Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (11 page)

• Ideas are generated with ease.
  
• People learn rapidly and adapt to new environments.
  
• People work collaboratively.
  
• Complex problems get solved.
  
• Difficult tasks get accomplished.
  

Let’s examine three Liberators from very different industries who created these conditions and freed their organizations to think and to perform.

Liberator #1
:
Equity in the Firm

Ernest Bachrach from Argentina is the managing partner and co-head of Latin America for Advent International, a global private equity firm. With twenty-seven years of experience in international private equity and an MBA from Harvard University, Ernest is clearly an expert. But the source of his genius is the environment he creates to unleash the genius of his organization.

One of his analysts described his approach: “Ernest makes a conscious effort to create an environment. He creates forums for people to voice their ideas. But he holds a very high bar for what you must do before you voice an opinion. You need to have the data. He has a problem with opinions without data.”

Ernest builds a learning machine in his organization. When he discovers performance problems, he is quick to give feedback. The feedback is direct and sometimes harsh, but he dispenses the feedback in small enough doses that someone can absorb it, learn from it and adjust. He teaches his organization that mistakes are a way of life in the investment business. And how does he respond to mistakes? First, he doesn’t panic or assign arbitrary blame. One team member said, “He lets us know that when decisions are collective, the mistakes are collective, too. No one person takes the blame.” The team then does a postmortem and learns how to avoid the error a second time.

It appears that Ernest understands how to create an environment that best leverages the investments he has made in his people. This might be one factor in his recent promotion to chief executive of Advent in Latin America.

Liberator #2
:
Close Encounters

Everyone knows Steven Spielberg as an award-winning film director. It is likely that your top-ten movie list includes one of his films. But why are his movies so successful, grossing an average of $156 million per film? Some would posit that it is his creative genius and his ability to tell a story. Others would point to his work ethic. But the active agent may be his ability to elicit more from his crew than other directors do. People who have worked on Spielberg’s films say, “You do your best work around him.”

One way he elicits the best thinking from people is that he knows what people are actually capable of producing. He knows everyone’s job intimately, but he doesn’t do it for them. He tells them that he has hired them because he admires their work. He uses his knowledge of the job and of their personal capabilities to set a standard for demanding their best work.

He comes with strong ideas of his own, but he makes it clear that bad ideas are an okay starting point. He says, “All good ideas start as bad ideas. That’s why it takes so long.” He establishes an open, creative environment, but he still demands extraordinary work from his team. One of his crew members said, “He expects people to be doing their best. And you know it when you aren’t giving your best.”

And why does Spielberg produce so many successful movies? Because his crew is twice as productive as those of some of the Tyrant directors we studied. Because Spielberg creates an environment where people can do their best work, these artists and staff sign up to work with him again and again. In fact, Spielberg typically manages two projects simultaneously, each in different production stages, because his crew stays with him and rolls directly onto the next project. He gets their best work and 2X the productivity! And they get to create award-winning films along with him.

Liberator #3
:
A Master Teacher

Stop and think about the best teachers you’ve had. Pause for a moment and identify one or two in your mind. What type of learning environment did they create? How much space and freedom of thought did you have? What were the expectations of your performance? In what ways were you stretched and utilized? And how did you actually perform? I asked these questions of a dozen eighth-grade students in Mr. Kelly’s class.

Patrick Kelly is an eighth-grade U.S. history and social studies teacher at a distinguished California public school. He caught my attention when I learned that every year at middle school graduation ceremony, he not only gets more “shout-outs and thank-yous” from the graduating students than any other teacher, he gets more than all the other teachers combined. He is more talked about, more loathed, more beloved than any other teacher at the school. Why?

I got my first glimpse at the fall parent information night at La Entrada Middle School. It is one of those nights parents with multiple children dread because, with four children, I have to get to seventeen different teachers’ classes, many simultaneously, defying laws of physics. My daughter in eighth grade said to me, “Here’s my class schedule. Get to as many classes as you can, but be sure to make it to Mr. Kelly’s social studies class. And do
not
be late. And do not talk during his presentation. And do not answer your cell phone. And do
not
be late. Mom, did you hear me about not being late?” I entered his classroom both scared and intrigued. After the standard twelve-minute segment with Mr. Kelly, I left enchanted with eighth-grade social studies, ready to quit my job and go back to middle school to learn U.S. history.

Why does he affect students and parents alike in such powerful ways?

It begins with his classroom environment. He makes it clear that you are there to work hard, to think, and to learn. One student said, “In his class, he doesn’t tolerate laziness. You’re always working, thinking things over, and seeing your mistakes so you can learn from them.” It’s
a professional and serious environment, which gets lighter and more fun as the students work harder. In this environment, students are encouraged to speak up and voice their opinions. Equal weight is given to asking a good question as answering one of his.

Mr. Kelly’s expectations for the students’ learning are both clear and extremely high. One student said, “He believes that with high expectations come high results. He demands our best. He makes it clear that if we put in our hardest effort, we will succeed.” Another said, “He doesn’t hide anything from us and lets us know what to improve on. He demands that we work to the best of our ability.” No more, no less—just to the best of their ability. There is no homework in his class—nothing assigned, nothing arbitrary. Instead, students are encouraged to do “independent study” to help them understand the ideas and perform well on tests. The students, having made the choice themselves, do the independent study with zeal.

Not all students like Mr. Kelly. Some find him too tough, too demanding, and his expectations unfair compared to other teachers’. For students wanting the easy path, his class can be an uncomfortable environment. But most students are engaged by his intelligence and his dedication and thrive under his leadership. They experience his contagious passion and themselves become passionate about civil rights, the U.S. Constitution, and their role in the political process.

Patrick Kelly is a Multiplier who liberates his students to think and learn. He creates an environment where students can speak out but where they are required to think and perform at their finest. It won’t surprise you that 98 percent of students in his class score at the “proficient” or “advanced” levels on standardized state tests, up from 82 percent just three years ago.
²

A Hybrid Climate

The secret behind the environment in Mr. Kelly’s classroom (and Ernest Bachrach’s firm and Steven Spielberg’s movie sets) is in a duality
we consistently found with Liberators. They appear to hold two ostensibly opposing positions with equal fervor. They create both comfort
and
pressure in the environment. In the eyes of the Liberator, it is a just exchange: I give you space; you give me back your best work.

Liberators also give people space to make mistakes. They create an environment of learning, but they expect people to learn from the mistakes. It is another fair trade: I give you permission to make mistakes; you have an obligation to learn from the mistakes and not repeat them.

The power of Liberators emanates from this duality. It isn’t enough to just free people’s thinking. They create an intense environment that requires people’s best thinking
and
their best work. They generate pressure, but they don’t generate stress.

Liberators operate with a duality much like that of a hybrid car that switches over seamlessly between the electric and the gasoline engine. At low speeds, a hybrid operates in electric mode. At high speeds, it draws on the gasoline to fuel the extra demands on the engine. Such leaders create an open, comfortable environment where people can freely think and contribute. But when more power is needed, they invoke their demanding side that commands only the best performance from others.

How do Liberators create a safe, open environment, but also relentlessly demand the best thinking and work of those around them? How do they get the full brainpower of the organization? Let’s turn to the practices of the Liberator for answers.