generate stress.
Liberators: 1) create space; 2) demand people’s best work; and 3) generate rapid learning cycles.
It is a small victory to create space for others to contribute. It is a huge victory to maintain that space and resist the temptation to jump back in and consume it yourself. This is especially true in formal, hierarchical organizations where people are accustomed to deferring to their leaders.
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.
Liberators are more than just good listeners; they are ferocious listeners. They listen to feed their hunger for knowledge, to learn what other people know and add it to their own reservoir of knowledge.
“How smart you are is defined by how clearly you can see the intellect of others.”
By listening, asking, and probing, John develops an understanding of the realities of the business and an understanding with his team of the opportunities and problems they face.
Liberators don’t just listen a lot of the time, they listen most of the time, massively shifting the ratio and creating space for others to share what they know.
“Wisdom doesn’t just come from the top; it comes from all across the organization. But, as a leader, you have to do more than just not discourage it, you need to actively encourage people to speak up. The leader has to ask questions and invite the most junior people to express their ideas.”
According to one story, his chief of staff once handed in a report he had written on an aspect of foreign policy. When Kissinger received the report, he asked simply, “Is this your best work?” The chief thought for a moment and, worried that his boss would think the report was not good enough, responded, “Mr. Kissinger, I think I can do better.” So Kissinger gave the report back. Two weeks later the chief turned in the revised report. Kissinger kept it for a week and then sent it back with a note that said, “Are you sure this is your best work?” Realizing that something must have been missing, the chief once again rewrote the report. This time when he handed the report to his boss he said, “Mr. Kissinger, this is my best work.” Upon hearing this, Kissinger replied, “Then this time I will read your report.”4 Here are a few ways that Liberators demand the best from those they work with.
As a manager you know when someone is below his or her usual performance. What is harder to know is whether people are giving everything they have. Asking whether people are offering their best gives them the opportunity to push themselves beyond previous limits. It is a key reason why people report that Multipliers get more than 100 percent intelligence out of them.
Requiring people’s best work is different from insisting on desired outcomes. Stress is created when people are expected to produce outcomes that are beyond their control. But they feel positive pressure when they are held to their best work.
“If you want your organization to take risks, you have to separate the experiment from the outcome. I have zero tolerance if someone does not run the experiment. But I don’t hold them accountable for the outcome of the experiment. I only hold them accountable to execute.”
K. R. understands the distinction between pressure and stress. He cites the famous image of William Tell shooting an apple off his son’s head: “In this scenario, William Tell feels pressure. His son feels stress.” K. R. keeps the pressure on his team to act, but doesn’t create stress by holding them accountable for outcomes beyond their control.
Liberators give people permission to make mistakes and the obligation to learn from them.
he created an environment that was equal parts pressure and learning. Lutz never backed down from the natural pressure for the business to perform, but he made it safe for people to take risks and make mistakes. He did this by how he responded to both his mistakes and the mistakes of others.
“With Lutz, you get to make mistakes. But you are expected to learn fast. With Lutz, it’s okay to fail. You just can’t make the same mistake twice.”
Tyrants and Liberators both expect mistakes. Tyrants stand ready to pounce on the people who make them. Liberators stand ready to learn as much from the mistake as possible. The highest quality of thinking cannot emerge without learning. Learning can’t happen without mistakes. Liberators get the best thinking from people by creating a rapid cycle between thinking, learning, and making and recovering from mistakes in order to generate the best ideas and create an agile organization.
A. G. Lafley, former CEO at Procter & Gamble, said, “You want your people to fail early, fast, and cheap—and then learn from it.”
Tyrants are like a gas that expands and consumes all the available space. They dominate meetings and hog all the airtime. They leave little room for anyone else and often suffocate other people’s intelligence in the process. They do this by voicing strong opinions, overexpressing their ideas, and trying to maintain control.
The hallmark of a Tyrant is their temperamental and unpredictable behavior. People don’t know what will set them off, but it is almost certain that the mood will change when they are around. Tyrants impose an “anxiety tax” wherever they go, because a percentage of people’s mental energy is consumed trying to avoid upsetting the Tyrant.
When leaders play the role of the Tyrant, they suppress people’s thinking and capability. People restrain themselves and work cautiously, only bringing up safe ideas that the leader is likely to agree with. This is why Diminishers are costly to organizations. Under the influence of a Diminisher, the organization pays full price for a resource but only receives about 50 percent of its value. Diminishers believe that pressure increases performance. They demand people’s best thinking, but they don’t get it. They haven’t created an environment where people feel safe to truly express themselves or their ideas. An unsafe environment yields only the safest ideas. On the other hand, Multipliers know that people are intelligent and will figure it out. Because they engage people’s natural intelligence, people offer them back their full brainpower. Because people have a foundation of safety and comfort, they are free to offer their boldest ideas, not just the safe ideas that will keep them out of the wrath of a Tyrant. The environment of learning has enabled them to take risks, and quickly and inexpensively recover from them.
People’s best thinking must be given, not taken. A manager may be able to insist on certain levels of productivity and output, but someone’s full effort, including their truly discretionary effort, must be given voluntarily. This changes the leader’s role profoundly. Instead of demanding the best work directly, they create an environment where it not only can be offered, but where it is deeply needed. Because the environment naturally requires it, a person freely bestows their best thinking and work.
Try giving yourself a budget of poker chips for a meeting. Maybe it is five; maybe it is just one or two. Use them wisely, and leave the rest of the space for others to contribute.
Divide your views into “soft opinions” and “hard opinions”: Soft opinions: you have a perspective to offer and ideas for someone else to consider Hard opinions: you have a clear and potentially emphatic point of view 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.
When we help people see a path to recovery, we spawn a learning cycle.
A regular feature in my staff meetings was “screwup of the week.” If any member of my management team, including myself, had an embarrassing blunder, this was the time to go public, have a good laugh, and move on. This simple gesture sent a message to the team: Mistakes are an essential part of progress.
Creating a clear “waterline” for your team will give them confidence to experiment and take bolder action but will signal to them to be extra diligent where the stakes are high. This distinction will also signal to you when you can stand back and when you need to jump in and rescue.
When people operate under stress, they shut down. With enough stress, they eventually rebel, often overthrowing their despotic leaders.
Multipliers don’t tell people what to think; they tell them what to think about. They define a challenge that invites each person’s best thinking and generates collective will. They create an environment where every brain is utilized and every voice is heard. Instead of rebellion, they create a movement.
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
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. This young Challenger CEO used his deep knowledge of the business to see both an opportunity and a path for achieving unheard-of levels of business performance. He articulated this opportunity and laid down the challenge for the organization. He then asked each person to join him in attempting the impossible and to analyze how they might achieve it. By setting the bar high, he gave people permission to rethink the business. 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. Matt got more out of people than they knew they had to give—not because he convinced them that a goal was possible, but because he invited them to explore the impossible, that uncertain, uncomfortable place that makes us stretch both our imagination and our capabilities.
