In Multipliers, author Liz Wiseman and researcher Greg McKeown tackle the question: How do leaders perceive and use intelligence? For two years, they studied 150 leaders in four continents by interviewing them, assessing them quantitatively (using a survey that addressed 48 leadership practices), and talking to their team members.
Wiseman and McKeown concluded that there are two types of leaders: Multipliers and Diminishers. Below are descriptions of each type, as well as outlines of their behaviors for you to emulate (in the case of Multipliers) or avoid (in the case of Diminishers):
Multipliers use their intelligence to bring out the intelligence and ability of everyone else. They do this by assuming that everyone is:
Talented. Multipliers assume that if they can figure out what someone is naturally good at, they can guide this person towards projects and roles in which they can contribute their fullest. Multipliers remove obstacles (such as Diminishers) that are getting in the way of people using their genius.
Full of ideas. Multipliers assume that people have to choose to do their best work and come up with good ideas—performance can’t be forcibly squeezed out of them. They encourage people to willingly give their all by creating a safe yet intense atmosphere, expecting the best of people, addressing mistakes (especially their own), and demanding people learn from failures.
Knowledgeable. Multipliers assume everyone can improve if encouraged and challenged. As a result, Multipliers can pursue any project because they believe their team can do anything anyone knows (or learns) how to do, not just things the Multiplier personally knows how to do. Multipliers challenge people to learn and create execution plans, and they convince people that they can achieve what seems impossible.
Capable of making decisions. Multipliers assume that two (and more) heads are better than one and consult as many voices as possible when making important decisions. They explain the debate’s question and why it’s important, prepare debaters, monitor the debate, and are clear about the decision-making workflow.
Independent. Multipliers assume people are intelligent enough to figure things out without them. They coach, help people learn, and provide resources and support, but they leave accountability with the team and never take over.
Multipliers access 70-100% of their team members’ capabilities because their assumptions push and inspire their team members to contribute as much as they possibly can, including their discretionary energy and effort (energy and effort beyond what’s strictly required to do their job). (In comparison, on average, managers access 66% of their people’s capability.) Additionally, Multipliers can actually grow people’s intelligence. In surveys, some people reported giving more than 100%—which they had to increase their intelligence to do—when working with Multipliers.
Diminishers rely on their own intelligence. They assume that most people aren’t very smart or capable and need a leader’s help to get anything done. They assume that most people are:
Untalented. Because Diminishers assume people need their direction to get anything done, they don’t use or develop talent. Instead, they collect it, slot it into an organizational chart, and use it to make themselves look good.
Full of bad ideas. Diminishers assume that they’re the only ones with good ideas and as a result, they’re disinterested in other people’s ideas and demand people follow theirs. They’re judgemental and assume they can increase performance and generate good ideas in their team by creating stressful, critical, high-pressure environments. (In fact, this kind of environment stifles performance—team members spend all their energy trying to avoid upsetting them, instead of directing this energy towards their work.)
Unintelligent. Diminishers assume that their job is to be the most knowledgeable person on their team and have all the answers, since everyone around them is unintelligent. They show off their knowledge, test others’ knowledge, micromanage, and become bottlenecks. If they don’t know something, then they go learn it themselves because they don’t trust anyone else to already know or be capable of learning it. More often, though, Diminishers tend to only pursue things they already know, which limits the organization’s progress and innovation.
Incapable of making decisions. Diminishers assume that most people aren’t worth hearing from and make quick decisions by themselves or with the help of only a few others. This limits their ability to capitalize on the organization’s collective intelligence (usually the people closest to the issue aren’t consulted) and overworks the decision-makers. Additionally, they cut debates short or prioritize their opinion to come to decisions faster.
Dependent. Diminishers assume no one’s smart enough to figure things out without their help, so when they see something going wrong and they know how to fix it, they take over and “rescue” people. Sometimes, they do this randomly—then, after taking over a task, when it becomes boring or deprioritized, they abandon it.
Diminishers access only 20-50% of their team members’ capabilities—half as much as Multipliers—because their behavior drains other people’s energy and shuts them down.
Now that you’ve learned about the advantages of multiplication and the disadvantages of diminishment, the question is: Can you become a Multiplier? The answer is a resounding yes. Multiplier and Diminisher aren’t either-or identities; they’re two extremes on a continuum. Most leaders fall somewhere in between and can move in either direction, and even the strongest Diminisher can change.
To aid your transformation into a Multiplier, use the following five accelerators to speed up your adoption of the behaviors outlined above:
Accelerator #1: Change your assumptions about your team’s intelligence and capability. Behavior stems from assumptions. (Conscious assumptions are stored in the same part of the brain that stores unconscious habits.) Therefore, you can’t just copy the actions of Multipliers; you need to change your thinking to make the habits really stick.
Accelerator #2: Strengthen your strengths and weaken your weaknesses. You don’t need to be good at everything to be a Multiplier. Instead, strengthen an area you’re good at and neutralize one you’re bad at.
Accelerator #3: Do 30-day experiments. You have to practice Multiplier behaviors before they become habit, and your practice will be most effective if you experiment with individual behaviors for short periods. This is because you’ll quickly receive feedback and get regular opportunities to reassess, and small successes will encourage you to keep experimenting.
Accelerator #4: Ask someone else to choose your experiment. Someone else can more objectively identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Accelerator #5: Anticipate difficulty. While the Multiplier concepts are easy to understand, they’re not as easy to implement. Accept that changing habits is hard, give yourself permission to make mistakes, and seek support from colleagues.
Interestingly, most Diminishers don’t diminish on purpose—they have good intentions and don’t realize how their assumptions and behaviors affect others.
Likely, you have some inadvertent diminishing tendencies you’re not aware of. There are three steps to uncovering these tendencies:
If you see your own intentions in the following list, reflect on the unintended consequences and try the suggestions for avoiding diminishment:
Intention #1: Inspiration. To inspire your team, you might share your ideas or vision of the future.
The consequences: People stop thinking for themselves because you’re doing it for them.
To avoid diminishing, keep ideas to yourself until you want people to pursue them. Additionally, outline a strategy but let everyone else flesh out the details, encourage people to use their talents, ask leading questions, give people ownership, and challenge your people to think.
Intention #2: Rescue. To keep your team safe, you might step in when something goes wrong, or even hide problems from your team.
The consequences: People become dependent, don’t experience ownership and accountability, and don’t learn from their mistakes. They also get an unrealistic sense of their own abilities because they always get good results, even if it was the manager and not them who was responsible for the outcome.
To avoid diminishing, you should let some of the small dangers through so people can learn to deal with adversity. Additionally, challenge your people, delegate, ask questions, and give people ownership.
Intention #3: Perfection. To encourage high standards, you might set the bar as your own performance, or point out picky errors in people’s work.
The consequences: People step back and watch rather than emulating the leader’s performance (they assume that because the leader is doing something, it’s an executive task and beyond their scope), or they become so discouraged by criticism or the distance between themselves and the leader that they disengage and give up.
To avoid diminishing, you should be clear about the criteria for excellence and completeness and check your own progress so you don’t get too far ahead of anyone else. Additionally, be clear about when failure is okay and when it's not, talk about mistakes, ask questions, delegate, and challenge people.
Intention #4: Energy and optimism. To motivate people, you display your energy and believe you and your team can achieve anything.
The consequences: People become exhausted and think the leader is disconnected from reality or won’t accept failure.
To avoid diminishing, you should express your optimism or energy only once and encourage others to talk, and acknowledge when tasks are challenging. Additionally, encourage others to use their talent, talk less, ask questions, delegate, be clear about when failure is acceptable, spark debates, and talk about mistakes.
