I have never been much of a “reader”. And reading books has never been much in my game plan. Even in school, I would never finish a required reading (sorry to all my teachers out there!). Fast forward a few years after “conditioning” myself with sports radio and podcasts like Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Criag Groeschell Leadership Podcast, & The Brian Buffini Show (Real Estate). I’ve learned that I can listen to books and this has been a GAME CHANGER for me! Over the past two years or so I’ve completed 40 books! Even some of the 40 I’ve listented to a second or even third time.
One of the books I’ve read, well listened to, is Multipliers, by Liz Wiseman. This book changed my perspective on leading. Liz breaks us down into two groups: Diminishers or Multipliers. Basically, the Diminisher has an assumption that “People won’t figure it out without me.” A multiplier has an assumption that “People are smart and will figure it out.”
Are you an accidental diminisher? This can be tough for a leader to hear. Let me tell you, this was me. Accidental was completely correct because I had no idea I was actually causing more harm than overall good for the team I lead. My personality is very direct, with a know-it-all attitude. I feel like I do care for my teams and have a good heart, but the actions I did in the moment didn’t necessarily say, “I cared”. How might I, with the very best intentions, have a diminishing impact on the people I lead? Can people be hindered by our honest attempts to help, teach, coach, or lead by example?
We all have accidental diminisher moments. Five ways we can be diminishers;
The Gatekeeper: 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 Micromanager: Drives results through their personal involvement.
This was me to the “T”… Honestly, very hard for me to hear and see. To my core, I want people to be on the same team and to succeed/win. I wanted to change and needed to change! I wanted to be a genius maker that brought out the intelligence in others. I wanted to build collective and viral intelligence in my organization. I wanted to be a Multiplier!
Five ways to be a Multiplier;
The Talent Finder: Attracts talented people & 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 Community Builder: Drives sound decisions by constructing decision-making forms.
The Investor: Gives other people ownership for results and invests in their success.
The author, Liz, has a lot of good research in the book, and one of the things she measured was the results of a Diminisher versus a Multiplier led team. Diminishers get about 40% of the effort of a team/person. A Multiplier is able to get 2.3 times more of what a team/person is able to give normally. That’s huge productivity. We always think we need to hire more people, but in contrast, we need to get more out of what we have. Or, in my case, find people sitting on the sidelines! And use them to their full potential. One thing in doing this I’ve had to learn is they will make mistakes(duh, we all do!). My response to those mistakes are key. I need to let them fail and then coach them up. Letting them fail is super hard for me. My reaction, most of the time, is to jump in and fix it which doesn’t help them grow.
Now, I don’t have this completely figured out but I do feel like our team has great momentum now. I can truly say this was a stepping stone into the momentum. There is a lot more beneficial information in this book. I highly recommend it!
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