Richard is a master of the Gotcha: he only asks questions that he knows the answer to. He asks questions to test other people’s knowledge and to make sure other people understand his point of view. One of his vice presidents said, “I can’t think of a single time that he has asked a question when he didn’t know the answer.”
In setting direction for their organizations, Multipliers have a fundamentally different approach. Instead of knowing the answer, they play the role of the Challenger. They use their smarts to find the right opportunities for their organizations and challenge and stretch their organizations to get there. They aren’t limited by what they themselves know. They push their teams beyond their own knowledge and that of the organization. As a result, they create organizations that deeply understand challenge and have the focus and energy to confront it.
If a leader holds the assumption that it is their role to provide the answers, and if the employees resign themselves to this mode of business, a downward Know-It-All spiral naturally follows. First, the leader provides all the answers. Second, subordinates wait for the directives they’ve come to expect. Third, the subordinates act on the leader’s answers. Finally, the leader concludes they would never have figured this out without me. He or she sees evidence to support this belief and concludes: It’s obvious I need to tell others what to do. Matt’s leadership at Gymboree follows a different logic. He uses his intellect and energy on two things: first, asking the bold questions, and second, parsing the challenge into reasonable increments so the team can build intellectual muscle and the confidence that comes from clearing progressively higher bars. His assumption seems to be that people get smarter and stronger by being challenged. As people embrace the challenge, both their insights and the belief grows. Soon, the impossible begins to look possible.
How does the Challenger engage the full brainpower of the organization? Among the Multipliers we studied in our research, we found three common practices. Multipliers: 1) seed the opportunity; 2) lay down a challenge; and 3) generate belief.
Multipliers understand that people grow through challenge. They understand that intelligence grows by being stretched and tested. So, even if the leader has a clear vision of the direction, he or she doesn’t just give it to people. Multipliers don’t give answers. Instead they begin a process of discovery: they provide just enough information to provoke thinking and to help people discover and see the opportunity for themselves.
One of the best ways to seed an opportunity is to allow someone else to discover it themselves. When people can see the need for themselves, they develop a deep understanding of the issues, and quite often, all the leader needs to do is get out of their way and let them solve the problem.
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.
Multipliers understand the power of an opportunity. As Peter Block, consulting guru and author, observed, “the most powerful work is done in response to an opportunity not in response to a problem.” Multipliers analyze problems, but they also reframe them to show the opportunity presented by the challenges.
Multipliers provide a starting point but not a complete solution. In this way, they generate more questions than answers. These questions then encourage their team to fully define the opportunity while giving them confidence that they are building on a solid foundation.
When a Challenger has successfully seeded an opportunity, other people can see the opportunity for themselves. And because the opportunity has been planted but is not fully grown, others are taken through a process of discovery. This process of exploration and discovery sparks intellectual curiosity and begins to generate energy for the challenge. The answers are not clear yet, so people know “there is still something for me to do,” and they feel motivated to step in and be involved.
Once an opportunity is seeded and intellectual energy is created, Multipliers establish the challenge at hand in such a way that it creates a huge stretch for an organization. While Diminishers create a huge gap between what they know and what other people know, Multipliers create a space between what people know and what they need to know, and that draws people into the challenge. They establish a compelling challenge that creates tension. People see the tension and the size of the stretch and are intrigued and, perhaps, even puzzled.
Multipliers achieve this energizing stretch in three ways. First, they extend a clear and concrete challenge. Then they ask the hard questions that need to be answered to achieve the challenge, but—most important—they don’t answer them. They let others fill in the blanks.
Early on with Taji, Sean looked her in the eye and asked, “If you could get out of this environment, what would you do?” There was a long silence. Finally Taji said, “I’d go to college.” Sean responded, “What would it take for you to do that?” After several moments of reflection, her eyes lit up and she said, “I’d need to get into the right high school!” They set a goal for Taji to earn a scholarship to one of the top-tier prep schools in the surrounding area. Sean asked, “Where should we start?”
Multipliers use their intelligence to make challenges concrete for others. These challenges become tangible and measurable, allowing people to assess their performance. By making a challenge real, they allow others to visualize the achievement and communicate the confidence that the organization has the collective brainpower required. This confidence is essential, because the challenge will demand that the entire organization extend itself beyond its current reach and capability.
Diminishers give answers. Good leaders ask questions. Multipliers ask the really hard questions. They ask the questions that challenge people not only to think but to rethink. They ask questions so immense that people can’t answer them based on their current knowledge or where they currently stand. To answer these questions, the organization must learn. Enabled by these big questions, a vacuum is created in the space between what people know and what they need to know, and a vacuum between what they can currently do and what they need to be able to do. This vacuum creates a deep tension in the organization and raises a need to reduce that tension. It is like a rubber band that is stretched to its limit. One side needs to move toward the other to reduce the tension.
How do Multipliers get people to step into a challenge? They shift the burden of the thinking to others. Initially, when they establish a concrete challenge, the burden of the thinking sits with them as the leader. By asking the hard questions and inviting others to fill in the blanks, they are shifting the burden of thinking onto their people. The onus now sits with their team to understand the challenge and find a solution. In this shift, the Multiplier creates intelligence and energy around him or herself.
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. When a Multiplier has successfully laid down the challenge, people see the stretch, are intrigued, and become intellectually engaged. The burden of thinking has been shifted to the organization. This process of ownership and stretch continues to build energy by creating the intellectual muscle for the challenge.
By seeding the opportunity and laying down a challenge, people are interested in what is possible. But this isn’t enough to create movement. Multipliers generate belief—the belief that the impossible is actually possible. It isn’t enough that people see and understand the stretch; they need to actually stretch themselves.
One way Multipliers generate belief is by taking the challenge down to the ground level.
It is irresponsible to ask your team to do something if the CEO exposure is only at the 30,000 foot 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. You only need to do this once to create the belief.”
When people create the plan that they eventually will implement, belief in its viability will be inherently high.
Sometimes, the temptation exists for leaders to tackle too many problems all at once. Our research showed that Multipliers begin with small, early wins and use those to generate belief toward the greater stretch challenges.
When the Multiplier has generated belief in what is possible, the weight shifts and the organization is willing to leave the realm of the known and venture into the unknown.
I have seen this shift of weight happen many times inside organizations. You can almost feel the energy of the organization begin to tip in a new direction. This shift happens when an individual or organization has fully embraced a challenge and has generated the belief in what is possible. It is not the Multiplier who whips up this belief. Rather, it is the challenge he or she has issued that generates this commitment. This challenge process builds the intellectual muscle, the emotional energy, and the collective intent to move forward. Multipliers orchestrate the process needed to shift the weight of an organization.