Intention #5: Agility. To create an agile organization, you might respond quickly to emails and problems that are actually other people’s responsibilities.
The consequences: People become less responsive because they know you’ll finish things before they can even get started.
To avoid diminishing, you should wait a certain amount of time (perhaps 24 hours) before responding to emails that are someone else’s responsibility. Additionally, ask questions and spark debates.
Take one or both of the following quizzes:
Ask the people you lead the following questions:
Even once you’ve gotten a handle on your accidental diminishing tendencies and worked at improving them, you’ll still face challenges—most of us aren’t the only leaders in our organizations and have to work with others who may be Diminishers.
The good news is, there are three strategies for surviving (or even transforming) Diminishers:
You can use your knowledge to do so much more than just get rid of Diminishers and become a Multiplier yourself—you can create a Multiplier culture in which every member of an organization holds Multiplier assumptions and engages in Multiplier behaviors.
There are five elements of culture to apply Multiplier assumptions, behaviors, and ideas to:
Element #1: Vocabulary. In strong cultures, everyone in the culture uses the same definition for words and phrases. This allows them to name, and therefore discuss, good and bad behaviors openly and concretely. To develop Multiplier vocabulary: Discuss Multipliers. Then, ask leaders to take the Accidental Diminisher quiz, honestly discuss their weaknesses with team members, and celebrate their Multiplier moments.
Element #2: Conduct. In strong cultures, every member of the culture responds a certain way in a certain situation. They learn the appropriate response from the leader and it becomes instinct. To change the default conduct to Multiplier behavior, you need to make people aware of their Diminisher behavior and then encourage them to consciously choose Multiplier behavior until it becomes unconscious. To do this: Tell everyone in the organization about Multiplier assumptions and train people in Multiplier practices using workshops and simulations.
Element #3: Convictions. Conviction means every member of a culture agrees on what is true and shares assumptions. When it comes to multiplication, the goal is for everyone to know what makes a good leader. To develop this conviction: Define the expectations that a leader’s primary job is to multiply others and help them to give 100%.
Element #4: Myths. In a strong culture, everyone admires the same people based on their accomplishments, behavior, or traits. When it comes to business, the role models should be Multipliers, and their heroics should inspire others to copy their behavior. To mythicize Multipliers: Publicly celebrate Multiplier moments. Additionally, assess how well leaders use the Multiplier practices, which will encourage them to improve to heroic levels.
Element #5: Customs. In a strong culture, everyone adheres to the same customs and behaves the same way. In the context of multiplication, customs mean that the Multiplier concepts spill into every area of the business, from financial incentives to operational practices. To strengthen this facet of culture: Run a pilot program to implement a particular Multiplier practice, and connect Multiplier practices with existing business practices.
In Multipliers, author Liz Wiseman and researcher Greg McKeown tackle the question: How do leaders perceive and use intelligence? For two years, they studied 150 leaders in four continents by interviewing them, assessing them quantitatively (using a survey that addressed 48 leadership practices), and talking to their team members.
Wiseman and McKeown concluded that there are two types of leaders:
In this summary we’ll cover:
Multipliers was first published in 2010. This summary is of the 2017 revised and updated edition, which includes new examples, an expanded FAQ, and workouts.
Multipliers was originally organized in nine chapters and five appendices. We've reorganized the chapter order to be more coherent and logical. As a reference, here's a mapping of our chapter numbers to the original book:
(Appendix E is woven throughout the summary.)
Multipliers use their intelligence to bring out the intelligence and ability of everyone else. They do this by assuming that:
Multipliers access 70-100% of their team members’ capabilities because their assumptions push and inspire people to contribute as much as they possibly can, including their discretionary energy and effort (energy and effort beyond what’s strictly required to do their job). (In comparison, on average, managers access 66% of their people’s capability.)
Additionally, Multipliers can actually grow people’s intelligence. In surveys, some people reported giving more than 100%—which they had to increase their intelligence to do—when working with Multipliers.
Most Multipliers have the following traits:
1. They’re tough and have high expectations. They know that people have a lot of untapped potential and expect them to live up to it. While people the author studied who worked with Multipliers all had positive experiences, this wasn't because the managers were “feel-good” or friendly. In fact, it was because workers found it satisfying to reach their potential.
2. They still use their own skills and intelligence. Multipliers don’t downplay or suppress their own abilities to amplify others’. They use every available resource, including themselves.
3. They have a sense of humor. Multipliers can laugh at themselves and self-deprecate, possibly because they’re not insecure about their own intelligence (their assumptions apply to themselves as well).
4. They possess intellectual curiosity. They value imagination and see others as a source of learning. They ask a lot of questions, which is the most effective Multiplier behavior. (We’ll cover the other Multiplier behaviors in later chapters.)
George, a divisional manager at Intel, was a Multiplier. He made everyone on the team feel smart and his team members said that working under him was the high point of their careers. One of his team members, Vikram, said that George got 100% out of him. Every business George ran was profitable.
Diminishers rely on their own intelligence. They assume that:
Diminishers access only 20-50% of their team members’ capabilities—half as much as Multipliers—because their behavior drains other people’s energy and shuts them down.
Diminishing is unsustainable—it’s an expensive waste of resources. The author believes Diminishers will eventually go extinct, either because they get fired or because they change their ways.
Diminishers have a huge variety of traits ranging from lacking a sense of humor, to inability to consider different points of view, to overenthusiasm. The traits are so wide-ranging because, interestingly, most Diminishers don’t diminish on purpose. Many Diminishers have good intentions and don’t realize how their assumptions and behaviors affect others. Many of them weren’t trained as leaders and were promoted to management due to their skills or intelligence, so when they took the position, they thought they were supposed to be the smartest and that the people they managed were below them. Or, they’d spent so much time around Diminishers that they unconsciously started to mimic them.
Fred (Shortform name), like George Schneer, was a divisional manager at Intel. Unlike George, he was a Diminisher. Fred had initially started as a scientist before being promoted into management, and he was very intelligent. However, he didn’t know how to amplify his team’s intelligence and relied on his own. Vikram worked for Fred after working for George and said that Fred only got around 50% out of him. He also said he never wanted to work for him again.
As we’ve learned, Multipliers get more from people. This is important in the following domains:
When faced with a problem or pressure to grow, companies have two options, the second of which involves multiplying and is most effective:
The addition approach involves adding new resources instead of leveraging existing ones. (Shortform example: If you need 1000 units of effort to achieve something and you currently have 10 people giving 50% of effort (50 units each, so 500 units in total), you hire another five people giving 50% to reach 1000 units.)
People who subscribe to the principle of addition believe that their team is overworked, particularly their best workers, and thus must already be using all their effort—so they need more people to get something done. In fact, people can be overworked while not using all their effort. Diminishers exhaust people even though they only get half capacity out of them—burnout is caused less by working too hard and more by doing the same thing over and over without seeing any meaningful result.
Addition is costly because companies have to pay extra salaries.
The multiplication approach involves leveraging existing resources. (Shortform example: If you need 1000 units of effort to achieve something and you currently have 10 people giving 50% of effort (50 units each, and 500 units in total), you get all of those people to give 100% (100 units) of effort to reach 1000 units.)
People who subscribe to the principle of multiplication believe that most people are being underutilized but can access their full potential under a good leader.
Multiplication is a competitive advantage, especially today when many businesses simultaneously face new problems and resource limitations—such as hiring caps—and need to find ways to do more with the same number of people.
Example: Tim Cook
When Tim Cook was COO of Apple, he asked the sales department to grow revenue without hiring anyone else. The sales department brainstormed for a week and found a way to make better use of what they already had. They asked for more effort from industry experts and the best salespeople, and they changed their sales model. Multiplying worked—their year-over-year growth was in the double digits.
