Leadership

Double your workforce for free: Liz Wiseman explains Multipliers

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman is the best leadership book I have read.

The premise is that you can double your workforce for free by being a good leader.  Liz uses the term “Multiplier” to describe the most effective type of leader.

I had the good fortune to meet Liz at the recent Growth Summit.  I interviewed her to ask the following two questions:

  • What is a Multiplier?
  • What are the top two things you can do to be a Multiplier?

Here’s what I learnt:

What is a Multiplier?
Mulitpliers are leaders who use their intelligence and capability to bring out the smarts and intelligence in the people around them. They’re leaders who literally make people smarter and more capable in their presence.

Contrast this with Diminishers. Diminishers are leaders who often need to be the smartest person in the room, and they end up shutting down and stifling the intelligence in the room. Our research has shown that Multipliers don’t get a little bit more, they get twice the intelligence and capability than diminishers do.

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

What are the top two things you can do to be a Multiplier?

Number 1: Think in terms of questions.
Instead of having the answers as the leader, have the questions that cause other people to think that shifts the burden of thinking over to other people .

Number 2: Shamelessly ask people to do hard things.
Most leaders when they see their people overworked, they pull back and they don’t want to overdo it.   Multipliers shamelessly ask people to do things that are hard. They give them challenges but they believe in them. They ask them to do hard work because that causes them to learn, to grow, and act intelligently.

Thanks Liz.

It was awesome when Liz asked my business partner Toby Jenkins and me to explain to the audience how we ran our “Native Genius” activity at Bluewire.

Toby & me during Liz's native genius activity

If you’d like to read more Toby has actually written a post about it over at his blog.  How to Discover “Native Genius” – Taking action on Multipliers.

And stay tuned for Toby’s follow up post explaining how we’ve put people’s native genius to work.

You can follow @LizWiseman on Twitter or check out MultipliersBook.com

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Leadership

Leaders, Multipliers and the Brisbane yacht siege

Leadership is a topic that I love reading about and the more I learn, the more misconceptions I discover.   Multipliers by Liz Wiseman is a brilliant book that is definitely worthy of discussion.

Multipliers

Multipliers explores the difference between leaders who bring out the best in others and amplify the smarts in their team (multipliers) and leaders who drain intelligence and energy from those around them and always need to be the smartest person in the room (diminishers).

The misconception that leaders ‘must have all the answers’,  ‘make all the decisions’ and ‘be the smartest’ is perhaps my biggest discovery from the book! The best leaders do none of these – but they allow their team to figure it out!

I personally recommend reading Multipliers if you are a leader of any group – family, company, sporting team or non for profit.

I actually finished the book in perfect time as I had the opportunity to be a panelist on the topic on Ethical Leadership at an event run by AIESEC and CPA Australia.

Photo courtesy of Courier Mail

As a side note, the event was literally across the road from the Eagle St Yacht siege, so I suspect this may had an impact on the numbers in attendance!

What is ethical leadership?

My immediately response was that being a leader is no longer about you — it is about your team. And getting the most from (and for) your team.

Plus knowing what I learnt from Multipliers, I answered that leaders have an ethical responsibility to get the very best from their team.  You need to demand people’s best work, but then you need to get out of their way so they can deliver.
Rather than ‘provide the answers’  your role is to harness the intelligence of the team so they can figure out the answers.  Afterall, the leader is seldom the smartest & NEVER smarter than the collective intelligence!

What challenges to leaders face?
Getting the right people in their team.  Skills can be trained but cultural fit cannot.  Rather than teach people your company culture, hire people who already have those traits in the personality.

Your organisation’s culture is a direct reflection of your core values.  Once you live and breath your core values, all decisions your team makes can be framed against those values.  When faced with a challenge or opportunity, you can simply ask, “is this aligned with our core values”? If yes, there’s no problem.  But if they are the misaligned, you may have a problem that needs some attention!

This is simple, but certainly not easy!

What tips tips can you give to aspiring leaders?
1. Talk less (even when you know the answers)
2. Ask more questions
3. Shine the light on others,
4. Be intellectually curious,
5. Demand people’s best work & then get out of their way!

In this interview with Verne Harnish, Liz Wiseman explains the notion of a Multiplier in more detail.

How would you have responded?  What are your leadership tips?

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Leadership

It’s uncomfortable leading a tribe

Seth Godin always triggers many thought provoking ideas in his books and blog posts.   In Tribes, Seth addresses leadership and “why we need you to lead us.”

The book has made me realise that leadership is up to you – the individual – it’s not something that is bestowed upon you.

Tribes by Seth Godin
Tribes by Seth Godin

If you’re waiting to it to be handed to you on a platter, then really you’re a follower, not a leader.  And that is fine.  Leaders needs followers afterall, but not blind followers. The best followers are eager and are prepared to challenge the leader!

It’s also apparent that you may choose to be a follower in one aspect of your life and a leader in another – so it’s neither right nor wrong, whatever you decide.

On page 55, Seth talks about ‘discomfort’ being the reason leadership is scarce.

This scarcity makes leadership valuable. If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile.  In other words, if everyone could do it, they would and it wouldn’t be worth much.

It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers.
It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that may fail.
It’s  uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.
It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.

When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place a leader is needed.  If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain that you’re not reaching your potential as a leader.

I wholeheartedly agree with his comments here.  Doing uncomfortable things is a very good way to describe the constant state of running a small business!

The things I find most uncomfortable are:

1. Making a call as soon as I know there’s a problem with an employee not fitting our Bluewire culture (aka helping them find a more appropriate employment opportunity elsewhere.)

2. Politely refusing to work with prospective clients that don’t fall within our Hedgehog concept.

3.  Resolving “blow-ups” that are outside my control (eg. supplier failure) yet entirely my responsibility (as business owner).

However uncomfortable I find doing these things, the short term pain is always worth the long term gain!

Business Speaker: If you’d like me to speak at your event or write an article for your blog or website, please give the Bluewire Media office a call on 1300 258 394 a call.

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