In contrast to Multipliers, Diminishers have a fundamentally different approach to providing direction. Instead of using their intelligence to enable people to stretch toward a future opportunity, they give directions in a way that showcases their superior knowledge. Instead of seeding an opportunity and laying out a believable challenge, Diminishers tell and test. Like the stereotypical Know-It-All, they tell people what they know, tell people how to do their jobs, and test other people’s knowledge to see if they are doing it right.
Rather than shift responsibility to other people, Diminishers stay in charge and tell others—in detail—how to do their jobs. They assume the senior thinker posture, giving themselves permission to generate both the questions and the answers.
right. Raw mental horsepower is still relevant. But the most powerful leaders are those who not only have this mental horsepower themselves but also know how to multiply it by accessing and stretching other people’s intelligence.
Multipliers create rapid cycles. By playing the Challenger instead of the Know-It-All, they access more brains, get those brains working faster, and earn the full discretionary effort of their people. Once they have a clear view of latent opportunities and challenges, they understand that there are no resources worthy of waste. Under the direction of Challengers teams are able to accelerate their performance. Because the organization does not have to wait for the leader to think of it first, they can solve tougher problems at an accelerated rate.
Challengers start with developing their overactive imagination and a serious case of curiosity.
Multipliers create genius in others because they are fundamentally curious and spark learning in those around them.
bad leader will tell people what to do. A good leader will ask questions and let his or her people figure out the answers. A great leader asks the questions that focus the intelligence of their team on the right problems. The first step in this journey is to stop answering questions and begin asking them.
the best leaders ask questions and let other people find answers.
When leaders offer a challenge and then create a culture of belief, the organization steps up. People contribute beyond what they thought they could. Your team will likely report the experience as “exhausting but totally exhilarating” and will want to sign up for another stretch.
Get the entire organization to take a small, first step. But do it together so everyone can see the results and start to believe that something great is possible. This belief is what will shift the weight of the organization out onto that high wire.
Isn’t it interesting that giving half our capability is exhausting, but giving our all is exhilarating? We often think burnout is a result of working too hard; more often burnout occurs when people are merely doing more of the same or when they can’t see the results of their hard work. Good leaders don’t just give people more work, they give them harder work—a bigger challenge that prompts deep learning and growth.
KNOW-IT-ALLS give directives that showcase how much they know. As a result they limit what their organization can achieve to what they themselves know how to do. The organization uses its energy to deduce what the boss thinks. CHALLENGERS define opportunities that challenge people to go beyond what they know how to do. As a result they get an organization that understands the challenge and has the focus and energy to take it on.
If you ask people to take on the impossible in the right way, it can actually create more safety than if you ask for something easier.
It is better to debate a decision without settling it than settling a decision without debating it. JOSEPH JOUBERT
Multipliers make decisions by first engaging people in debate—not only to achieve sound decisions but also to develop collective intelligence and to ready their organizations to execute.
Multipliers hold a very different view. They don’t focus on what they know but on how to know what others know. They operate on the assumption that with enough good minds on it, we can figure it out. They are interested in every relevant insight people can offer.
Multipliers approach decisions by bringing people together, discovering what they know, and encouraging people to challenge and stretch each other’s thinking through collective dialogue and debate.
While Diminishers raise issues, dominate discussions, and force decisions, Multipliers: 1) frame the issues; 2) spark the debate; and 3) drive sound decisions.
In framing an issue, there are four parts to a well-crafted frame: THE QUESTION: What is the decision to be made? What are we choosing between? THE WHY: Why is this an important question to answer? Why does the decision warrant collective input and debate? What happens if it is not addressed? THE WHO: Who will be involved in making the decision? Who will give input? THE HOW: How will the final decision be made? Will it be made by majority rule? Consensus? Or will you (or someone else) make the final decision after others provide input and recommendations?
As leaders, probably the most important role we can play is asking the right questions and focusing on the right problems. It’s very easy in business to get sucked into being reactive to the problems and questions that are right in front of you. It doesn’t matter how creative you are as a leader, it doesn’t matter how good the answers you come up with. If you’re focusing on the wrong questions, you’re not really providing the leadership you should.
The work of the Multiplier is to find the right issue and formulate the right question, so others can find the answers. A common mistake is attempting to debate a topic rather than a question. The most productive debates are in answer to a well-defined question, one with clear, often mutually exclusive options. For example, a weak debate question is: Where should we cut expenses? A stronger debate question would be: Should we cut funding for project A or project B?
we find that teams come to the soundest decisions when people come in having established a clear opening position, rather than starting from a neutral position.
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.
How do Multipliers create a safe climate for people’s best thinking? They do it by removing fear. They remove the factors that cause people to doubt themselves or their ideas and the fear that causes people to hold back.
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.
you don’t have any facts, we’ll just use my opinion.” Debate Makers aren’t overly swayed by opinion and emotional arguments; they continue to ask for evidence, including evidence that might suggest new or alternative points of view.
Debate Makers pursue all sides of the issue. When the group moves too quickly toward agreement, Multipliers often step back and ask someone to argue the other point of view. Or they might make the argument themselves. They make sure all the rocks are turned over.
By arguing from the opposite, or a different point of view, the individuals 1) see the issues from another person’s perspective, developing deeper empathy and understanding, 2) have to argue against themselves, surfacing the problems and pitfalls in their opening position, 3) find new alternatives that elicit the best ideas from the competing options, and 4) separate themselves from a position. When the final decision is reached, it no longer has an owner or advocate. The group owns the final position.
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 • Look beyond organizational hierarchy and job titles • Ask “why” repeatedly until the root cause is unearthed • Equally debate both sides of the issue
a sound decision. They ensure this in three ways. First, they reclarify the decision-making process. Second, they make the decision or explicitly delegate it to someone else to decide. And third, they communicate the decision and the rationale behind it.
They summarize the key ideas and outcomes of the debate, and they let people know what to expect next. They address such questions as: Are we making the decision right now or do we need more information? Is this a team decision or will the leader make the final call? If it is a team decision, how will we resolve any differing views? Has anything that has surfaced in the debate altered the decision-making process?
Although Multipliers know how to generate and leverage collective thinking, they are not necessarily consensus-oriented leaders. At times, they may seek the full consensus of the group; however, our research shows that they are equally comfortable making the final decision.
Instead of looking out broadly into their organization for intelligence, Diminishers tend to make decisions quickly, either based solely on their own opinions or with input from a close inner circle. Then people begin to spin and speculate and get distracted from enthusiastically carrying the decisions out.