Multiplication is important for individuals and organizations, but it’s also more broadly applicable to humanity as a whole. Our world has a lot of problems, such as failing schools, bad parenting, government collapse, climate change, and so on. To fix these issues, we need to harness as much collective intelligence as possible.
There are some key differences between Multipliers and Diminishers.
Who do you know who might be a Multiplier? Why would you characterize them as such? (Consider their assumptions, traits, whether they subscribe to addition or multiplication, and how much they get out of their people.)
Who do you know who might be a Diminisher? Why would you characterize them as such?
Do you think you’re more of a Multiplier or more of Diminisher? Why?
Now that you’ve learned about all the advantages of multiplication and the disadvantages of diminishment, the question is: Can you become a Multiplier? The answer is a resounding yes. Multiplier and Diminisher aren’t either-or identities; they’re two extremes on a continuum. Most leaders fall somewhere in between and can move in either direction, and even the strongest Diminisher can change.
To become a Multiplier, you’ll have to adopt certain behaviors, which we'll discuss in the next part. However, before discussing these behaviors, it's important to note that you'll learn them much faster if you make a conscious effort to change and employ the following five accelerators:
To become a Multiplier, you can’t just find a Multiplier and copy what they do. Instead, you have to start thinking like a Multiplier and adopt the assumptions that people are intelligent, capable, and have the potential to improve. This is for two reasons:
Imagine that you’ve been asked to appoint someone from your team to a cross-divisional task force and you recommended Jyanthi.
If you were a Diminisher, you might approach this scenario as follows: Assuming Jyanthi won’t be able to figure anything out herself, you use her as an information-gatherer. After every meeting, she reports back to you, and then you tell her what to do. She has no authority, so she doesn’t contribute to meetings and avoids influencing decisions. Ultimately, this will result in the task force leader suspecting your division isn’t engaged.
If you were a Multiplier, you might approach this scenario as follows: You tell Jyanthi you appointed her because you think she’s smart and her particular skills would benefit the task force. You tell her that the job is a big responsibility, but you think she can handle it and that you’ll be available to help. Ultimately, this will result in the task force leader thinking that your team is talented and in Jyanthi’s learning and engagement.
There are five disciplines involved with multiplication (covered in Part 2), but you don’t need to master all five of them to be a Multiplier. According to the author’s research, most Multipliers had mastered only three disciplines and were neutral (in other words, not in the Diminisher range) in the others.
Therefore, to become a Multiplier, it’s most effective to:
Your practice of Multiplier behaviors will be most effective if you experiment with individual behaviors for 30-day periods. This is for three reasons:
We’ll cover some predetermined experiment options in Part 2. When experimenting, choose a workout that will boost a strength or reduce a weakness, as discussed in accelerator #2. Always write down the results of your experiment so you can refer back to and learn from them.
Boost the effectiveness of accelerator #3 by asking for help with experiments from someone with an outside perspective—someone else can more objectively identify your strengths and weaknesses, and more easily see when your intentions aren’t having the desired effect.
When asking a colleague to choose an experiment for you, ask them to consider:
While the Multiplier concepts are easy to understand, they’re not as easy to implement. For example, replacing assumptions and habits takes hard work and resilience.
There are two preparations you can make so that you’re better positioned to weather difficulties:
1. Accept that changing habits is hard. To solidify a new habit, you have to repeat it many times before it’s wired into your brain. Until that rewiring is complete, your brain will subconsciously drive you towards your old habits. This can be demotivating, so be kind to yourself and permit yourself to make mistakes. Regularly remind yourself of:
2. Communicate with your colleagues. Telling your colleagues you’re trying to change will reassure them that your behavior isn’t erratic or irrational. Additionally, they can provide encouragement and support, which will strengthen your commitment to change.
(Shortform note: Read our summary of The Power of Habit to learn more about breaking habits.)
In Part 1, we learned that it’s both possible and desirable to become a Multiplier. In Part 2, we’ll learn how to do this by studying and learning the practices of Multipliers and Diminishers.
Interestingly, Multipliers and Diminishers do many of the same things—both hire intelligent people, are customer-driven, and are business-savvy. However, there are five key areas in which they differ. We’ll cover the first—talent—in this chapter, and the others in subsequent chapters.
(Many of the practices in this and subsequent chapters have workouts associated with them. While doing the workouts, consider:
Multipliers and Diminishers initially handle talent in the same way—both of them try to attract the best and brightest. After hiring people, however, their approaches differ significantly.
Talent Multipliers assume that if they can figure out what someone is naturally good at, they can guide this person to projects and roles in which they can contribute their fullest and improve.
Multipliers create a cycle of attraction:
Multipliers can boost anyone’s talent, not just A players’, because they know that while everyone has different levels of ability, everyone can improve.
Talent Multipliers use four practices to improve the performance of others:
Multipliers are open-minded about intelligence so they look for it beyond the obvious places. They:
1. Acknowledge that there are different kinds of intelligence. IQ is what most people think of when it comes to intelligence. Some people are good at the skills that can be measured by standardized tests, such as math or verbal reasoning, but others are good at being creative, identifying problems, or finding innovative solutions.
2. Look anywhere and everywhere for talent. Multipliers ignore organizational charts. They don’t look at whether someone is completing her job description; they look at how they might use her to get things done. Multipliers believe that if they can find someone’s genius, they can use that person—even if that person doesn’t technically report to them—because people like to use their genius.
Additionally, Multipliers look for talent outside of their organization—they look for new grads and people who work for the competition.
A “native” genius is a skill someone can do very well without expending any effort or having to be prompted. Using this talent is so easy and satisfying people will use it voluntarily.
Multipliers use two steps to connect someone to their native genius:
1. Identify it. They ask what their target:
To practice this technique, look for native genius in a small sample by focusing on just one person on your team, ideally, someone you have trouble working with or whom you don’t think is smart. Then, once you’re more comfortable spotting genius, assemble your management team and identify every team member’s genius together.
When it comes to bottom performers, accept that not everyone will reach the same level, but everyone has some form of genius and everyone can improve. To multiply bottom performers:
2. Tell the person about their native genius and help them name it. Because native genius is so effortless, many people don’t know what theirs is. Multipliers consult individuals and the wider team about what to name their genius so they can start using it more deliberately.
Multipliers help people find a way to use their genius in two ways. They:
1. Put them in a position or on a project that requires their genius. This doesn’t have to be part of a formal job description—Multipliers sometimes assign someone to a project or responsibility that’s outside of their job requirements.
Workout #1: Assess the genius of everyone on your team (expect everyone’s to be different) and choose two people who you think are ready for a challenge. Give them some responsibilities that are just outside their current abilities, acknowledging that the project or role might feel too big initially, but that you’re confident they’ll grow into it. Continue to maintain space between their skills and the projects you assign you.
Then, do the same for everyone on the team.
(Shortform note: These workouts will come up throughout the book, and we’ve boxed them so they're easier to refer back to.)
2. Publicly acknowledge their genius. This reinforces your belief and confidence in their talent.
Workout #2: Get your whole team involved in the search for native genius. Ask everyone to try to identify the native genius of everyone else. Then, bring everyone together and discuss each person, one at a time, talking about what they think their genius is, what other people think it is, and how it could be used.
In addition to supporting people’s genius, Multipliers remove roadblocks to their success. Often, these roadblocks are other people in an organization. Multipliers:
1. Remove non-team players and Diminishers. Even if someone is very smart, if they diminish those around them, the overall effect is negative. (For example, if there are ten people on a team that only work at 50% because they’re being diminished by one person, they’re completing the equivalent of five people’s work. If a Multiplier removes the Diminisher and the remaining nine people work at 100%, they’re completing the equivalent of nine people’s work.) Removing someone doesn’t necessarily mean firing them—removing them from a leadership position and isolating them so that they can’t do damage or produce more Diminishers is effective, too.
