Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (17 page)

Orchestrate an Early Win

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.

Consider Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai. In her words, “I was hearing many Nairobi women complain that they didn’t have enough firewood, they were also complaining that they did not have enough water. ‘Why not plant trees?’ I asked them. And so they just started,
very
,
very
,
very small
. And before too long they started showing each other. Communities began empowering each other to plant trees for their own needs.”
⁶

From just seven original trees planted by Wangari on June 5, 1977, on World Environment Day, the Green Belt movement has successfully planted more than 40 million trees in Africa. And of course, the movement goes beyond trees. Wangari has written, “Many people don’t understand that the tree is just an entry point. It is an easy point. Because it is something that people understand. It is something people can do. It is not very expensive to do it. And you don’t need too much technology to do it. But once we get into the community through tree planting, we deal with a lot of other issues. We deal with issues of governance, issues of human rights, issues of conflicts and peace, [and] issues of long-term resource management.”

Senior leaders in corporations can generate belief about significant challenges by orchestrating small, early wins.

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.

The Academy Award–winning documentary
Man on Wire
chronicles the feat of renowned high-wire artist Philippe Petit in 1974 as he walked a tightrope stretched 140 feet across the expanse between the 1,368-foot-high Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. In the movie, Petit explains the moment of truth when he stood on the edge of one tower with his back foot on the building and his front foot on the cable. He recalled, “I had to make a decision of shifting my weight from one foot anchored to the building to the foot
anchored on the wire. This is probably the end of my life to step on that wire! On the other hand, something I could not resist…called me up on that cable.”

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.

THE DIMINISHER’S APPROACH TO SETTING DIRECTION

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.

TELL WHAT THEY KNOW
.
Diminishers consider themselves thought leaders and readily share their knowledge; however, they rarely share it in a way that invites contribution. They tend to sell their ideas rather than learning what others know. One manager in Europe “took up all the oxygen in the room” by talking endlessly about
his ideas
. A
peer said of him, “He is so busy sharing what he thinks, there is no space for anyone else.” A direct report added this insight, “I have worked in the same department with him for ten years, and he has never asked me a question. Not once. Not ever. I have occasionally heard him ask a question to the universe, ‘I wonder why we do X?’ but even then he fills the silence with his own thoughts about the answer.”

TEST WHAT YOU KNOW
.
When Diminishers do actually engage others, to no surprise, it is as an auditor. They want to verify that you understand what they know. They ask questions to make a point rather than to access greater insight or to generate collective learning. Like Richard Palmer, the founder discussed earlier, they are masters of the “gotcha” question. Diminishers leave people stressed, but unstretched.

TELL PEOPLE HOW TO DO THEIR JOBS.
Rather than shifting 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. One such Diminisher was Chip Maxwell, an executive producer on a major motion picture production set. Despite the fact that the director had carefully assembled a world-class team of talent, Chip was constantly interfering in the team’s work, routinely bypassing the director to tell his staff exactly how to do their jobs. The director of photography abruptly resigned in the middle of filming, claiming that if Chip seemed to know how to light the shot better than he did, then maybe he could be the DP. This award-winning DP knew the number of lights needed, and he certainly knew where to put them. He also knew his talents could be better used on another film.

Diminishers often unintentionally shut down the intelligence of others. Most Diminishers have built their careers on their own
expertise and have been rewarded for their superior knowledge. For many, it is not until they reach a career plateau or crisis—or the director of photography quits in the middle of filming—that they begin to recognize that their base assumptions are inaccurate and are limiting themselves and others.

A colleague of mine recently took an IQ test and received a score of 144. He was exuberant and claimed that he was just one point shy of certified genius status. No doubt he was envisioning his welcome letter from Mensa. On learning of our research, his enthusiasm became a bit dampened: “Wow. I have worked all my life to prove I am a genius, and just at the point that I can say that I am, I learn that it doesn’t even matter anymore!”

Of course, this is only half 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. Consider the difference between a leader who yearns for an additional IQ point to take their IQ to 145, official Genius Level, and leaders who use their intelligence to add an IQ point to every person in their organization! What could your organization accomplish if every person became effectively “one point smarter?”

There are times when a leader is so knowledgeable and personally brilliant that it seems tempting for them to provide directives centered in what they know. However, in the end, Know-It-Alls limit what their organization can achieve to what they themselves know how to do. Under their leadership, the organization never leverages its full intelligence, and the true capacity of the organization is idled away or becomes consumed by the “fire drill” of figuring out what the boss thinks.

HOW THE CHALLENGER ACHIEVES RESOURCE LEVERAGE

Why do Challengers get more from their resources? 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. Wisdom tells them that it is imperative to engage all intelligence and capability in service to these opportunities.

