Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

About the Author

Liz Wiseman is a researcher and executive advisor. She has written many bestsellers such as Multipliers, The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools, and Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work. She is also the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm. Her clients include Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Tesla, and Twitter.

Wiseman is a guest lecturer at Brigham Young University, where she obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. She also lectures at Stanford University. She was Vice-president at Oracle Corporation and the global leader in Human Resource Development. Wiseman has conducted significant research in leadership and collective intelligence and writes for Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and a variety of other business and leadership journals.

Sources: thewisemangroup.com, and the “About the Author” section of the book

Our one-sentence summary

We can all learn how to become Multipliers – people who see potential in others, help them grow, and bring out their best qualities, rather than Diminishers who limit growth, exhaust their team’s energy, and suppress overall development.

Publisher’s Summary

“We’ve all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders. The first type drains intelligence, energy, and capability from the people around them and always needs to be the smartest person in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, light bulbs go off over people’s heads; ideas flow and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now when leaders are expected to do more with less.

In this engaging and highly practical book, leadership expert Liz Wiseman explores these two leadership styles, persuasively showing how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations—getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation. This revered classic has been updated with new examples of Multipliers, as well as two new chapters, one on accidental Diminishers, and one on how to deal with Diminishers.”

Source: Book Jacket

Detailed Summary 

Preface:

• Times have changed. The role of leadership has shifted. Now, managers aren’t expected to tell others what to do. They have to inspire and unleash their team’s capabilities.
• Most organizations have more intelligence available than they use. Wiseman and colleagues found that managers use only 66% of workers’ capabilities – a common consequence of a specific type of leadership, that of the Diminisher. A Multiplier can increase this percentage.
• In the new edition of this book, three main insights are highlighted:
  • Followers and workers across cultures, professions, and industries all need recognition of their capabilities and their significant contributions.
  • Sometimes, good people trying to be good leaders become Diminishers.
  • The necessary changes are not so much personal but a function of an entire system.

Chapter 1: The Multiplier Effect

• While working at Oracle Corp., Wiseman noticed that some leaders drained the people around them while others inspired them. She noticed that around the first type of leaders, intelligence flowed from themselves to others – Diminishers. The second type of leader instead used their intelligence to amplify that of others – Multipliers.
• After Oracle Corp., when Wiseman began coaching executives, she decided to conduct research in this area, seeking to understand what it is that Multipliers do to bring out the best capabilities in others.
• One of her main findings is that, at a fundamental level, what drives the differences between these two types of leaders are their core beliefs about others’ intelligence.
  • Diminishers believe intelligence is static and scarce, available to a select few.
    • They are driven by an addition logic: for better results, we need more resources. This leads to overworked and underutilized people.
  • Multipliers believe intelligence can be continually developed.
    • They use the logic of multiplication: they multiply the resources available by bringing out the best in others.
  • Diminishers believe people can’t figure it out and need people to do it for them. Multipliers, on the other hand, assume people are smart and capable of figuring it out on their own. From this one distinct assumption, five disciplines that differ substantially are born:

• Multipliers use their own intelligence to bring out the talent in others. It is not that they shrink for others. They invite others to meet them where they are.
• A key recent finding presented in this new edition (a notion expanded upon in later chapters) is that many leaders are accidental Diminishers. People with good intentions try to help others and end up discouraging ideas, causing others to hold back.

Chapter 2: The Talent Magnet

• Talent Magnets are leaders who attract talented people, utilize their capabilities to the fullest, and prepare them for their next steps. They create environments where people grow. They inspire people who, in turn, attract more talented people.
• Empire Builders are leaders who underutilize talent because they hoard resources.
• The following are different practices of a Talent Magnet compared to an Empire Builder:
  1. Looking for talent everywhere.
     • Talent Magnets know talent comes in all shapes and sizes. They see multiple forms of intelligence and ignore boundaries. Empire Builders, thinking people need to report to them to get anything done, focus so much on resources and organizational structure that they fail to develop talent.
  2. Finding people´s genius and utilizing it to the fullest.
     • While Empire Builders put people in boxes, limiting them and atrophying their capabilities, Talent Magnets seek and find people’s genius – that native ability that comes easily and freely. Talent Magnets utilize people’s abilities to the fullest by looking for opportunities where they can challenge their team so that they grow.
  3. Removing blockers.
     • Talent Magnets go beyond, providing opportunities and removing blockers. Empire Builders are centered on themselves and hold others back. They keep others from attracting more talent elsewhere.
       • You might find yourself at the crossroads of having to let go of a genius destroyer. Always remember, by losing one mind you might gain back five.
• In India, there’s a saying: “Nothing grows under a banyan tree.” Diminishers are like banyan trees. They might provide comfortable shade, but nothing grows in that shade.
• To become a Talent Magnet,
• Look for people’s native genius. Ask yourself, “In what way is this person smart?”
• Then, supersize their talent. Like buying shoes one size too big for a child, the person will eventually grow into their job.
• Let go of them once they’ve outgrown the environment.