2. Avoid being a roadblock. Sometimes, the leader is the person getting in the way of people using their genius—for example, a leader might be overinvolved in other people’s work or try to retain them after they’ve outgrown their role or even the company.
To practice this technique, when someone needs to leave your organization to keep developing their talent, encourage them to go. Support their quest for new challenges by recommending new avenues, writing reference letters, and celebrating their success when they leave.
Talent Diminishers assume people need their direction to get anything done. They don’t use or develop talent; instead, they collect it and use it to make themselves look good—for example, by taking credit for other people’s work and accomplishments.
They create a cycle of decline:
Diminishers don’t develop people; they simply collect them and then show them off in an organizational structure in which everyone reports to them (the Diminisher).
(Note: Diminishers’ names and company names have been changed to protect their privacy.)
Diminishers don’t allow people to move beyond their job descriptions, so only one person is responsible for each area and there’s no collaboration. Their meetings tend to be one-on-one, or in larger meetings, people report on their areas rather than work together.
Diminishers don’t develop talent. Sometimes, this is because it never occurs to them to do so; other times, this is so they can keep the spotlight on themselves. Unlike Multipliers, they don’t clear the path of obstacles to people’s success, such as non-team players.
Like their handling of talent, Multipliers and Diminishers have some common ground when it comes to ideas—both of them expect people to make mistakes. However, they respond to these mistakes very differently. Diminishers come down hard on whoever fails and shut down their ideas.
Multipliers, on the other hand, know that the best ideas come from learning, and the only way to learn is to make mistakes and fail. Therefore, they encourage people to come up with new ideas and avenues by creating an intense atmosphere, and they encourage people to explore these ideas by creating a safe atmosphere in which it's okay to fail.
Idea Multipliers assume that people have to choose to do their best work and come up with good ideas—performance can’t be forcibly squeezed out of them. They encourage people to willingly give their all by creating a safe yet intense atmosphere using the practices below. (Safety and intensity may seem contradictory, but in fact, it’s possible and necessary to implement both to create an environment in which ideas multiply.)
Idea Multipliers create a comfortable, safe environment by giving people freedom. They:
1. Limit their own participation. Multipliers let their team take charge and don’t interrupt them. In addition to making space for others, this also amplifies Multipliers’ own ideas—when they talk less, the ideas they do put forward are notable and more meaningful.
When you do need to participate or share an opinion with someone, let them know how strongly you feel about it by categorizing it as soft or hard. Soft opinions are simply things for someone to consider and don’t need to be implemented. Hard opinions you want to see realized.
2. Listen 80% of the time. Listening allows Multipliers to figure out what other people know.
Workout #3: Restrict your participation in meetings by using poker chips. Before every meeting, give yourself five poker chips that represent talking time. One chip is 30 seconds of airtime, three are 90 seconds, and one is 120 seconds. This will force you to limit the number of times you speak up in the first place (to five times) and the amount of time you spend speaking on a topic (30-120 seconds). You’ll be forced to speak only when it’s really important.
Here are some scenarios in which you might want to use your chips:
Starting the meeting and laying the framework for a debate
Asking a thought-provoking question
Suggesting an idea no one else has brought up
Getting people back on task
Recapping
Here are some situations in which you might want to stay quiet:
Agreeing with someone or offering data to support their point
Rephrasing an idea so it’s more like your idea
3. Create a sandbox for experimentation. Multipliers decide in which areas of the business experimentation (and the inevitable mistakes) are allowed, and in which areas results are critical. In the scenarios where experimentation is encouraged, leaders should support the effort, and if it fails, help the experimenter learn from the experiment. Acknowledging that failure is inevitable makes people feel safer.
Workout #4: Make a list of scenarios in which it’s okay to fail and in which it’s not. Share them with the team. Failure is usually acceptable in the following cases:
It provides a lot of learning with little cost.
It’s possible to recover (resources and time are available).
No one is hurt.
Failure is usually not acceptable when:
It comprises company ethics.
It hurts the company’s reputation.
It destroys someone’s career.
You can also use these boundaries to know when to step in as a leader—stay out of the way of experimentation, but if some crucial outcome is looking chancy, jump in and help.
4. Make all voices heard. In any organization with a hierarchy, the voices at the top tend to get more attention. However, it’s often the voices who are closest to the problems who have the most valuable ideas. Idea Multipliers create an environment in which everyone’s voice has equal weight.
Idea Multipliers create an intensity in the environment by expecting people’s best work. They:
1. Regularly ask people if they’re giving their best. (As a leader, you probably won’t be able to tell—performance is easy to see, but effort isn’t.) Asking this question will encourage people to try harder.
2. Make it clear the standard is best work, not a particular result. People can’t always control results, so emphasizing outcomes is stressful. Emphasizing best work, however, is controllable and creates positive pressure.
Idea Multipliers further intensify the atmosphere by expecting people to learn from their mistakes. The faster people can fail and learn, the cheaper the mistakes and the faster their ideas improve. They:
1. Publicly address mistakes. Multipliers admit their own mistakes and what they learned from them so that everyone sees that mistakes are acceptable. Additionally, they discuss other people’s mistakes in public too—that way, everyone can learn and there’s no bad blood.
Workout #5: Be personal about mistakes—share the biggest ones you’ve ever made. Tell people exactly what you did, what resulted, what the mistake was, what you learned, and how you put that learning into practice in the daily activities they see you doing. You might talk about your mistakes after someone else has made a mistake, or before someone starts something that they’re likely to make a mistake doing.
To make the conversation about mistakes as public as possible, reserve time in weekly meetings for a discussion of mistakes. Anyone who makes a mistake, including you, should share the story, and everyone present can laugh and learn.
2. Demand that people learn from failures and don’t allow the same mistake twice.
Idea Diminishers assume that they’re the only ones with good ideas and as a result, they’re disinterested in other people’s ideas and demand people follow theirs.
Idea Diminishers also assume they can increase performance by creating stressful, high-pressure environments. In fact, in these environments, people are so scared that they only offer what they think is safe—what they’re confident the Diminisher will agree with. Therefore, many ideas are stifled, no one can improve their performance because they’re scared to do anything innovative, and no one works at full capacity. Then, because the Diminisher can tell people aren’t giving their all (but not why), the Diminisher further increases the pressure by using force or bullying.
It’s easier to be a Diminisher than Multiplier when it comes to ideas because many organizations have built-in tyranny. For example, organizational charts and approval workflows encourage people at the top to come up with all the ideas and people at the bottom to go along with them without challenging or thinking about them.
Unlike Idea Multipliers, who aim to get out of people’s way, Idea Diminishers don’t leave room for anyone else. They talk constantly in meetings, interrupt people, have strong opinions, and try to control the situation. Their people keep quiet because they feel unsafe, unheard, and susceptible to criticism.
Diminishers are unpredictable—people don’t know what will make them explode—so their team members constantly use up energy trying to avoid upsetting them. This is energy they can no longer direct towards their work and coming up with fresh ideas.
Diminishers criticize and judge others to the point where people try not to stand out and only offer safe ideas.
Unlike their handling of talent and ideas, there’s no overlap between Multipliers and Diminishers when it comes to knowledge—their assumptions and approaches are opposites.
Knowledge Multipliers set challenges to encourage people to increase their intelligence and ability. Multipliers can set any challenge they like because they believe their team can do anything anyone knows (or can learn) how to do, not just things the Multiplier personally knows how to do.