RAISE ISSUES. When a problem surfaces, Diminishers bring issues or decisions to people’s attention, but they don’t necessarily frame them in a way that allows others to easily contribute. When they raise the issue, they focus on the “what” rather than on the “how” or the “why” of a decision.
DOMINATE THE DISCUSSION. When issues get discussed or debated, Diminishers tend to dominate the discussion with their own ideas. They are debaters, not Debate Makers.
FORCE THE DECISION. Rather than driving a sound decision, Diminishers tend to force a decision, either by relying heavily on their own opinion or by shortcutting rigorous debate.
Decision Makers don’t use the full complement of talent, intelligence, and information available to them. This capacity sits idle in their organization. To counteract this, they continue to ask for more resources, wondering why they aren’t more productive. By contrast, Multipliers not only engage the best thinking of the resources around them; they use debate to stretch the thinking of the individuals and the team. While decisions are debated vigorously, real facts and issues surface, forcing people to listen and learn. As a result, Multipliers get full capability out of their current resources and they stretch and increase the capacity of the organization to take on the next challenge.
It often requires a fundamental shift in the assumptions of the leader. Often this shift happens when a leader begins to view his or her role differently. It can happen when leaders see that their greatest contribution lies in asking the questions that produce the most rigorous thinking and answers.
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 sure everyone gets airtime. Often the leader needs to restrain stronger voices and proactively call on the more timid voices.
But they quickly learned that the cost of an opinion was evidence.
Try debating like a third-grade student with these three requests: 1. ASK THE HARD QUESTION. Ask the question that will get at the core of the issue and the decision. Ask the question that will confront underlying assumptions. Pose the question to your team and then stop. Instead of following up with your views, ask for theirs. 2. ASK FOR EVIDENCE. When someone offers an opinion, don’t let it rest on anecdote. Ask for the evidence. Look for more than one data point. Ask them to identify a cluster of data or a trend. Make it a norm so people come into debates armed with the data—an entire box if necessary. 3. ASK EVERYONE. Reach beyond the dominant voices to gather in and hear all views and all data. You might find that the softer voices belong to the analytical minds who are often most familiar with and objective about the data. You may not need to literally ask everyone, but be sure to ask enough people to invite diverse thinking. To drive further rigor into the conversation, you might try a fourth ask: 4. 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. As you rethink your role as a leader, you will come to see that your greatest contribution might depend on your ability to ask the right question, not have the right answer. You will see that all great thinking starts with a provocative question and a rich debate, whether it is in the mind of one person or an entire community.
“Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”
As Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Too many leaders exhaust themselves trying to garner buy-in across the myriad of stakeholders in their community. Instead of building support, their work often builds resentment as people reluctantly surrender to the inevitable. Reverse this cycle by investing your energy up front. Let people weigh in, and they will give you their buy-in.
1. As a leader, you can have a very strong opinion but also facilitate debate that creates room for other people’s views. Data is the key. 2. Debate Makers are equally comfortable being the decision maker in the end. They are not only consensus-driven leaders. 3. Rigorous debate doesn’t break down a team; it builds the team and makes it stronger.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
“You can jump in and teach and coach, but then you have to give the pen back. When you give that pen back, your people know they are still in charge.” When something is off the rails, do you take over or do you invest? When you take the pen to add your ideas, do you give it back? Or does it stay in your pocket? Multipliers invest in the success of others. They may jump in to teach and share their ideas, but they always return to accountability. When leaders fail to return ownership, they create dependent organizations.
Multipliers operate as Investors. They invest by infusing others with the resources and ownership they need to produce results independent of the leader. It isn’t just benevolence. They invest, and they expect results.
I’ve seen a lot of very frustrated coaches during those games when the team is down and playing horribly. I’ve seen crazy arm waving, copious shouting, occasional tantrums on the sidelines. But I’ve never once seen a coach run out onto the field, steal the ball away from a player, drive down the field, and score. Yet each one of these coaches had the skills required to score the game-winning goal. And I’m sure a few have been tempted to do it. So why don’t they? Beyond the obvious reason that it is against the rules, it simply isn’t their role. Their job is to coach, and their players’ job is to play. What perhaps isn’t so obvious is why, when the stakes are high, many managers in organizations don’t hesitate to run onto the playing field, steal away the ball, and score the winning goal. Managers jump in because in their organization it isn’t illegal, and many can’t resist the temptation. Consider two such examples that occur every day in workplaces.
How would I coach if I could never step out on the playing field? How would I lead if I couldn’t jump in and take over? How would I respond to a performance gap if I were a Multiplier? Multipliers understand that their role is to invest, to teach, and to coach, and they keep the accountability for the play with the players. By doing so, they create organizations that can win without them on the field.
“A leader is someone who helps others lead.”
When a venture firm places its bet and invests a round of funding, it draws up a term sheet to govern the deal. Of particular interest to all parties is the specification of ownership levels. These ownership levels outline relative ownership for the business (post-investment) and dictate expectations for leadership and for accountability. Simply put, the term sheet lets the parties know who is in charge.
Similarly, in their role as Investors, Multipliers define ownership up front and let other people know what is within their charge and what they are expected to build. They invest in the genius of others in a similar way. They teach and coach. They back people up, infusing the resources they need to be successful and to be independent.
- defining ownership; 2) investing resources; and 3) holding people accountable.
Investors begin this cycle by establishing ownership up front. They see intelligence and capability in the people around them, and they put them in charge.
“Doug, when it comes to how we run this area of the company—you get 51 percent of the vote (and you’re 100 percent responsible for the result). Keep me in the loop, and consult with me as you go.”
Giving someone 51 percent of the vote and full ownership creates certainty and builds confidence. It enables them to stop second-guessing and start getting second opinions. Clarifying the role that you will play as a leader actually gives people more ownership, not less. They then understand the nature of your involvement and when and how you will invest in their success. Most important, they understand that they hold the majority ownership position and that success or failure hinges on their efforts.
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.
Multipliers got not only 100 percent of their skills and know-how but 120 percent, or even more. Multipliers do get more than 100 percent because people grow under the watch of a Multiplier. One way that Multipliers incite this growth is by asking people to stretch and do something they’ve never done before.
he asked them to go outside their comfort zones. He could spot smarts in others and gave people a chance to stretch well beyond their current capabilities. He gave them ownership, not at the level of their current capability, but always one—and occasionally two—levels up. When Investors stretch the role, they stretch the person in it. This bigger role creates a vacuum that must be filled.
He “grabbed the pen” so he could teach and coach. It is a simple and vital distinction: Diminishers tell you what they know; Multipliers help you learn what you need to know.
When the team is wrestling with a technical setback, K. R. engages not with a solution but with a thought-provoking question. He’ll ask, “What do we know about what doesn’t work?” and “What assumptions led us to these outcomes?” and “What risks do we face now that need to be mitigated?”