Chapter 3: The Liberator

• In an organization, most policies exist to create order. But often, unintentionally, they end up limiting people’s ability to think. Multipliers tend to get rid of these policies, freeing people to think, speak, act, and learn.
• “Multipliers create an intense environment where superior thinking and work can flourish. Tyrants create a tense environment that suppresses people[‘s] thinking and capability” (p. 68).
  • Tyrants create a tense environment because they end up building stress and anxiety among their people. Diminishers overexert their will and cause others to retreat.
  • Liberators create intense environments because expectations are high, but they encourage people to work hard and think for themselves.
• The following are three different practices of a Liberator compared to those of a Tyrant:
  1. Creating space vs. dominating space.
     • Unlike Tyrants, who dominate the discourse and impose their ideas, Liberators listen. Only by listening can they understand ideas, see potential, and create a space for discovery. Liberators see intellect in others because they level the playing field –i.e., all voices in the organization are heard because the Liberator has created an environment where people are comfortable speaking up.
  2. Demanding the best work vs. creating anxiety.
     • A Tyrant is temperamental and unpredictable. He creates anxiety because he consumes his team’s mental energy as they struggle to avoid setting him off. A Liberator makes his people feel positive pressure because they are held to their best effort, and they are motivated to push themselves.
  3. Generating learning cycles vs. playing judge, jury, and executioner.
     • Instead of a learning environment, Tyrants create a cycle of criticism, judgment, and retreat. Liberators, instead, allow people to make mistakes, but expect them to learn from them. Outcomes and expectations are clear, but because people feel free to engage and come up with bold ideas, they reach their goals.
• To become a Liberator,
  • Create room for others to contribute. Give yourself a limited budget of times you can intervene in a meeting, and use them wisely.
  • Label your opinions. That is, divide your views into soft opinions and hard opinions so that people feel free to disagree and establish their personal viewpoints. Save hard opinions only for when they are imperative.
  • Talk about your mistakes. Normalize them and illustrate the learning experience.
• “Multipliers don’t tell people what to think; they tell them what to think about” (p. 94).

Chapter 4: The Challenger

• When providing direction and pursuing opportunities for the organization, Diminishers become Know-It-Alls and Multipliers become Challengers.
  • Know-It-Alls focus so much on their personal knowledge that they limit the organization by having everyone depend on them. They think their role is to be the expert and that they have to tell others what to do.
  • Challengers find opportunities in problems and make it a challenge for the organization to overcome together. They ask bold questions to deconstruct the challenge into reasonable increments.
• The following are different practices of a Challenger compared to those of a Know-It-All:
  1. Seeding the opportunity.
     • Multipliers understand people grow through challenges, so they plant seeds of opportunity and let them discover. They provoke thinking. They challenge assumptions and reframe problems. Diminishers share their knowledge readily and fail to invite contribution.
  2. Laying down the challenge.
     • Multipliers create space for challenges, make it concrete and clear, and ask important questions, but do not answer them. Diminishers create a gap between what they know and what people know, and ask questions to make a point rather than creating collective learning experiences.
  3. Generating belief.
     • Multipliers build a sense of belief throughout the team (that the impossible is possible). They have people create a plan and with it, increase belief in its effectiveness. Meanwhile, Diminishers tell people what to do, and people end up waiting for instruction rather than taking control and moving forward proactively.
• To become a Challenger,
  • Ask extreme questions that will focus the team’s intelligence on the right problems.
  • Keep your team engaged by giving them a mission-impossible challenge that will develop their capabilities.
  • Create learning experiences (e.g., take the team to visit a store and have them find problems customers might face for them to resolve).
  • Get the entire organization to take on the first, even if small, step with you. That will increase their belief in themselves and their ideas.
• When people work for Diminishers, they give half their capability and end up exhausted. When they work for Multipliers, they give their all and feel exhilarated.