Even if a Multiplier knows exactly what an organization’s direction should be, they don’t tell their team. Instead, they point them in the right direction and let them develop this knowledge for themselves. They:
1. Offer people the chance to pinpoint the problem or challenge. When people identify a problem on their own, they understand it better and are more motivated to solve it.
To practice this technique, take your team on a field trip somewhere so they can see firsthand what needs to be done.
2. Debunk assumptions about the way the industry or market works. Assumptions hold people back because when someone thinks they already know something, they don’t look deeper or try to develop their knowledge.
3. Cast problems as opportunities. People do better work when they feel that they’re gaining something (such as new knowledge) rather than just solving a problem.
4. Outline only the foundation. Multipliers make projects achievable by giving people a safe, solid starting point but then letting them take over. The unknowns challenge people to think for themselves, and make them curious and keener on getting involved—there’s still more that needs to be done, so there’s a role for them.
Knowledge Multipliers encourage people to fill the gap between what they know and what they need to know so that they can rise to a challenge. They:
1. Make the challenge concrete. When a challenge has clearly laid out, measurable steps, it feels more achievable and gives people the confidence that they can accomplish it. They know exactly what they need to learn to get the project done.
2. Ask questions people don’t know the answers to yet. This creates tension between what people know and what they need to know, and encourages them to fill the gap.
Workout #6: Speak only in questions. (You can let your team know you’re experimenting if you think they’ll be put off by this.) You might ask questions that:
Point someone in the right direction
Help someone figure out what you already know
Encourage people to come up with brand-new ideas or answers
Rethink assumptions
You don’t have to speak in questions forever—once you’re more used to asking, you can start including more statements. In addition to making your team think, this workout will also show you that people know more than you’ve been giving them credit for.
3. Don’t answer any questions themselves. This allows and forces others to do the thinking and find a solution.
Knowledge Multipliers make people believe that they can do the impossible things they’ve come up with in the previous practices. They:
1. Get down to earth. A leader sees things from a high-level perspective, but big ambiguous goals are hard for individual team members to connect to. Multipliers show people how their perspective translates to what actually needs to be done
Workout #7: To choose an appropriate “mission impossible” challenge:
Think of something that’s challenging for an individual, team, or whole organization.
Nail down an achievable first step. Achieving this step will build a conviction that the overall goal is possible.
Translate this challenge into a question. (For example, when Jason decided that his team’s challenge was to complete 1,000 inspections in 2016, he asked his team what they would have to do to meet that goal.)
Ask the question and let your people answer it.
2. Get people involved in creating the execution plan. Like in practice #1 (outline only the foundation), Multipliers encourage people to determine the course of action themselves. Not only will this make people more engaged, but it’ll also make them believe the course is possible. Multipliers can also get more done faster because if people create their own plan, they don’t have to wait for direction or approval.
3. Encourage people to collect low-hanging fruit. As people achieve small, easy goals, they’ll gain the confidence and belief that they can tackle bigger ones.
To practice this technique, make sure the baby step involves or is visible to the entire organization so that everyone starts to believe in the impossible.
Knowledge Diminishers assume that their job is to be the most knowledgeable person on their team and have all the answers. If they don’t know something, then they go learn it themselves because they don’t trust anyone else to already know or be capable of learning it. More often, though, Diminishers tend to only pursue things they already know. This limits the organization to doing only what one person knows.
Knowledge diminishing can often be unintentional. Most Knowledge Diminishers are smart and this is what got them into their current position. They often don’t realize that while being smart is still relevant in a leadership position, being the only smart one is limiting.
Knowledge Diminishers sell instead of share their knowledge. They’re not interested in discussion or brainstorming; they just talk to show off their intelligence.
Knowledge Diminishers are concerned about whether their team has soaked up the knowledge they’ve imparted and regularly test them. When Diminishers ask questions, it’s to prove that others don’t know as much as them. People spend their energy trying to pass the boss’s tests instead of directing the energy towards their work.
Knowledge Diminishers don’t think anyone knows how to do anything except them, so they tell people what to do in a lot of detail.
Because Diminishers set up their organizations so that no one can act until given direction by the Diminisher, people don’t have anything to do while they wait for orders.
Like their approach to knowledge, Multipliers and Diminishers have opposing approaches to decision-making.
Decision-making Multipliers assume that two (and more) heads are better than one and consult as many voices as possible when making important decisions. (They know that not everything needs to be debated, but the highest-stakes issues do.)
In addition to leveraging intelligence, encouraging debate has additional advantages:
To facilitate a productive debate on a pressing issue, the leader must establish parameters. They:
1. Articulate the question. Multipliers choose a question, not a topic (questions produce more productive debates). Ideally, the question is which of two options to choose.
2. Justify the question. Multipliers explain why the question matters, why it requires a debate, and the consequences of not answering the question.
3. Recruit and prepare the team. The leader decides who will participate in the debate and decision-making process, what their roles will be, and what they should prepare in advance. Interestingly, the best decisions tend to come from debates in which everyone has an opinion going in.
4. Explain the decision-making workflow. The leader explains who will make the decision. Some options include consensus, majority rule, or a particular person (sometimes the leader, but not always).
A productive debate must be:
To achieve this kind of debate, Multipliers:
1. Remove fear of the leader. Fear makes people doubt their position or stay quiet. To remove fear, Multipliers don’t give their opinions until after everyone else has spoken and don’t scold people.
2. Push hard. Multipliers ask hard questions and demand people support their opinions with evidence. They ask everyone to talk. When the group comes to a decision too quickly, Multipliers prod the conversation back to life to ensure the group reaches the best decision, not just a swift one.
To practice this technique, realize that the most helpful thing a Multiplier can do in a debate is encourage others to think and produce answers. Use the following techniques to do this:
3. Ask people to argue from a different or opposing point of view. This has several advantages: People see an issue from different perspectives, discover problems they couldn’t see from their point of view, challenge assumptions, develop empathy, use the best ideas from both sides, and become less partisan. Then, when the final decision is made, no one feels emotional about losing the debate because the question is depersonalized—since people have argued for both sides, they’re less loyal to their original position.
After the debate, Multipliers:
1. Review and tweak the decision-making workflow. Multipliers re-explain how the decision will be made, noting any changes to the process that the debate brought out—for example, a delay in deciding because a piece of information was missing. They also reiterate who will be making the decision.
2. Decide. Multipliers make, help make, or let someone else make the decision, depending on what was decided.
3. Share the decision with the organization. The more people who understand the reasoning behind the decision, the more comfortable they’ll be executing it.
Decision-making Diminishers assume that most people aren’t worth hearing from, so they make quick decisions by themselves or with the help of only a few others. This limits their ability to capitalize on the organization’s collective intelligence (usually the people closest to the issue aren’t consulted) and overworks the decision-makers.
Diminishers may seem efficient because decisions get made quickly, but the net result of their decision-making is lost time and effort:
Diminishers identify problems and decisions but don’t invite others to contribute to solving or making them. They tell people what they’d decided but don’t explain why or how.
Diminishers don’t facilitate debate; they lecture about the topic or issue at hand.
Diminishers cut debates short or prioritize their opinion to come to decisions faster.
Like their approaches to knowledge and decision-making, Multipliers and Diminishers don’t have much in common when it comes to giving people independence.
Independence Multipliers assume people are intelligent enough to figure things out without them. They coach, help people learn, and provide resources and support, but they leave the accountability for outcomes with the team and never take over.
As a result, people in their organizations learn to rely on themselves and each other rather than Multipliers. They become competent and confident and get on just fine when the Multiplier is absent. After a certain point, people are so self-sufficient the Multiplier can leave the organization.
Independence Multipliers assign ownership of projects to their people in three ways. They:
1. Put other people in charge and clearly state who has ownership of which projects. This encourages people to handle the small things themselves (which builds confidence) and ask for second opinions rather than second-guessing themselves.
