Strategies & Culture for Multipliers
"What you do has a far greater impact than what you say." - Stephen Covey
We have learned through our rich discussions on Learning to Lead Live that the concepts of the “Multipliers” book by Liz Wiseman introduce a leadership paradigm necessary to access the intelligence and potential of leaders everywhere.
We’ve discussed how some leaders create genius around them while other leaders drain intelligence and capability from their organizations.
Multipliers are hard-edged leaders expecting great things from their teams and driving them to achieve extraordinary results. They help people get smarter and discover their greatest capabilities. They solve harder problems, adapt more quickly, and take more intelligent action.
Becoming a Multiplier
As leaders many of us have made & learned from our diminisher mistakes. As we raise our awareness as leaders - we can become a mentor for ourselves & others with a goal of cultivating multiplier leadership skills.
With a multiplier mindset, we can have a multiplier effect on highly intelligent leaders. Some ways we can do this is by influencing them to:
Move out of their comfort zones - lead differently
Learn how to leverage intelligence inside their organizations
Utilize the enormous brainpower around them - look for natural talent
Restructure / create functional & value added report-out sessions
Engage on the biggest business issue by creating a transparent, & collaborative environment promoting effective debate, innovation, collective intelligence, challenging proposals, debriefing etc.
Ask hard / empowering questions to promote the greatest thinking
Multipliers get 2x the result of diminishers. The 5 multiplier disciplines are:
Talent Magnet: looks for talent in others and seeks to uncover the native genius in others
Liberator: encourages people to think for themselves and experience a deep obligation to do their best work
Challenger: cultivates a culture engaging teams to stretch beyond their limits using their talent, knowledge, and experience
Debate Maker: challenges and stretches what people know and their thinking through collective dialog and debate
Investor: gives others ownership for results and invests in their success
Even the best leaders may occasionally become accidental diminishers. The first step is to understand how our actions may impact others, and that’s where the 9 accidental diminished tendencies come in:
Idea Fountain: a creative thinker with big ideas, who can overwhelm the team and unintentional stifle ideas
Always On: the big energy and always-on leader, who can drain the team and suppress introverts and promote extroverts
Rescuer: want to protect the team from failures but can actually rob them of valuable learning experiences
Pacesetter: sets high standards for performance but can leave teams behind if they can’t keep up
Rapid Responder: acts and responds quickly to situations, but can create bottlenecks in decision making
Optimist: one who believes in the team and all that they are capable of but may forget to acknowledge the hard work ahead
Protector: the leader that wants to shield the team from the hazards of the org, but prevents the team from learning and taking full responsibility
Strategist: the leader who casts visions of the future, however at risk of not involving teams in the challenges for making the vision a reality
Perfectionism: one who wants to produce outstanding work, but the high bar can leave teams feeling criticized and disheartened
Multiplier practices must be learned and developed. Expect to need to be subtle in your approach and embrace learnings that will accelerate your progress.
There are 5 accelerators to fast-track learning you can leverage today:
Accelerator One - Start with Assumptions: The assumptions we hold as leaders shape our views and our practices and in the end, have a powerful effect on outcomes. Understanding the Diminisher and Multiplier Core Assumptions can help guide your actions
Accelerator Two - Work the Extremes: You do not need to be ALL things, ALL styles, or ALL disciplines. By focusing on a few you can have a great impact. Interestingly, the effectiveness of leaders based on their strengths is:
Leaders with no distinguishing strength rated 34%
Leaders with one distinguishing strength rated 64%
One distinguishing strength almost doubled leadership effectiveness
2, 3 & 4 strengths jumped to 72%, 81% & 89% respectively.
Accelerator Three - Run an Experiment: Effective learning involves small, successive experiments using new approaches, testing new behavior, analyzing feedback, adjusting, and repeating.
Try a 30-day experiment as a chance to reflect and strategize around new habit formation. When small experiments produce successful outcomes this fuels the next experiment or change in behavior.
Record experiences in a journal, learning from what works and what doesn’t
Try to extend experiments over 30 days (The European Journal of Social Psychology Notes it takes 60 days of concentrated effort to form a new habit)
Accelerator Four - Brace Yourself for Setbacks: The trick to getting through the building the habit phase is to give yourself permission to stumble as you create new behaviors while transforming old habits.
Moving from inspiration to impact requires addressing the original assumptions and creating new habits
Seeds of new assumptions must be planted and cultivated while the old habits are gradually uprooted
The good news is that the part of the brain that stores new assumptions is the same part that unconsciously builds new habits
Accelerator Five - Ask a Colleague: To accelerate development ask a colleague, employee, peer, or boss to choose your experiment (someone who sees your accidental diminisher tendencies & knows your good intentions)
Feedback and observations can motivate you to continue moving forward
The key to any leadership practice and learning is to also focus on building a multiplier culture. Culture is a way of thinking, behaving, or working. You need to connect to the deep layers of culture (shared language and behavior) to affect the deeper cultural elements (rituals and norms)
There are a set of 10 practices that can assist in building the essential elements of culture:
Closing Challenge: As you seek to become a multiplier here are a few challenges you can use in the weeks ahead:
Recognize the opportunity that is in your hands as a leader
Use the Multiplier principles to reinvent yourself and your organization
Imagine what will happen when you lead differently
Imagine what would happen if every leader in the world took one step from diminishing to multiplying
Multiplier principles are relevant and come to the world at a time when it is greatly needed. As leaders become aware of how they unintentionally diminish others, they can begin taking steps to better access the intelligence and capability of those they serve.
Remember that small steps equal great progress.
“It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime. Minister Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after the meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person.” -Bono
Listen to the Full Replay
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Resources
Take the 3-minute quiz “Are you an Accidental Diminisher” - The quiz will provide an explanation of how you are leading along with what your intentions are and the outcome they may be having. Finally, it offers recommendations for leadership strategies and interventions.
Strength-Based Leadership: An introduction to strength-based leadership and how to apply it yourself
INBOUND 2022 - September 6th - 9th, 2022: INBOUND is an annual event, powered by HubSpot, that unites thought leaders from over 161 countries across marketing, sales, customer success, and revenue operations.
Tech Up For Women Conference San Diego - October 6, 2022:
Tech Up for Women believes tech knowledge is critical for every career journey. Join them for a one-day event to advance yourself through fast-moving topics to embrace new ideas and innovation.
Ted Women Online Event - October 24-28, 2022: An online festival offering interviews with leading women on change, on work, on rights, on joy and on the future.
Newsletters I read daily to stay informed and get inspired: The Hustle, Morning Brew, Seth Godin’s Blog, Atlas Obscura, Oprah Daily, Newsette
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