The following chart demonstrates why a Know-It-All leaves so much intelligence on the table while Challengers pull so much from their people.

Know-It-Alls

What They Do:

Give directives that showcase “their” knowledge

What They Get:

Distracted efforts as people vie for the attention of the boss

Idle cycles in the organization as people wait to be told what to do or to see if the boss will change direction again

An organization that doesn’t want to get ahead of the boss

Challengers

What They Do:

Define opportunities that challenge people to go beyond what they know how to do

What They Get:

Collective intent toward the same overarching opportunity

Rapid cycles and accelerated problem solving without the initiation of the formal leader

People’s discretionary effort and intellectual energy to take on the toughest organizational challenges

When leaders operate as 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. Because people understand the context, they can act for themselves rather than wait to be told or approved. Consider the contrast in impact that this Diminisher and this Multiplier had on the productivity and velocity of their organizations.

A DIMINISHER CREATES IDLE CYCLES.
A highly intelligent vice president at a major global technology firm was accustomed to a fast-paced and demanding environment. He was a competitor in the market who never stopped challenging himself and others. However, after transferring to a division led by a classic Know-It-All, he found himself idle most of the time. He said, “I spend most of my time waiting for my boss to make decisions. In the meantime, I can’t do much else. I am essentially working part time. I’m bored, but I am enjoying taking sailing lessons!” This vice president was ready for high-speed battle but was relegated to easy sailing.

A MULTIPLIER CREATES RAPID CYCLES.
Barak Hershkovitz, previously referenced, left a comfortable job to work as the CTO for Better Place, where his new CEO laid down the challenge for him before he even started work. Barak said, “I did more in one year at Better Place than I did in twenty years at my previous company. I’m not a Gantt chart pusher. I can work extremely fast because I don’t get punished for mistakes. We work fast forward.”

Because they are encouraged to be “smarter than the leader,” people can stop competing for idea validation and instead commit themselves to the challenge. And the result is that intelligence grows—individually and collectively. The collective intent built within the organization enables the whole group to break through challenges no single leader, however intelligent, could have.

This understanding leads to a key question: how does someone provide direction like Shai Agassi at Better Place or Ray Lane at Oracle? How does someone go from a Know-It-All to a Challenger?

BECOMING A CHALLENGER

A Serious Case of Curiosity

Becoming a Challenger starts with developing an overactive imagination and a serious case of curiosity. In our research, we analyzed how Multipliers and Diminishers were rated against forty-eight leadership practices. It is not surprising that the highest-rated practice for Multipliers was “Intellectual Curiosity.” Multipliers create genius in others because they are fundamentally curious and spark learning around them. This curiosity takes the form of an insatiable need for deep organizational understanding. The question “why” is at the core of their thinking. They ponder possibilities. They want to learn from people around them. At the heart of any challenge is intellectual curiosity:
I wonder if we could do the impossible?

How does one become more curious? Thirty minutes watching (or in this case walking with) a young child will provide a good answer.

I recall a particular walk with my daughter, who was three years old at the time. It was one of those walks designed to relax both parent and child. But it managed to do the opposite. As we walked through the neighborhood, my daughter looked at everything and wanted to know “Why?” She asked, “Why is the dog barking?” and “Why is the road cracked?” and “Why do the cars go so fast?” This continued for some time. The questions got harder, and I was now running out of answers. I wondered how long this could go on. In an attempt to maintain my sanity and satisfy my own curiosity, I started counting the number of times my daughter asked “why?” during our little walk. At the current rate, I thought she might just break twenty-five. I stopped counting at eighty.

When deeply rooted in a mindset of curiosity, one is ready to begin working as a Challenger. Here are several starting points.

The Starting Block

1. GO EXTREME WITH QUESTIONS
. Most executives are barraged with questions, constantly responding to others seeking their opinion. The nature of the executive role makes it easy to stay rooted in answer mode and to be the boss. The first step in this journey is to stop answering questions and begin asking them.

Several years ago I was commiserating with a colleague at work, Brian Spoutz, about how I had become horribly bossy with my children and was frustrated. I detailed a typical evening at my house where I barked orders at my young children: “Get ready for bed. Stop that. Put on your pajamas. Brush your teeth. Pick up your toys.” Brian was also a parent of young children and gave me some advice. He listened carefully and said, “Liz, I have a challenge for you. Tonight when you go home, I want you to only speak to your children in the form of questions. No orders. No statements. Just questions.” I was naturally intrigued. He said, “I think you might find that your children know exactly what they need to do.” I agreed to take the challenge. He cautioned, “Only asking questions will feel awkward, but go all the way—nothing but questions for at least an hour or two.”