Workout #8: When you delegate, be clear about what the project involves and invite questions to make sure the team member understands. Then, tell her in numerical terms exactly how much of the ownership she has (give her at least 51%) and how much you have (the remainder). Tell her that having the majority vote means that she’s in charge, she gets to make the final decision (even if you disagree), and she will lead the project. You can emphasize her ownership by telling her you’ll take the task off your to-do list.
- For example, when Cisco CEO John hired Doug as vice president of customer support control, John told Doug that he had 51% of the vote on how to run his area of the company.
2. Assign big-picture accountability to others. If people are only delegated small tasks and only held accountable for the results of those tasks, they won’t learn how they fit into the bigger picture. Independence Multipliers make their people responsible for the overall results of a project or area of the company.
3. Push people to take ownership of projects outside their comfort zone. Once people get used to having more ownership in their current role, Multipliers give them a challenge they’ll have to stretch for. This forces them to develop their knowledge in new areas.
Multipliers help and support their team. They:
1. Teach their staff what they know. Even when Multipliers could do something themselves, instead, they teach others how to do it.
2. Establish a safety net. In high-pressure or challenging situations, people will make mistakes. A Multiplier has a backup plan for when things go wrong. Often, the safety net is someone the person can go to for help, and it’s ideal if the helper isn’t a manager. This is because people assume that managers will judge, and because talking to colleagues better leverages the intelligence of the team.
Multipliers always make others, not themselves, accountable for the results of projects or teams. They:
1. Return accountability. Multipliers sometimes get involved in projects to help or coach, but as soon as they’re finished, they give accountability back.
Workout #9: Before offering help, visualize how you’re going to give the accountability back to the other person. A good way to do this is to choose a point in the hypothetical conversation where you reiterate that they’re in charge of the project.
- For example, you might say, “As the leader of this project, how would you like me to help?”
2. Make it clear that when presented with a problem, they also expect to be given a solution. This encourages people to stretch and allows them to reach completion.
Workout #10: When people try to give you a problem without a solution, ask them questions—for instance, ask them for some options on how to proceed or for their preferred solution.
3. Let nature take its course. One of the best ways to learn is to fail, so even if Multipliers see ways to rescue someone, they don’t always step in. They let their people experience the consequences of failure so they can learn from and own them.
To practice this technique, carefully choose the circumstances in which you’ll let nature take its course (don’t pick major, high-stakes projects; start small). If someone fails, talk to her about what happened (asking questions rather than any form of “I told you so”) and help her figure out what to do the next time a similar situation rolls around. If she succeeds, give her credit.
Independence Diminishers assume no one’s smart enough to figure things out without their help. When they see something going wrong and they know how to fix it, they take over and rescue people. This makes people dependent on them, which only reinforces the Diminisher’s assumptions.
Sometimes, Independence Diminishers intervene because they can’t resist the temptation to be a hero, feel important and necessary, receive praise, and solve an intellectual challenge. Other times, they can’t bear to see people in trouble. Regardless of intentions, diminishing not only squelches independence but also results in the Diminisher having to do all the work.
Diminishers don’t trust anyone else with ownership or responsibility, so they keep it all from themselves. They might delegate, but they only give people small tasks. This can lead to their people purposefully doing less because they know the Diminisher will rescue them—if they don’t do something, the Diminisher will swoop in and do it herself rather than re-asking them to do it.
Diminishers give other people small tasks, but as soon as there’s a problem, they either let people give them back or take them away.
Diminishers are inconsistent—they don’t take back every task every time—and when the task goes back to being boring or unimportant, they leave. This creates chaos because people can’t do things without them anymore.
Each of the five Multiplier disciplines includes practices and workouts.
Which of the five disciplines would you like to improve at most? Why? (Remember that you can most increase your overall effectiveness by strengthening a strength or neutralizing a weakness.)
Choose a workout from this discipline. When and where could you try this workout?
Now that you know the differences between Multipliers and Diminishers in five key areas, it’s time to consider which practices you use and if you have any diminishing behaviors. No matter how good your intentions, or how good of a job you think you’re doing, you might inadvertently have a diminishing effect. This is very common.
This chapter will help you identify your vulnerabilities and replace diminishing behavior with multiplying behavior instead. There are three steps to uncovering your diminishing tendencies:
There are several different types of Accidental Diminishers. If you see yourself in any of them, follow the strategies below to reduce these tendencies.
These leaders are creative and are inspired by new ideas every day. They share these ideas with their team, aiming to start a brainstorming session and inspire ideas in others.
In fact, people aren’t inspired at all. They know that every day this leader will have a new idea that will take them away from the old one, so they stop pursuing any of the ideas because they know they’ll shortly be redirected. They also don’t bother coming up with their own ideas because they feel like their leader has it covered.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should keep ideas to themselves until they want people to pursue them (otherwise, people will try to pursue all the ideas at once, realize they’re never getting anywhere, and give up). They can also study:
These leaders sell the big picture of a brighter future and explain how to achieve it. Like the Fountains of Ideas, they think they’re inspiring people.
People do need to understand the big picture, but if the leader fills too much in, people don’t have to think for themselves. At best, they second-guess the vision; at worst, they become completely dependent on the leader’s ideas.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should use knowledge practice #1 (outline a strategy, but let everyone else flesh out the details) to give their people room to think for themselves. They can also study:
These leaders don’t like to see people in trouble, so when something goes wrong, they involve themselves. Sometimes, they play the hero and save the day, but more commonly, they just offer too much help. This is the most common type of Accidental Diminisher.
While people often appreciate the help or feel relieved, this saving behavior inhibits them from learning and makes them dependent. Additionally, it gives them an unrealistic sense of their own abilities—they always get good results, even if it was the manager and not them who generated the outcome.
To avoid diminishing, when there’s a problem, these leaders should ask whoever brought it up for some ideas to solve it, rather than just jumping to solve it themselves. They can also study:
Defenders are more extreme versions of saviors—they try to protect their people before things go wrong, sometimes even sheltering them from the existence of a difficulty. They think that if people are exposed to nasty situations, especially departmental politics, they’ll leave.
There are situations people should be shielded from, but overprotection prevents people from taking ownership, experiencing accountability, or learning from failure.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should let some of the small dangers through so people can learn to deal with adversity. They can also study:
These leaders act the way they want everyone else to act—they set the bar for achievement. They think that people will copy them and strive to reach the same level.
In fact, what actually happens is one of two things:
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should check their progress so they don’t get too far ahead of anyone else. They can also study:
These leaders are perfectionists, and like the Leader by Example, they set high standards. Unlike the Leader by Example, these leaders get involved with their people’s work. They think they’re helping their people achieve perfection by pointing out picky errors.
In fact, all people see are the flaws in their work. They give up and disengage.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should be clear about the criteria for excellence and completeness, and assess whether their performance is appropriate as the standard: Is it perhaps too harsh to expect their level of performance from everyone? They can also study:
These leaders are energetic and have big personalities. They think their energy energizes everyone else.
In reality, people find this kind of leader exhausting and avoid her or tune her out. Introverts, in particular, duck into their shells, and extroverts dominate the workplace.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should say things only once and encourage others to talk. They can also study:
These leaders are optimistic and believe they and their team can do anything. At first, this very closely resembles the attitude of a Multiplier—people can figure things out. In fact, these leaders create a disconnect from reality (they make things seem easier than they really are), inadvertently suggest that failure isn’t an option, or downplay the team’s effort.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should let everyone know that they’re aware the task is going to be challenging. They can also study:
These leaders make decisions and act quickly—so quickly that they finish team members’ tasks before they can complete them themselves. First Responders think they’re creating an agile organization.