“You are teaching by helping your team solve real problems. Even if you know the solution, you don’t offer it. If you do, you’ve lost the teaching moment. It has to be Socratic. You ask the question and tease out the answer.”
When people are stretched and working above their current capability level, they are bound to trip up or take false steps. These situations are ripe for Diminishers, especially well-meaning managers prone to rescuing struggling employees. How can a manager intervene without usurping control? A wise Multiplier ensures there’s a safety net in place—a planned backup, someone the employee can go to for advice on how to recover gracefully. It should be no surprise that the best safety nets are not managers; very few people enjoy falling on their backs and getting rescued by their bosses. Typically, the best people to provide this layer of support are colleagues who can offer guidance without undertones of judgment and disappointment. Instead of jumping in, the Investor provides a backup.
These leaders have a natural leaning to give accountability to others and keep it there. When their people push problems over to the manager’s side of the table, by the end of the conversation, those problems slide right back to where they came from. The leader helps, offers suggestions, asks great questions, and may highlight or escalate a critical issue, but the accountability slides back and rests with their staff. Their tables slant in the direction of other people.
give people feedback as guidance rather than an order because I assume that someone who has been working on something full-time, for many weeks, has insight into it that I won’t have after a few minutes.”
Don’t just identify the problem; find a solution.
Multipliers never do anything for their people that their people can do for themselves.
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. Allowing consequences to have their effect allows natural forces to inform intelligent action. It communicates that the manager believes people are smart enough to figure things out. People become more independent because they feel they own their actions, as well as the results or consequences of those actions. Investors want their investments to be successful, but they know they can’t intervene and alter natural market forces. By providing the possibility to fail, these leaders give others the freedom and the motivation to grow and succeed. Elaben Bhatt captured this well when she said, “There are risks in every action. Every success has the seed of some failure.” Multipliers have a core belief that people are smart and will figure things out. So it makes sense that they operate as Investors, giving ownership that keeps rolling back to other people. They invest the resources they need to grow a business and the people in it. They engage personally, offering their insight and guidance, but they remember to “give the pen back” when they are done so people remain accountable to deliver on the expected returns.
The Diminisher operates from a very different assumption: People will never be able to figure it out without me. They believe if they don’t dive into the details and follow up, other people won’t deliver. These assumptions breed dependency among people, as full ownership is never offered to them. Diminishers assign piecemeal tasks, then jump in, believing that other people cannot make it work without them. Unfortunately, in the end, these assumptions are often proven true because people become disabled and dependent on the Diminisher for answers, for approval, and to integrate the pieces together. When this happens, Diminishers look outward, asking themselves only, Why are people always letting me down? When Diminishers eventually leave an organization, things fall apart. Things crumble because the leader has held the operation together with micromanagement and sweat equity.
Like Pavlov’s dog, there was no delay between stimulus and response. When he found a problem, he’d jump in immediately and try to fix it himself.
The problem is that they don’t just get lured in and stay there. They come in and out. An issue gets onto the radar screen of senior management, and suddenly they are all over it. They spring in and then when the fun is over, they spring back out. They are bungee bosses. Garth Yamamoto is the chief marketing officer for a consumer products company. Garth has two modes: one is “all over it” and the other is “completely absent.” When his team is working on an issue with CEO visibility, he jumps in, takes over, and delivers the work straight to his boss, a highly mercurial leader. When the CEO isn’t involved, Garth is nowhere to be seen. His people struggle to get his attention on the less visible but equally critical projects that form the backbone of the business.
At this realization, I became irritated at my team for dumping the problems on me and for not doing their jobs. Then, alone in a dark office, I had the epiphany: I wasn’t doing my job. As a manager, my job was no longer about me. It was my responsibility to manage the work, not do the work. I had been solving problems like some overzealous superhero, when I was really supposed to help other people solve problems. My job was to flow the work to my team and keep it there. It is an embarrassingly simple idea, but for me, as a newly promoted manager, it was a startling realization. In my executive coaching, I am frequently surprised at how many senior leaders and even executives haven’t discovered this simple lesson. When managers take it back, not only do they end up doing all the work but they rob others of the opportunity to use and extend their own intelligence. They stunt the growth of intelligence around them. They begin to slide down the slippery slope of the Accidental Diminisher.
“The reward for winning a pinball game is to get a chance to play the next one.” In other words, he doesn’t crave the spotlight of being a CEO as much as he hungers to freely invest again elsewhere. While some CEOs are addicted to praise, this leader is addicted to growing other people.
When leaders like Narayana Murthy invest in the development of other leaders, they earn the right to step away without jeopardizing the performance of the organization. The Investor not only reaps these rewards but is now available to repeat the investment cycle elsewhere.
The immediate Multiplier effect is that Multipliers get, on average, twice the capability from someone they lead. When extrapolated across an average organization of average size, approximately fifty people, that’s the equivalent of adding an additional fifty people. Repeated over potentially ten different leadership roles over the course of a career, that is an additional five hundred people.
Multipliers are rated 42 percent higher at delivering world-class results than their Diminisher counterparts.
We judge others by their doings, but ourselves by our intentions. EDWARD WIGGLESWORTH
Idea Fountain This type of leader is a creative, innovative thinker who loves an idea-rich environment. He is a veritable fountain of ideas. Ideas bubble up for him 24/7, so he bursts into the office brimming with new ideas to share with colleagues. This leader doesn’t necessarily think his ideas are superior. He simply believes that the more he tosses around his ideas, the more he will spark ideas in others. But what actually happens around an Idea Fountain? The ideas he tosses out seem compelling, so his team begins to chase them. But as soon as they begin to make progress on yesterday’s idea, the next day brings a new idea du jour. The team makes ephemeral progress on multiple fronts. The great chase becomes a standstill as they realize that they always end up back at square one—so why not just stay there? As they learn to stop acting on the leader’s ideas, they also stop trying to come up with their own ideas. After all, if they actually need a new idea, they can just wait for the fountain to spew. It is easy to get idea lazy around people who are idea rich.
We know what the Always On leader does to others—we’ve all seen it and felt it—but what do others end up doing to this type of leader? Well, what do you do to the human being who lacks an “off” switch? If you can’t find a dimmer switch, you simply turn her off inside your head. You put her in the background; she becomes white noise. Her endless spray of speech becomes muffled and sometimes completely unheard by the people she leads. The Always On leader thinks she is playing big, but actually she becomes small, and she makes everyone around her small, too. Energy isn’t contagious, but attitude and confidence in others are. When the leader is always on, everyone else is always off. Rescuer He is a good manager and a decent person, the type of leader who doesn’t like to see people struggle, make avoidable mistakes, or fail. At the first sign of distress, he jumps in and helps. Occasionally, he swoops in with a big, heroic rescue. More often than not, he simply lends a hand, resolves a problem, and helps people across the finish line. Incidentally, we find that this is the most common way leaders accidentally diminish. The intention of the Rescuer is noble. He wants to see other people be successful; he desires to protect the reputation of the people who work for him, but because he interrupts a natural performance cycle, he starves people of the vital learning they need to be successful. When a manager helps too soon and too often, people around him become dependent and helpless. Instead of feeling successful, employees experience frustration and depleted confidence when they fail to cross the finish line.