Chapter 5: The Debate Maker

• Diminishers make decisions either by themselves or within a small inner group. Multipliers engage their people in debate, achieving rigorous decisions through collective intelligence.
  • Diminishers might attempt inclusion but still end up operating in an elitist manner, as they assume the brainpower of an organization sits with only a select few people at the top. Diminishers are Decision Makers.
  • Multipliers assume good minds put together to work can figure anything out. Multipliers are Debate Makers.
• The following are different practices of a Debate Maker compared to a Decision Maker:
  1. Framing the issue.
     • While Diminishers bring the issue and the decision to the team’s attention without letting them contribute, Multipliers reframe problems and create debates. They prepare the organization before the debate by crafting frames properly
       • They set clear questions with the ultimate decision in mind.
       • They define a solid “Why.” Why is the question important to answer?
       • They define the “Who.” Who will provide input?
       • They define the “How.” How will the final decision be made?
  2. Sparking debate.
     • A great debate is engaging, comprehensive, fact-based, and educational.
     • Debate Makers prepare for proper debates, starting with the removal of fear factors that cause people to doubt themselves or their ideas. They also pursue all sides of an issue, even if the group rapidly reaches a consensus. Decision Makers, instead, dominate the discussion with ideas of their own.
  3. Driving sound decisions.
     • Multipliers are comfortable with making the final decisions. They consider all points before reaching a sound decision. They summarize key ideas and outcomes that emerged in the debate, reach a decision or delegate it to someone else if necessary, and then communicate the decision and its rationale. Diminishers force the decision.
• To become a debate maker, make sure you know how to create a proper debate:
  • Ask the hard questions that will get at the very core of the issue.
  • Ask for evidence beyond an anecdote. Ask for data.
  • Ask everyone. Consider voices beyond the dominant ones.
  • Ask people to switch positions to view options by having them experience another point of view. This approach helps reduce personal attachment to a specific idea.

Chapter 6: The Investor

• “Multipliers invest in the success of others” (p. 159). They share their ideas, they teach, but they always give the accountability back to their teams.
• Multipliers are Investors. Diminishers are Micromanagers.
• The following are three practices of an Investor compared to those of a Micromanager:
  1. Defining ownership.
     • Investors establish ownership from the beginning. Because they see intelligence in the people around them, they put them in charge. The benefit of ownership is that it creates and builds confidence among the people. Micromanagers assign responsibility of a specific portion of the assignment and maintain ownership. But the Investor gives ownership of the end goal.
  2. Investing resources.
     • Micromanagers might delegate but they take back control as soon as a problem arises. Investors protect their investment by providing resources and assisting, guiding, or helping others. They teach and coach. They provide backup.
  3. Holding people accountable.
     • Investors can get involved in other people’s work. But they always give back leadership and accountability. “Multipliers never do anything for their people that their people can do for themselves” (p.177). They let natural consequences teach lessons, as those are the experiences that are learned most rapidly and profoundly. Micromanagers, instead of managing the work, end up doing the work themselves.
• To become an investor,
  • When you delegate, be clear about your expectations and give your team more than they expect. Keep them challenged enough to stay motivated and let them know they are in charge. They are accountable.
  • Let nature be the teacher:
    • Let it happen. Don’t jump in and save the day every time. Let them learn from their mistakes.
    • Talk about it. Be available to help others learn from their mistakes.
    • Focus on teaching for the next time.
  • Ask for the solution or the fix. Don’t fix the problem yourself. Coach them by asking “What would you like to do to fix this?”
  • Give it back. Offer help but once you’re done, have an exit plan. 