In fact, they create less responsive, apathetic employees. This is because after being sniped enough times, people know that their boss is going to finish something before they will, so there’s no point even trying.
Additionally, First Responders create gridlock because they make decisions so fast that people don’t have time to execute the first decision before being hit with another.
To avoid diminishing, these leaders should wait a certain amount of time (perhaps 24 hours) before responding to emails that are someone else’s responsibility. They can also study:
Take one or both of the following quizzes to help you identify your diminishing behaviors:
Ask the people you lead the following questions to try to ascertain your diminishing behaviors:
John C. Maxwell is a leadership expert who uses many Multiplier practices but also discovered he has some diminishing qualities after asking others for feedback.
John’s colleagues told him that he has some savior tendencies—while he sometimes did need to step in and help, he often did so too early. He and his team came up with a system to change his actions. People would give each situation a count, just like in baseball. John would wait to step in until someone felt they had two out of three strikes. Previously he’d been stepping in after the first strike, at the first sign of trouble.
(Shortform note: For more on John C. Maxwell’s leadership principles, read our summary of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.)
There are three steps to discovering your Accidental Diminisher tendencies.
Which of the Accidental Diminisher profiles do you most relate to, and why?
How did you score on the “Are You an Accidental Diminisher?” quiz? What do these results tell you about yourself?
Which of your colleagues could you ask for feedback on your inadvertent diminishing? Why this colleague? (Ideally, they understand your intentions and are honest.)
Even once you’ve gotten a handle on your accidental diminishing tendencies and worked at improving them, you’ll still face challenges—most of us aren’t the only leaders in our organizations and have to work with others who may be Diminishers. When you work for or with a Diminisher, you might feel underused, drained, and lifeless. This can spill into other areas of your life and lead to health problems such as low energy or depression.
The good news is, there are several strategies for surviving (or even transforming) Diminishers. First, we’ll look at what doesn’t work. Then, we’ll look at what does.
When faced with Diminishers, none of us are at our best—Diminishers make us feel anxious and stressed. They trigger our emotional brains, which overpower our rational ones, and we act without thinking. As a result, the least effective ways to deal with Diminishers—confrontation, avoidance, and compliance—are also the options most people turn to. These reactions create a cycle of diminishment:
The author’s research found that this cycle usually lasts for 22 months, or 85% of the time someone worked under a Diminisher. Ultimately, it’s impossible to get a Diminisher to change by diminishing them.
There are three types of strategies for effectively handling Diminishers. Attempt them in the following order:
These strategies will increase your resistance to diminishing behavior and win you some space to consider further strategies.
1. Tune out the Diminisher occasionally. When a Diminisher is criticizing you or nitpicking, don’t take it personally or let it affect your self-worth. The Diminisher may just be taking out some of their stress on you (for example, she might be feeling pressure from her boss). Even if she is being vicious on purpose, you don’t have to sink to her assessment of you—you can continue to hold yourself to high standards and believe you’re smart.
2. Build other relationships. Connect with people at your workplace, whether they’re clients, colleagues, or different managers. This support group can help you objectively assess your ideas and performance, and they can remind you that you’re smart. They can also help you advance your career and navigate your relationship with the Diminisher. Make sure, however, that this support group isn’t just about venting—discuss positive ways you can increase your success, not just the negatives of working with the Diminisher.
3. Retreat and revise. When you get into a confrontation with a Diminisher, back off and create some distance. The Diminisher will appreciate this too—it gives her a graceful way out. Once you’ve had some time to cool off, think of ways to move forward, not ways to win, and then meet with the Diminisher again.
4. Be reassuring. Most Diminishers micromanage because they’re worried that the project or task won’t get finished if they don’t step in. Reassure your boss that you’re on top of things by sending them signals tailored to their personality.
5. Stand up for your smarts. If a Diminisher is being overly helpful, respectfully and humbly remind them that you can do the task on your own. You can use humor, which works well on Accidental Diminishers—for example, when the author slipped into micromanaging, one of her team members pretended to wear a choke-chain and gasp for air to let her know she was stifling him. Or, try if-then statements, such as: “If you let me do this, then I’ll make sure it turns out well.” Then, do your best work so the reminder sticks.
6. Ask for information you’re missing. You usually need two types of information to do your job well: 1) what the goal is and why it matters, and 2) feedback on your performance. If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, all you can do is follow instructions, not leverage your intelligence. If you don’t know how you’re performing, you can’t improve. However, the information most Diminishers provide is how to do a task (often more than once if things go off track), so you may need to flat-out ask to get the information you need.
7. Assess the situation objectively. It’s possible your boss is an Accidental Diminisher and has good intentions you’re not giving them credit for. It’s also possible that, if you find yourself constantly meeting Diminishers, you might be a Diminisher and you’re bringing out these traits in others.
8. Quit and find a better boss. If the diminishment becomes too much, leave the situation and find a better one. Evaluate a possible new leader’s Multiplier abilities by:
If the leader isn’t receptive to any of the above, then they’re likely not someone you wanted to work for anyway.
The next set of strategies help you multiply upwards—you can be a Multiplier even if your boss isn’t. While managers tend to be best at multiplying their direct reports, it’s equally possible to multiply anyone you work with. This is because Diminishers are most concerned with their own smarts and need their intelligence validated. As Multipliers, by nature, validate people’s genius by treating them like they’re smart, acting like a Multiplier towards your boss will make them feel comfortable and make them more likely to give you more trust, which might make them reduce their diminishing behavior.
Additionally, some of these strategies will help you carve out opportunities for yourself if your Diminisher boss doesn’t set them up for you.
To multiply your boss:
1. Harness their knowledge and skills. Without giving away ownership of projects, ask your boss to weigh or jump in at points when their skills will improve the results.
2. Show or tell them how to best use you. If your boss hasn’t discovered how to get 100% out of you yet, don’t wait for her to figure it out—visibly demonstrate your skills so she can see where you’re capable, or just flat-out tell her what your native genius is and how it could be used at your workplace. Continue to do all aspects of your job though—finding your native genius doesn’t excuse you from daily tasks.
3. Look for the learning opportunity. Even Diminishers can teach you something. Listen attentively to their feedback and criticism and consider what seems legitimate. Visibly demonstrate that you’re listening, and ask questions to understand where they’re coming from.
4. Share mistakes. When you try to hide mistakes and Diminishers find out about them, they lose confidence in you (both in your ability and judgment) and assume something similar will happen in the future. Instead, air your mistakes and what you’ve learned from them. This will encourage others, maybe even Diminishers, to share their mistakes too.
5. Ask for a challenge. We learn best when we take on projects that are just a little bit beyond our current capabilities. If your boss isn’t giving you enough to do, or if she gives you a lot but it’s all the same, volunteer to do something hard. Be clear that you’re not looking for a promotion (this makes managers defensive), you’re looking for a challenge. Start with small challenges and then work up to larger ones.
6. Invite your boss into the loop. When you try to keep your boss on the outside—for example, by not inviting her to meetings, not asking for her opinion, and not sharing data—she becomes disconnected from reality, dependent, and pushes even harder to be included. Instead, invite her to meetings and keep her updated. This will prove to her that you’re not trying to hide anything and will also give you more control—if you invite her to do something specific, you can control the parameters of her involvement, thus preventing her from taking over.
By multiplying your boss, you can break the cycle of diminishment and create a new cycle:
The final set of strategies involves helping Diminishers transform into Multipliers. However, your Diminishers must want to become Multipliers—you can’t force anyone to change, only encourage them. You can encourage by showing them the negative consequences of their diminishing tendencies and a better way to lead.