As leaders, sometimes we are most helpful when we don’t help. Pacesetter This is the achievement-oriented leader who leads by example. To build momentum, she personally sets the standard for performance and for exemplifying the values of the organization (such as quality, customer service, innovation, etc.). She takes the lead, sets the pace, and expects that the people around her will notice, follow, and, of course, catch up. For example, a manager might wish to send a strong message that customer service is a top priority, so she increases the time she spends in the field, traveling to customer sites, meeting with key clients, and writing up and distributing trip reports. Her intention is to send a signal that her organization should be actively listening for the voice of the customer. What actually happens when the leader speeds out ahead? Do others pick up the pace or do they fall behind? The effect is subtle. The leader is half right: people do take notice. They catch on, but they rarely catch up. Instead of increasing their own pace, they most often assume the role of spectator, watching the Pacesetter do her thing. While she is expecting her staff to speed up, they are actually slowing down or sitting down. Instead of initiating customer contact themselves, they assume this is an executive role and sit back and read the reports. Or perhaps, recognizing the widening gap between the Pacesetter and themselves, they simply give up.
As leaders, sometimes the faster we run, the slower others walk. When leaders set the pace, they are more likely to create spectators than followers. Rapid Responder What about the leader who is quick to take action? This is the leader who prizes agility and fast turnaround. He takes responsibility and is “on it”—he is quick to respond, troubleshoot problems, and make fast microdecisions. Most of us work with some sort of rapid responder. He sees a problem; he solves it. He sees a bear; he shoots it. Emails don’t last long in his in-box. He opens, reads, and resolves immediately. His intent is noble, of course. He wants an agile organization that pounces on problems and responds rapidly to stakeholders. But instead of agility, the Rapid Responder tends to generate low-grade apathy. Even the best employees are slow to respond when they know that someone else is already “on it.”
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The leader reacts quickly, but the people around him tend to react slowly, if at all.
When you play the role of the optimist, you undervalue the struggle the team is experiencing and the hard-fought learning and work. Your staff may wonder if you have lost your tether to reality. Or, worse, you might be sending an unintentional message that mistakes and failure are not an option; after all, how hard can it be? When the leader sees only the upside, others can become preoccupied with the downside.
If the leader continually protects people from danger, they never learn to fend for themselves.
If you’ve built a reputation as a big thinker, don’t be surprised if people save the big thinking for you.
But, while he see an A+ in progress, others see nothing but red marks and blue tape all over their work. They see blood and loss and can easily become disengaged and disheartened. Sometimes a 90 percent solution executed with 100 percent ownership is better than getting it 100 percent right with a disengaged team.
This leadership team understood that self-awareness as a leader comes from understanding the perspectives of those we lead and serve, those who are the “customers” of our leadership. Our learning can start with our own insight, but it can’t end there.
Here are some questions you might use to elicit this feedback: How might I be shutting down the ideas and actions of others, despite having the best of intentions? What am I inadvertently doing that might be having a diminishing impact on others? How might my intentions be interpreted differently by others? What messages might my actions actually be conveying? What could I do differently?
To lead on purpose, we must understand how we diminish by accident. How might you be accidentally diminishing? How can you see what you alone can’t see?
Becoming a Multiplier often starts with becoming less of a Diminisher. And this usually means doing less: less talking, less responding, less convincing, and less rescuing of others who need to struggle and learn for themselves. By doing less, we can become more of a Multiplier. Doing less to achieve more is one of many examples where counterintuition is more instructive than intuition. When no one else is speaking up, the compelling inclination is to jump in and fill the void, but we become a Multiplier when we learn to hold back and allow silence to draw others in. When we feel the need to be big, let it be a signal that we need to be small and dispense our views in small but intense doses. And when our instincts tell us to help more, we might need to help less.
“All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.”
However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light. STANLEY KUBRICK
multiply your way out.
the five least effective strategies in dealing with Diminishers are: 1) confront them, 2) avoid them, 3) comply and lie low, 4) convince them you are right, and 5) take HR action.
you can be a Multiplier while working for a Diminisher.
“It is easier to align with the Diminisher and feast on the misfortune of other colleagues than it is to fight the battle and get eaten too.” It’s also easier to return a set of diminishing actions with a diminishing response. Unfortunately, this only perpetuates the problem.
Changing your response, no matter how enlightened you become, isn’t guaranteed to change a Diminisher, but it will turn down the volume on the Perfectionism, the Rescuing, Pacesetting, and other diminishing practices, allowing you more space to think and work.
IT’S NOT NECESSARILY ABOUT YOU. Although you are the one feeling the pain, your actions aren’t necessarily the root cause. The Diminisher’s behavior is more likely a function of the pressure they feel from above or the residual effects of ineffectual role models from their past.
DIMINISHING ISN’T INEVITABLE. When dealing with a controlling boss, we have more control than we might think. We choose how much legitimacy we grant to a Diminisher’s views; we choose whether or not we embrace lowered expectations for ourselves; we choose how she makes us feel. Those are choices.
YOU CAN LEAD YOUR LEADER. Very few managers will ever know you as well as you do. Therefore, if you want someone to utilize you at your best, you will need to guide them. You can be your own agent and advocate for your capabilities and defend yourself from well-meaning but overbearing management.
My research showed that people who cope best with Diminishers don’t bark at every disturbance. They’ve learned what to ignore. They don’t avoid the Diminisher or pretend the problem doesn’t exist; they merely tune out some of the interference. They choose to turn down the volume, reducing the Diminisher’s intrusion into their head and the other person’s consumption of their life and psychic energy.
After these contentious encounters, his close associates would ask him why he wasn’t upset. Pethel, who speaks with a gentle, southern charm, would reply, “Because I don’t want to be. Something caused this person to behave this way, and it wasn’t necessarily me. Do I like it? No. But it’s not going to dip from my bucket.”
Ignoring a persistently defeating and deafening message is a big task. But it becomes easier to filter it out when you turn down the volume of diminishing messages and turn up the volume for other, more enabling, voices—your own, as well as those of supportive leaders and colleagues.
“Quit whining. Do something about it or leave.”
the individuals who most effectively deal with Diminishers take steps to broaden their support base and strengthen other relationships, much like a torn ligament requires the strengthening of proximal muscles.