Chapter 7: The Accidental Diminisher

• It might seem like Diminishers are tyrannical, but many of them are good people with good intentions. Most of them are Accidental Diminishers.
• The following are nine types of managers who accidentally diminish their teams:
  1. The Idea Guy: This is the leader who doesn’t necessarily think his ideas are superior, but believes the more ideas he proposes, the more ideas his team will have.
     • While his intention is usually to inspire, he ends up overwhelming the team. Because ideas change too often, they get discouraged and stop trying to come up with ideas of their own. It’s easy to become lazy in this scenario.
  2. The Always On: This leader has a big personality. She assumes that her energy is contagious and fails to realize that it is actually draining.
     • While the intention is to motivate, the outcome is actually that people tune her out. “When the leader is always on, everyone else is always off” (p. 194).
  3. The Rescuer: This is the type of leader that doesn’t like his team to struggle or fail. So at the first sign of a problem, he jumps in and saves the day. This is the most common way for leaders to diminish accidentally.
     • His intention is to help, but instead, he interrupts the learning process. If he helps too much, people become dependent and don’t learn and grow.
  4. The Pacesetter: This is the achievement-oriented leader who sets a standard of performance and expects everyone to follow. She sets the pace and hopes that as people notice, they will follow and catch up.
     • While people do take notice, they rarely catch up. Like a child who races an older kid, but stops running when there’s too much of a gap for him to close, employees will sit back and give up. If you set the pace, instead of followers setting the pace, you’ll have spectators.
  5. The Rapid Responder: This leader takes quick action all the time. He is quick to respond, troubleshoot, make decisions, etc. When he sees a problem, he solves it.
     • The problem with this type of leader is that the team gets used to him taking over. They become slow to respond because they know the boss will deal with the issue.
  6. The Optimist: This is the positive, everything-can-be-done manager. She believes all problems can be solved with a positive mindset and hard work.
     • Excessive optimism undervalues the struggles that people are facing. The staff will either doubt your ability to be realistic or believe that mistakes aren’t an option.
  7. The Protector: Unlike the Rescuer who saves the day, the Protector keeps his staff from seeing any type of problem. He wants to keep them safe.
     • Sometimes, it is good to shield the team from added and unnecessary stress. But overprotecting them keeps them from learning, growing, and taking accountability.
  8. The Strategist: This leader is a big thinker with captivating visions. She is always moving away from the status quo, thinking she’s generating drive or inspiration.
     • Instead, the strategist is accidentally keeping people from thinking, solving problems, and rising to the challenge, often because she has taken things too far, leaving the team second-guessing their boss.
  9. The Perfectionist: This type of manager thinks that his team gets the same joy as he does from getting everything exactly right. However, he fails to realize that instead of motivating excellence, he’s pointing out every little mistake.
     • “While he sees an A+ in the making, others see nothing but red marks all over their work” (p.202). People end up disheartened.
• You might notice you identify with one or more of the previous descriptions. To decrease your diminishing tendencies, seek feedback from your team. Ask, “How might I be diminishing you?” and “What can I do differently?”
• “Becoming a Multiplier often starts with becoming less of a Diminisher” (p. 207). Do less talking, responding, convincing, rescuing, etc., so that you and your team can become more. The book has an appendix (Appendix E) with experimental exercises that can help you become more like a Multiplier.

Chapter 8: Dealing with Diminishers

• The most common reactions to Diminishers, which are also the least effective strategies, are confronting them, avoiding them, quitting, obeying and lying low, and ignoring them.
  • The best approach is to become a Multiplier while working for a Diminisher.
• When your boss is a Diminisher, he controls, dictates, and micromanages. Naturally, you might feel disrespected and undervalued. So you might start criticizing, stop listening to him, and become dismissive. But this will only reinforce the Diminisher’s behavior, because when feeling threatened, he will respond with greater force.
  • This is the Diminishing Death Spiral, which ends in a standoff between two Diminishers (your boss and you). To break this cycle, embrace these assumptions:
    1. It’s not necessarily about you, although bad reactions can make things worse.
    2. Diminishing behaviors aren’t inevitable – you have more control than you think.
    3. You can actually lead or guide your boss.
• Based on these three core assumptions, you can employ the following strategies to decrease the diminishing effect your boss can have on you.
• Level 1: Defense Against the Dark Arts of Diminishing Managers
  • To improve your reactions to Diminishers and alleviate stress, you can:
    1. Filter out the diminishing messages by turning down the volume. Turn up the volume instead for enabling voices, both your own and from supportive others.
    2. Strengthen other connections and build circles of influence. Create external and internal advisory boards (colleagues and mentors that can help you).
    3. Retreat, give yourself space and time, give the Diminisher space and time, and regroup. In doing so, you allow both of you to rethink the issue.
    4. Provide some assurance. Often, micromanagers are concerned that things won’t get done correctly. Assure them that you will, and do it.
    5. Assert yourself and your capabilities. Let your boss know you need space or that you don’t need their help. If possible, do it humorously.
    6. Ask for clear direction and then for performance feedback.
    7. If you must quit, don’t just take any job. Go shopping for a Multiplier manager. Pay attention to their talk-to-listen ratio, for instance. Look for the descriptors presented throughout this book.
• Level 2: Multiplying Up
  • Many managers have experience being Multipliers with those who report to them. Few are Multipliers with their leaders or those above them in the organization. But you can be a Multiplier in any direction, including upward.
    1. Diminishers want to be valued for their intelligence. Exploit your boss’s strengths and use his knowledge.
    2. Give her a clear idea of your strengths and capabilities.
    3. Listen and learn.
    4. Admit your mistakes.
    5. Volunteer to take on new challenges.
    6. Invite them. Include them. Give them clear roles in a meeting or assignment.
• Level 3: Inspiring Multiplier Leadership in Others
  • “People cannot change others, only themselves” (p. 237). For someone to change, they have to recognize their problem and have either a desire or an incentive to change. But, you can raise awareness and try to incentivize Diminishers.
    1. Assume positive intent and let them know about it in your conversations.
    2. Address one issue at a time.
    3. Celebrate every step they make in the right direction.