Here are the strategies for transforming a Diminisher:
1. Give your boss the benefit of the doubt. Assume that your boss had good intentions and is only diminishing by accident. Then, when you talk to her about her actions, the conversation isn’t about how diminishing she is; it’s about what she can change to get what she wants.
2. Only bring up one thing at a time. If you unload all your notes on your boss at once, she’ll feel overwhelmed and attacked, and probably diminish you by shutting down your ideas. Instead, bring things up one by one, and start with smaller issues. The Diminisher is much more likely to respond positively.
3. Reward baby steps. Recognize and praise the Diminisher for even the smallest changes.
4. Lead by example. Work on your own diminishing actions and transform them into multiplying actions instead. Just because your boss is above you in the organizational chart doesn’t mean that you can’t be a leader, too.
If you want to give Multipliers to a Diminisher, do so in a way that doesn’t come across as accusing them of being a Diminisher. You can do this by:
There are three steps to surviving a Diminisher.
Describe a Diminisher you know. What makes them so diminishing? Why?
Which of the survival strategies do you think would be most effective for dealing with this Diminisher? Why?
Which of the multiplying strategies do you think would be most effective for dealing with this Diminisher? Why?
Do you think the Diminisher might choose to work towards becoming a Multiplier? Why or why not?
If the Diminisher does want to change, which of the transformation strategies do you think would be most effective? Why?
In Parts 2 and 3, we learned the practices and behaviors of Multipliers and Diminishers. Now, we can use this knowledge to do so much more than just get rid of Diminishers and become Multipliers ourselves. We can create a Multiplier culture in which every member of an organization holds Multiplier assumptions and engages in Multiplier behaviors.
First, we’ll look at ineffective ways to create a Multiplier culture, and then we’ll look at what does work.
Most companies try to change their culture by inspiring managers to encourage new behavior and often, the focus is on sharing new ideas—for example, via a keynote speech—rather than executing them. Not only is this ineffective, since nobody will actually adopt the new culture if they don’t put it into practice, but aborted attempts to change culture can also make people resistant to change in the future.
The better way to change to a Multiplier culture is to focus on its key elements, starting with the shallower aspects and then moving deeper. Here are five elements of culture, in order of surface-level to deep, and some practices to help develop them:
In strong cultures, everyone in the culture uses the same words and phrases to describe the same concepts and values. This allows them to name, and therefore discuss, good and bad behaviors openly and concretely.
There are two practices to develop Multiplier vocabulary:
1. Discuss Multipliers. Ask leaders to read the book and then talk about it, using the terms “Multiplier” and “Diminisher” in the discussion. Ideally, use Multiplier practices in the discussion (Shortform example: Ask questions). You might discuss some of the following questions or use the facilitator guide:
For example, Bamboo HR’s Ryan knew that people who weren’t giving 100% could easily be overlooked in high-growth companies, and that bad leadership exacerbates this. He asked his senior leadership team to read Multipliers. They discussed multiplication in weekly meetings.
2. Talk about Accidental Diminishers. Ask leaders to take the Accidental Diminisher quiz, honestly discuss their weaknesses with team members, and celebrate their Multiplier moments. This conversation should be ongoing, not a one-time meeting.
In strong cultures, every member of the culture responds a certain way in a certain situation. They learn the appropriate response from the leader and it becomes instinct.
To change the default conduct to Multiplier behavior, you need to make people aware of their Diminisher behavior and then encourage them to consciously choose Multiplier behavior until it becomes habit. You can do this using the following practices:
1. Spread the word about Multiplier assumptions. Don’t just tell the top leaders; talk to everyone in the organization, to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
2. Train people in Multiplier practices. Hold workshops, discussions, and so on.
3. Simulate real-life scenarios in training. Learning about a Multiplier approach in training is different than applying it to real life, so instead of just teaching concepts, use simulations.
Conviction means every member of a culture agrees on what is true and shares assumptions.
When it comes to multiplication, the goal is for everyone to know what makes a good leader. There’s one practice to help develop this element:
1. Define the expectations for leaders—their primary job is to multiply others and get them giving 100%.
In a strong culture, everyone admires the same people as heroes based on their accomplishments, behavior, or traits.
When it comes to business, the role models should be Multipliers, and their heroics should inspire others to behave similarly. The heroes can be Multipliers who have had a major impact on the organization, or people who are still on the journey and working hard. To develop this element of culture:
1. Publicly celebrate Multiplier moments. Acknowledge notable Multiplier behavior, make announcements about successful Multipliers, host events to honor Multipliers, and so on.
2. Assess leaders. Measuring how well leaders use the Multiplier practices encourages them to improve. You can use the Multipliers 360 Assessment or integrate the evaluation into your existing performance metrics.
In a strong culture, everyone adheres to the same customs and behaves the same way.
In the context of multiplication, customs mean that the Multiplier concepts spill into every area of the business from financial incentives to operational practices. To strengthen this facet of culture:
1. Run a pilot program to implement a particular Multiplier practice. This will help spread Multiplier concepts across an organization.
2. Connect Multiplier practices with existing business practices. This will also help Multiplier customs seep into every area of the organization.
The development of Multiplier culture doesn’t have to start at the top. While this approach does work, the author found that most organizations that successfully changed their culture actually started in the middle. This is because when a middle manager starts acting as a Multiplier, their team or department is far more successful than the surrounding teams. Senior leaders are always on the lookout for standout behavior (good or bad), and when they see something that's working, they support and spread it.
Most new ideas start out large and strong but then peter out. There are two ways to avoid this happening to your culture implementation:
1. Start small by taking baby steps. For example, try to implement just one Multiplier practice in a pilot program before changing to change things across a whole company. Each small win will create momentum for the next challenge.
2. Join a community. Community members can support each other, create an experimental space, and peer pressure each other into not giving up.
The author studied leaders from 35 countries and discovered that while individual Multiplier practices differed, and in hierarchical cultures, Multipliers had to work harder to create the safety to share ideas, the Multiplier approach itself—assuming people are smart—worked everywhere in the world.
However, Diminishing did vary across cultures. Hierarchical cultures tended to see higher levels of diminishment. Diminishers in these cultures got approximately 10-20% less out of people than the global average of 48%.
It’s possible to act as both a Diminisher and Multiplier, or to be one or the other towards different people. This is for three reasons:
1. There are situations in which everyone is more prone to Diminisher behavior, even the best Multipliers, notably situations that feature:
Be aware that these situations tend to bring out diminishment and keep an eye on your behavior when they arise. Also keep in mind that sometimes, extreme situations are when a multiplying effect is needed the most—to solve something complicated, the more talent and brainpower you have access to, the better.
2. There are situations where Diminisher behavior is necessary. For example, in a life-or-death situation, Multipliers should step in and take over. However, it’s possible to mitigate the diminishing effect of these moments by explaining that they’re exceptions, asking for permission to take over, and reverting to Multiplier behavior when the crisis is over.
3. It’s harder to multiply people who are far away. The author’s research found that some people who were named as Multipliers by some were named as Diminishers by others. Typically, the people who saw them as Multipliers were direct reports, and the people who saw them as Diminishers had less contact with them. It takes more effort and conscious thought to multiply the people who are farther away.
If you’re a strong Multiplier, your people will forgive the occasional Diminisher blip, especially if you call yourself out and explain what led to your actions.
Some Diminisher leaders can be successful, but this is usually because there are other factors at play such as:
When it comes to deliberate multiplying and diminishing, the author didn’t find any differences between genders—no one was more likely to multiply or diminish. There was, however, a difference in accidental diminishing, with more women doing this. This may be because, in the past, women leaders had to fit themselves into one of two leadership categories to succeed in a male-dominated world: 1) being tough, fearless, and manly, or 2) acting as a mom and protecting and rescuing people. Both roles come with diminishing tendencies.