While some people like to argue more than others, everyone likes to hear that someone is seriously considering their opinions. When you retreat and regroup, you give the Diminisher a way out as well—an opportunity to gracefully rethink an issue and to save face.
The primary cause of micromanaging (the most prevalent form of diminishing) is concern that something won’t get completed fully or correctly. As one Diminisher said, “I only become a micromanager when I think it won’t get done.” You can ward off this form of diminishing by providing delivery assurance. When you deliver the goods as promised, you earn the Diminisher’s trust. As Stephen M. R. Covey says, “Trust, once lost can indeed be rebuilt.”5 Trust gets built in layers, brick by brick. Each brick is a win, a small success that tells the Diminisher that this person will make them look good.
employees can send signals that keep their manager’s inner Diminisher from leaking out.
Sometimes you need to tell an overly helpful manager or colleague that you don’t need help. If you’ve ever tried to help a three-year-old do something that the child could do alone (like put on a coat or carry a plate), you know exactly how the child will react. With a mix of conviction and outrage, the child will say, “No. I can do it by myself!” As the child asserts her independence, the adult remembers that the child is maturing and every day more capable than the day before. Similarly, it is easy for corporate managers to overlook the growth of the people they lead. However, by the time we enter the adult workplace, our inner three-year-old has been socialized out. Instead of pushing back against micromanaging bosses, we tend to let them step in when we could otherwise handle it ourselves.
simple If-Then statement works, such as, “If you give me the meeting topics in advance, then I’ll come prepared with ideas” or “If you let me run the meeting, then I’ll make sure we fully resolve the problem.” Whether your tone is lighthearted or serious, asserting one’s capability is best done with humility and respect, especially in cultures that value respect for authority. Lastly, when you assert your capability and someone gives you space, be prepared to deliver your finest thinking and work in return.
ASK FOR PERFORMANCE INTEL. It’s hard to be brilliant if you lack critical information. In particular, people generally need two types of information to achieve top performance. The first is clear direction—What is the target, and why is it important? Diminishers often become so preoccupied with telling people how to shoot that they forget to first establish the target. When a Diminisher becomes immediately prescriptive, you can ask them to back up and provide more context and direction.
The next time someone gives you a statement of work, ask to begin with a problem definition instead. The second type of critical information is performance feedback: Am I actually hitting the target? When someone is missing the target, Diminishers tend to reiterate how to do it, rather than give information that would help the person to adjust their technique or their aim. When faced with a deluge of criticism, ask for feedback instead. The term feedback often carries the connotation of criticism or judgment; however, technically speaking, feedback is simply information to help recalibrate something.
remember that if you are constantly surrounded by Diminishers, at some point you have to ask yourself, “Is it me?” You might be taking things too personally, reading malice into otherwise well-intended criticism or even looking for insults in compliments. It might be time to see your Diminishers as Accidental Diminishers, leaders with good intentions. Or you may have to admit that you are diminishing in the other direction—upward. The remedy in all cases is the same: be a Multiplier, down, out, and up.
average, managers are utilizing approximately 76 percent of the intelligence of their direct reports and only 62 percent of their peers and 66 percent of their supervisors.
Diminishers want to be valued for their intelligence and ideas; in fact, many are desperate for it. On the other hand, Multipliers enjoy finding other people’s genius and engaging it. In many ways, Diminishers need Multipliers. It may not be a match made in heaven, but it is a strategy to help you escape a hellish experience, because when you bring out the best in your boss, you help create the conditions under which you can work at your best.
EXPLOIT YOUR BOSS’S STRENGTHS. Instead of trying to change your boss, focus on trying to better utilize his or her knowledge and skills in service of the work you’re leading. You don’t need to cede ownership; just make sure to use his or her capabilities at key junctures and in ways they can be most helpful. If she has a critical eye, could you use her to help diagnose an underlying problem in a project? Or, if he’s a big-picture thinker, could you have him share his vision to help win over a key customer?
If, on the other hand, you are among the underutilized majority, you needn’t sit idle, waiting to be discovered. You can broadcast your capabilities and help your colleagues pick up the signal. Or you can simply tell people what you are good at and how you can be best used. Think of it like giving someone a user’s guide to you.
If you want to work at your highest point of contribution, you need to let people know your value. Remember, getting to develop your natural brilliance at work is a true privilege, so don’t play the prima donna. Just because you know your native genius doesn’t mean you are excused from the parts of your work that feel foreign or involve quotidian tasks.
He discovered that in the dark of the night, when you are exposed and afraid, you learn to see differently. You look beyond outward appearances and differences—be they race, religion, circumstance, or status—to truly see people and know them for who they really are. Even shrouded in darkness, you can learn to trust and find common purpose.
at the core of Diminisher logic is the belief that people aren’t going to figure it out without me. Nothing fuels this cycle like the unrepentant mistake. When an employee makes a mistake and hides their misdeeds, it leaves the manager to question both their capability and their judgment and to assume the mistake will be repeated. This can place the manager on a trajectory to be overly prescriptive or to intervene at the first hint of an error.
But doing the same thing over and over, faster and faster, does not develop your skills (unless you happen to be a knife juggler). The rest of us grow and learn by doing something hard, something we haven’t done before, something we don’t yet know how to do. A good Multiplier would define an opportunity that causes you to stretch; but just because your boss hasn’t asked you to take on a new challenge doesn’t mean you can’t volunteer.
People cannot change others, only themselves. And change will occur only if an individual recognizes the problem of their own volition and has a deep desire (and incentive) to change their mode of operation.
if you want to help someone lead in new ways, recognize and appreciate every attempt in the right direction, even the smallest acts of good leadership.
There is a hidden assumption in many organizations that people are not expected, or even allowed, to outlead their bosses. The layers of the org chart appear to form a glass ceiling that caps leadership effectiveness. Given the extraordinary results that Multipliers achieve through others, I believe one can lead like a Multiplier in a Diminisher environment. Give yourself permission to be better than your boss. And then watch the organization take notice.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it… . Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. When dealing with Diminishers, we may need to be the light that cuts through the dark. In modern organizations, leadership does not only come from the top; it radiates from the middle and ascends from the bottom. When you are trapped working for a Diminisher, sometimes the only way out is up—multiplying up. Because the only Diminisher you can change into a Multiplier is yourself.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. LAO TZU
“You are not getting anything out of these staff meetings. You need to engage your people on your biggest issues.” Bill asked the CEO to prepare five topics that were crucial to the company. The CEO then emailed the list to the team in advance and asked each person to think through each issue and come prepared with data and opinions.
Because behavior follows assumptions, you can knock out a whole set of behaviors by adopting a Multiplier mindset.
The assumptions we hold shape our views and practices and, in the end, have a powerful effect on outcomes (often by being self-fulfilling prophecies).