Chapter 9: Becoming a Multiplier

• You can learn and develop Multiplier practices. With the right approach, you can accelerate the learning process:
  1. Start with embracing the main assumptions. The assumptions of a Multiplier are like a headpin in a bowling alley: hit it in the right place and the rest will fall too.
     • The Diminisher assumes that “People will never figure it out without me.” The Multiplier assumes that “People are smart and can figure it out” (p. 249).
     • Refer to chapter 1 for a quick overview of the Multiplier vs. Diminisher assumptions and disciplines. Go back to the next five chapters to review each discipline in detail (i.e., Talent Magnet, Liberator, Challenger, Debate Maker, and Investor’s discipline).
  2. Set a development plan. Assess your leadership practices and work on the extremes:
     • Neutralize your biggest weaknesses. You don’t need to be the best at the five disciplines, you just can’t be bad at any of them. “Neutralize your weakness and move it to the middle, acceptable zone.” (p. 252)
     • Identify your strongest area and excel at it. Progress from good to great.
  3. Use experimentation to help amend Accidental Diminisher practices. Some experiment guides are presented in Appendix E. All of them are based on the improvement strategies presented at the end of Chapters 2 through 6 (i.e., “To become a…”). To experiment with new behavior, choose a strategy, analyze feedback, adjust, and repeat.
  4. Although the Multiplier disciplines are easy to understand, implementing them and making them habitual is not as easy. Permit yourself to stumble as you implement your strategies and experiments. Give yourself time to build new habits.
  5. Ask a colleague, employee, or boss to help you select the experiment you want to run. Whom you choose must know your Diminisher tendencies but also your good intentions.
• When trying to build a new environment and change an organization’s culture, many companies expose their leaders to new ideas (usually in a keynote speech), hoping that inspiration will be enough to change common practices. But that’s never enough. Like any other strong culture, to build a Multiplier culture, the organization needs to develop:
  1. Common Language
     • To develop a common language and have everyone on the same page, start by having everyone read this book and have meetings to discuss leadership change.
     • Then, discuss the ideas in the book.
     • Take the Accidental Diminisher quiz (find instructions to access the quiz on p. 343 of the book) and share your results with your colleagues.
  2. Learned Behavior
     • Introduce Multiplier mindsets and practices to all leaders in the corporation.
     • Have workshops to teach the Multiplier skills.
     • You can use a simulation to employ and apply what you’ve learned about Multipliers.
  3. Shared Beliefs
     • Create a codebook with the Multiplier leadership philosophy, where expectations for managers are defined.
  4. Heroes and Legends
     • Give Multiplier moments a spotlight. Make heroes out of genius makers.
     • Regularly assess Multiplier behaviors and how well managers incorporate practices into their daily leadership practices.
  5. Rituals and Norms
     • Pilot a Multiplier practice of your choice (e.g., the team can focus on the Talent Magnet Discipline with a clear objective).
     • Integrate the practices with business metrics to assess their impact.
  6. To be a Multiplier, you need to behave in a way that lets others grow. “How do you want to be remembered as a leader? […] Which will you be: a genius or a genius maker?” (p. 284) 

Appendices

This book contains five appendices:

• Appendix A: The Research Process
• This appendix describes Liz Wiseman and her team’s research process and the findings that led to the conclusions presented in this book.
• Appendix B: FAQs
• This section answers fifteen frequently asked questions.
• Appendix C: The Multipliers
  • This appendix presents a list of noteworthy Multipliers, all of whom served as examples throughout the chapters in this book.
• Appendix D: Multipliers Discussion Guide
  • This guide has a series of questions for teams to discuss Multiplier practices and principles.
• Appendix E: Multiplier Experiments
  • This appendix contains ten behavioral guides (designed to serve as experiments) that can help you address your Accidental Diminisher tendencies.