Liz Wiseman Quotes

When leaders teach, they invest in their people’s ability to solve and avoid problems in the future.

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 ST. EXUPERY

The Diminisher is a Micromanager who jumps in and out. The Multiplier is an Investor who gives others ownership and full accountability.

Perhaps these leaders understood that the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.

Multipliers invoke each person’s unique intelligence and create an atmosphere of genius—innovation, productive effort, and collective intelligence.

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.

the leader’s job is to put other people on stage.

Multipliers aren’t “feel-good” managers. They look into people and find capability, and they want to access all of it. They utilize people to their fullest. They see a lot, so they expect a lot.

Don’t just identify the problem; find a solution.

It is better to debate a decision without settling it than settling a decision without debating it. JOSEPH JOUBERT

The highest quality of thinking cannot emerge without learning. Learning can’t happen without mistakes.

failure is not an outcome, but involves a lack of trying—not stretching yourself far enough out of your comfort zone and attempting to be more than you were the day before.

To lead on purpose, we must understand how we diminish by accident.

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.

Those who work in a fun environment have greater productivity, interpersonal effectiveness, and call in sick less often.

Diminishers underutilize people and leave capability on the table.

Multipliers increase intelligence in people and in organizations. People actually get smarter and more capable around them.

speaking the language of multiplication (that is, higher growth by better utilizing the resources that already exist).

Finding people’s native genius and then labeling it is a direct approach to drawing more intelligence from them.

Good leaders don’t just give people more work, they give them harder work—a bigger challenge that prompts deep learning and growth.

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.

Mistakes are an essential part of progress.

Stress is created when people are expected to produce outcomes that are beyond their control.

MULTIPLIERS: These leaders are genius makers who bring out the intelligence in others. They build collective, viral intelligence in organizations.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. WOODROW WILSON

Your job is to unleash the full potential of each person on your team.

so many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.

The Diminisher is a Decision Maker. The Multiplier is a Debate Maker.

Victor Hugo once said, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Impact Players Wear Opportunity Goggles The approach taken by Impact Players isn’t just marginally different, it is radically different—and

Do the Job That’s Needed.

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.

The Diminisher is an Empire Builder. The Multiplier is a Talent Magnet.

A 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.

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

Leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe: 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.

Multipliers liberate people from the oppressive forces within corporate hierarchy. They liberate 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.

THE FOUR PRACTICES OF THE TALENT MAGNET Among the Multipliers we studied in our research, we found four active practices that together catalyze and sustain this cycle of attraction. 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. Let

Yes, certain leaders amplify intelligence. These leaders, whom we have come to call Multipliers, create collective, viral intelligence in organizations. Other leaders act as Diminishers and deplete the organization of crucial intelligence and capability. But what is it that these Multipliers do? What is it that Multipliers do differently than Diminishers?

When people work with Multipliers, they hold nothing back. They offer the very best of their thinking, creativity, and ideas. They give more than their jobs require and volunteer their discretionary effort, energy, and resourcefulness. They actively search for more valuable ways to contribute. They hold themselves to the highest standards. They give 100 percent of their abilities to the work--and then some.

THE 5 DISCIPLINES OF THE MULTIPLIERS Diminisher The Empire Builder: Hoards resources and underutilizes talent The Tyrant: Creates a tense environment that suppresses people’s thinking and capability The Know-It-All: Gives directives that showcase how much they know The Decision Maker: Makes centralized, abrupt decisions that confuse the organization The Micro Manager: Drives results through their personal involvement Multiplier The Talent Magnet: Attracts talented people and uses them at their highest point of contribution The Liberator: Creates an intense environment that requires people’s best thinking and work The Challenger: Defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch The Debate Maker: Drives sound decisions through rigorous debate

The various ways of creating a culture of innovation that we’ve talked about so far are greatly influenced by the leaders at the top. Leaders can’t dictate culture, but they can nurture it. They can generate the right conditions for creativity and innovation. Metaphorically, they can provide the heat and light and moisture and nutrients for a creative culture to blossom and grow. They can focus the best efforts of talented individuals to build innovative, successful groups. In our work at IDEO, we have been lucky enough to meet frequently with CEOs and visionary leaders from both the private and public sectors. Each has his or her own unique style, of course, but the best all have an ability to identify and activate the capabilities of people on their teams. This trait goes far beyond mere charisma or even intelligence. Certain leaders have a knack for nurturing people around them in a way that enables them to be at their best. One way to describe those leaders is to say they are “multipliers,” a term we picked up from talking to author and executive advisor Liz Wiseman. Drawing on a background in organizational behavior and years of experience as a global human resources executive at Oracle Corporation, Liz interviewed more than 150 leaders on four continents to research her book Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Liz observes that all leaders lie somewhere on a continuum between diminishers, who exercise tight control in a way that underutilizes their team’s creative talents, and multipliers, who set challenging goals and then help employees achieve the kind of extraordinary results that they themselves may not have known they were capable of.

Jae reflected on the leader’s role: “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. This is the way of the Diminisher. They jump in, save the day, and drive results through their personal involvement. When leaders return the pen, they cement the accountability for action where it should be. This creates organizations that are free from the nagging need of the leader’s rescue.