The Extraordinary Leader.1
leaders do not need to be good at everything. They need to have mastery of a small number of skills and be free of showstopping weaknesses.
leader does not have to be exceptional in all five disciplines to be considered a Multiplier. A leader needs two or three strong disciplines and the others can be just good enough.
The truth is that you do not need to be fabulous at everything. You just can’t be bad. You need to neutralize the weakness and move it into the middle, acceptable zone. Having realistic goals frees up capacity to do the more important development work: turning your modest strengths into towering strengths.
thirty-day challenge gets you to “halftime” and offers a chance to reflect and strategize for the second half of new habit formation.
“The silence creates the space. The space creates results. The results are valuable.
Because the Multiplier disciplines are easy to grasp, a common trap is thinking that implementing the ideas is as easy as understanding them. Rarely is knowledge alone sufficient to transform into a Multiplier. Much more often, replacing diminishing habits with Multiplier behaviors comes only through persistence and resilience. It is therefore vital to anticipate—and create tools to withstand—possible setbacks along the way.
The seeds of the new Multiplier assumptions must be planted and cultivated while the old habits are gradually uprooted. The good news is that the part of the brain that stores consciously cultivated new assumptions is the same part that unconsciously builds new habits.4 Yet—and here is the kicker—until a new habit is formed (by creating new neural pathways through consistent behavior), the subconscious will think you should be operating in your old diminishing ways, even though those ways contradict your new Multiplier assumptions. The danger of this difficult interim period is that these “should” judgments will demotivate you—and might even lead you to quit the journey before you can develop and implement your new assumptions.
My new Multiplier assumption is [people are smart and will figure it out], so I need to develop a new habit [giving space]. 2. As I’m becoming a Multiplier, old habits will be mixed with new assumptions. 3. Until those habits are fully uprooted, I will continue making mistakes diminishing others by [jumping in], while I’m trying to learn to multiply others by [giving space].
No leader—even one with superior skills and exceptional self-awareness—can transform an organization single-handedly.
he understood that changing a culture meant changing the conversation. And, to change the conversation, people would need new words, especially words about behaviors that would lead to winning results.
“Past results don’t predict future results; actually past behavior predicts future behavior, which then drives future results.”
If you want to build a brilliant organization, don’t just settle for your own aha moment: build a Multiplier culture, one that generates Multiplier moments every day and between everyone in the organization.
From the business perspective, culture is “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.”5 Strong cultures typically exhibit the following traits: Common language: Words and phrases that hold a common meaning within a community based on opinions, principles, and values6 Learned behaviors: A set of learned responses to stimuli7 Shared beliefs: The acceptance of something as true8 Heroes and legends: People who are admired or idealized for their qualities, behavior, and/or achievements and the stories told about their heroic actions9 Rituals and norms: Consistent behavior regularly followed by an individual or a group10
Culture is powerful because it redirects and shapes our behavior; its forces overpower individual intent and reject individual behaviors that are not acceptable or normative.
Plato offers this insight: “The overwhelming majority of individuals will prove incapable of resisting the voice of the culture that surrounds them: in the typical case, their values, their beliefs, indeed, their very perceptions will tend to mirror those of the surrounding culture.”11
Building a culture is neither a one-time injection nor a sheep dip; it requires connection to the deep layers of the culture—it necessitates going from surface-level cultural elements (such as shared language and behavior) to affect the deeper cultural elements (such as rituals and norms),
When a group shares a common vocabulary, they can more easily name desirable and undesirable behaviors that would otherwise be slippery or invisible.
To strengthen a culture, create a safe space for people to talk about leadership—not just in theoretical, aspirational terms but also in real daily experiences and interactions.
Initially, people need to discover the downside of an old, negative behavior. Once they understand the downside, they need to learn to spot the triggers, the situations that bait and activate diminishing responses. Once they’ve been introduced to new Multiplier behaviors, they need to experiment with those behaviors and experience success. However, to make that behavior permanent, our response to the stimulus needs to become habituated or automatic.
In a strong culture, people not only share a set of beliefs about what is true, they also share a set of assumptions about how the world works. The peaks and perimeters are clearly defined—members know what conduct earns someone hero status and what conduct gets someone kicked out of the tribe.
To build a strong culture, define the core beliefs about leadership and ensure those beliefs are validated more frequently than they are violated.
managers: Your job is to unleash the full potential of each person on your team.
most successful implementations typically start in the middle. Here’s why. When middle managers experiment with the Multipliers mindsets and practices inside their organizations, they produce pockets of success—anomalies that catch the attention of senior executives and corporate staffers who are highly adept at detecting variances (both negative and positive). When senior executives notice positive outcomes, they are quick to elevate and endorse the new practices, in turn spreading the practices to other parts of the organization.
run a pilot with a few rising middle managers. Shine a spotlight on their success and let the practices spread to their peers. Expose their good work to the executive team and make yourself available to turn the parade into a movement.
tribe can also provide the positive peer pressure to sustain momentum. The most successful participants of the thirty-day challenge worked collectively or had a partner who served as both a sounding board and accountability point.
consistently that even high-performing people gave Multipliers 2× more than they gave their Diminisher counterparts. People don’t give a little more; they give a lot more. They give all of their discretionary effort and mental energy. They dig deep and access reserves of brainpower that they may not even know exist. They apply the full measure of their intelligence. They reason more clearly, comprehend more completely, and learn more quickly. In the process they get smarter and more capable.
down markets and times of scarcity, managers seek ways to get increased capability and productivity from current resources. Corporations and organizations need managers who can migrate from the logic of addition, where more resources are required to handle the increased demands, to the logic of multiplication, where leaders can more fully extract capability from their current resources. Resource leverage has the power of relevancy: it is timely, and it is also timeless.
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” What if we could access twice the levels of available intelligence and channel it to our perennial problems? What solutions could be generated if we could access the underutilized brainpower in the world? Surely we need leaders who can extract and utilize all available intelligence to solve our most complex and vital challenges. We need more than just geniuses at the top of our organizations; we need genius makers.
What would happen if an organization currently operating on 50 percent of its intelligence moved to 100 percent? When Accidental Diminishers become Multipliers, they are like Sir Galahad, whose “strength was as the strength of ten.” This is because Multipliers are the key to everyone else’s intelligence. A Multiplier is the key to unlocking capability. A single Multiplier matters.
Finally, the way you choose to lead not only matters for the type of organizations we build and for the people you lead, it can matter for you as well. It will shape how you think about yourself, and it will define the legacy you leave. How do you want to be remembered as a leader? Someone with a big personality? Or someone around whom other people grew? To be a Multiplier, you don’t need to shrink. To grow people around you, you need to play in a way that invites others to play big. I think you’ll find that as you bring out the best in others, you also bring out the best in yourself.