SUPERSIZE IT—Try sizing someone’s job the way you shop for shoes for a young child. How does the wise parent decide what size to buy? They start by measuring the child’s foot, and then they buy a pair that’s a size too big. And how does the parent respond when their child tries on those shoes, awkwardly parading down the store aisle, complaining that the shoes feel weird and too big and that their feet are flopping around in them? The parent reassures them, “Don’t worry, you’ll grow into them.” 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.

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;

the role of leader has shifted, too—moving away from a model where the manager knows, directs, and tells and toward one where the leader sees, provokes, asks, and unleashes the capabilities of others.

As a general rule, if you aren’t working on your boss’s top three priorities, you are not working on the agenda.

Derek’s navy experience illustrates that a change in command can often cause a change in capability.

Contributors see themselves as position holders. They do the work they’re given and stay within the boundaries of their role but risk becoming so myopic that they lose sight of the overall strategy and veer off the agenda.

managers want people to help them find solutions and foster teamwork.

value decoys—professional habits or beliefs that seem useful and appear appreciated but erode more value than they create.

the Impact Player was “someone I would want to be trapped on a desert island with” compared to another employee, who is “someone I would have to help survive.

As problems become messier and mutate faster than a formal organization can respond, agility must come from the culture

He didn’t set the direction; he ensured the direction was set.

Leaders rooted in the logic of multiplication believe: 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. For example, when Apple Inc. needed to achieve rapid growth with flat resources in one division, they didn’t expand their sales force.

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.

Where others may spot a single bee but fear an entire swarm, the Impact Player is figuring out how to build a hive and harvest the honey.

Impact Players see everyday challenges through an opportunity lens while others view the same challenges through a threat lens. This fundamental difference in outlook separates Impact Players from others.

Theodore Rubin captured this orientation when he said, “The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril (Ceguera Voluntaria: Por qué pasamos por alto lo obvio a nuestro propio riesgo) de Margaret Heffernan y Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (Multiplicadores: Cómo es que los mejores líderes hacen más inteligentes a todos) de Liz Wiseman.

While the ripple effect of a single leader can be felt across an organization, no leader leads in isolation. Each leader is part of a system, and it takes leaders at all levels to build an environment where intelligence is deeply utilized.

From the anthropological perspective, culture is “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place or time.” 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

In 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.

He’ll outstretch all your capabilities to make it happen. He is highly demanding, but you feel great. “You know you are signing up for something that will challenge you on a daily basis for many years to come. You will challenge yourself and all your capabilities. “Exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, gratifying.”3 “He’s a big source of energy. He is a source of power and a tail-wind for what we do.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. John Quincy Adams   I

When you let others coach you, you learn fast.

Smart managers need to make sure rookies have a regular stream of feedback and information to help them calibrate their performance and the connection points to stay on track. And,

And, if experienced managers are truly smart, they will ensure that they, too, are receiving the same sorts of feedback to help them optimize their own performance.

Most people never ask. And that’s what separates sometimes the people that do things from the people that just dream about them.

In times of tumult and transition the best leaders know when it is time to stop, unlearn, and relearn.

Those willing to leave the comfort zone of their expertise have the opportunity to climb a learning curve, forge new ground, and reap the promise of growth. As

Certainty is one of the weakest positions in life. Curiosity is one of the most powerful. Certainty prohibits learning, curiosity fuels change.

When leaders offer a right-size challenge, people contribute quickly, build confidence, and are readied for bigger challenges.

Rookie smarts isn’t an age or an experience level; it is state of mind—one that is available to those willing to unlearn and relearn. It is also a choice. As

Millennials have just been too impatient to wait and too empowered by technology not to speak out. What’s good for the Millennials is good for the mainstream. 2.

As we become accustomed to the trappings of success, we begin to defend our position and protect our stance. Resource

Learning how to pivot between savvy veteran in some situations to rookie in others gives you the agility to climb new mountains and see new vistas.

The best leaders understand that the joy of work is in the striving, not in arriving at the top of a ladder.

What we know might actually mask what we don’t know and impede our ability to learn and perform. All

As Epictetus said centuries ago, “It is impossible to begin to learn what one thinks one already knows.” This

Sometimes the less you know, the more you can see. Driving

Not knowing perceived limits enables rookies to score more often, and it also allows them to score bigger gains.

Multipliers provide a starting point, but not a complete solution. By offering a starting point, they generate more questions than answers.

A leader is someone who helps others lead.

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.

We judge others by their doings, but ourselves by our intentions. EDWARD WIGGLESWORTH

When leaders define clear ownership and invest in others, they have sown the seeds of success and earned the right to hold people accountable.

As Stephen M. R. Covey says, “Trust, once lost can indeed be rebuilt.

Trust gets built in layers, brick by brick.

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.

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.

Multipliers use humor to create comfort and to spark the natural energy and intelligence of others.

Multipliers leverage their resources.

Multipliers extract all of the capability from people.

Multipliers get at least two times more from people.

when people work with Multipliers, they hold nothing back. They offer the very best of their thinking, creativity, and ideas. They give more than their jobs require and volunteer their discretionary effort, energy, and resourcefulness. They actively search for more valuable ways to contribute. They hold themselves to the highest standards. They give 100 percent of their abilities to the work—and then some.

intelligence itself can grow.

resource leverage creates competitive advantage.