Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (5 page)

It is within this context that I challenge you to read this book at several levels. At the most fundamental level, you might read it to illuminate what you undoubtedly have experienced—that some leaders create genius while others destroy it. Or you might go beyond this and read to reflect on the quintessential Multipliers and Diminishers that have been part of your career and life experience. But perhaps the best way to approach this book is to look beyond the idea that you or your colleagues are Multipliers, and instead spot yourself at times in the anatomy of a Diminisher. The greatest power of these ideas might be in realizing that you have the mind of a Multiplier but that you’ve been living in a Diminisher world and you’ve lost your way. Perhaps you are an Accidental Diminisher.

As Greg and I have journeyed into the world of Multipliers and Diminishers, we have often seen glimpses of ourselves—either in the present or from years past—and have found ways to better exemplify the Multiplier in our own work teaching and coaching leaders around the world.

The book is a guide to those of you who wish to follow the path of the Multiplier and, like British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, leave those you meet thinking they, rather than you, are the smartest person in the world. It is a book for executives who want to seed their organization with more Multipliers and watch everyone and everything get better.

Let me now introduce you to the fascinating and diverse set of leaders we call the Multipliers. They come from all walks of life—from corporate board rooms, to our schools’ classrooms, and from the Oval Office to the fields of Africa. We’ve selected leaders who represent diverse ideologies. I encourage you to learn from everyone, even those whose political views you do not share. I hope you will find their stories, their practices, and their impact as inspiring as we did when we entered their worlds.

THE MULTIPLIER FORMULA

W
hen you walk up to the porch of her house in Menlo Park, California, you can sense that Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay, has spent time on the East Coast. With its saltbox shape and white wood, it is one of those West Coast houses that looks like it should be in New England. The house just might remind Meg of her time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while at business school.

It was September 2007, and early in the race for the 2008 presidential nomination. There were many interesting candidates vying for the ticket for both parties. That day was a chance for us locals to get a peek at one of the candidates, and for me, it was a chance to extend our research and gain insight into two interesting leaders.

As the guests gathered on her backyard lawn, Meg Whitman took the microphone and began to introduce Mitt Romney as a candidate for president of the United States. Her introduction was simple.

You can imagine Meg, a newly minted Harvard MBA, ready to make her mark on the business world. Like many MBAs, she chose to begin her career at Bain & Company, an elite business consulting firm. But she knew landing in the right place inside would determine how quickly she’d learn and advance her career and her value in the marketplace. She heard from one of the more senior consultants, “If you’re smart, you’ll find a spot on Mitt Romney’s team.” She didn’t quite know why Mitt was such a great boss, but being savvy, she maneuvered her way onto his team. She learned why when she started working with him.

On Mitt’s team, people were engaged. He took the time to get to know each person and to understand the capabilities they brought to the team. This went well beyond reviewing their resume. Mitt would determine what people were naturally good at and find a way to use those talents with the client engagement. In assigning people to roles, Mitt asked questions like “What is the next challenge for you? What would be a stretch assignment?” It wasn’t unusual for someone on Mitt’s team to get loaned to another group if their skills could help rescue a troubled project. In one-on-one meetings, Mitt not only asked about the status of project deliverables, he asked about the blockers. A favorite question was “What is getting in the way of your being successful?”

Meanwhile, many of Meg’s colleagues didn’t get the same guidance and found themselves working for more typical company leaders who appeared more concerned with advancing their own careers than growing the people on their team. Team meetings typically consisted of long briefings from project leaders, followed by the usual project updates from each of the consultants who reported on progress in their functional area. People stuck to their roles on the team. When
one person was struggling, he or she usually just suffered in silence and pulled a few all-nighters rather than relying on help from colleagues. The job got done, but individual efforts were not acknowledged. The only visible recognition was kudos given to the project leader and an increase in the size of his or her organization. As for the destiny of the project members, they were almost certainly guaranteed a role on the next project that closely resembled what they had done on the last project.

In any organization, there are Talent Magnets, people who attract the best talent, utilize it to its fullest, and ready it for the next stage. These are leaders who have a reputation not only for delivering results, but for creating a place where young, talented people can grow. They are accelerators to other people’s careers.

Mitt Romney operated as a Talent Magnet. He accelerated the career of Meg Whitman, who went on to be CEO of eBay and lead an eighty-eight times increase in revenue. Not only did he have this impact on Meg, Mitt was a magnet and an accelerator in the careers of hundreds of people with a similar story.

Perhaps you are a Talent Magnet. Would your people describe you as someone who recognizes talented people, draws them in, and utilizes them at their fullest? Would they say they have grown more around you than any other manager they have worked for? Or would they describe you as someone who pulled them into your organization not as a talent to be developed, but more as a resource to be deployed and then left to languish? Or would they perhaps say that they were heavily recruited but not given a meaningful role—rather just a visible role, and served as a showpiece or hood ornament in your organization?

Some leaders are like magnets that draw in talent and develop it to its fullest. Other leaders acquire resources to build their empire. This chapter explores the difference in these two approaches to the management of talent and the impact that these leaders have on the people around them.

THE EMPIRE BUILDER VERSUS THE TALENT MAGNET

Multipliers operate as Talent Magnets. They attract talented people and then use them to their fullest; you might think of it as working at their highest point of contribution. They get access to the best talent, not because they are necessarily great recruiters, but rather because people flock to work for them. As Meg Whitman found Mitt Romney, people seek out a Talent Magnet. They do so knowing their capabilities will be appreciated and knowing their value will also appreciate in the marketplace.

In contrast, Diminishers operate as Empire Builders who hoard resources and underutilize talent. They bring in top talent and make big promises, but they underutilize their people and disenchant them. Why? Because they are often amassing the resources for self-promotion and their own gain. Empire builders accumulate people. They collect people like knickknacks in a curio cabinet—on display for everyone to see, but not well utilized.

Each of these approaches produces a self-perpetuating cycle. The Talent Magnet spawns a virtuous cycle of attraction and the Empire Builder spawns a vicious cycle of decline.

A Cycle of Attraction

In 1914, Ernest Shackleton, the venerated British explorer, embarked on an expedition to traverse Antarctica. His recruitment advertisement in
The Times
(London) read:

Surprisingly, hundreds of men applied. Shackleton, with the wisdom of an experienced captain, staffed his crew with men of a certain orientation—men who were attracted to adventure and recognition but who were also realistically prepared for the hardship they would face. No doubt Shackleton’s ability to attract the right team was one key factor in the survival of every member of the expedition.

The cycle of attraction begins with a leader possessing the confidence and magnetism to surround him or herself with “
A
players”—sheer raw talent and the right mix of intelligence needed for the challenge. Under the leadership of the Talent Magnet, the genius of these players gets discovered and utilized to the fullest. Having been stretched, these players become smarter and more capable.
A
players become
A+
players. These people are positioned in the spotlight and get kudos and recognition for their work. They attract attention and their value increases in the talent marketplace, internally or externally. These
A+
players get offered even bigger opportunities and seize them with the full support of the Talent Magnet.

And then the cycle kicks into hyperdrive. As this pattern of utilization, growth, and opportunity occurs across multiple people, others in the organization notice and the leader and the organization get a reputation. They build a reputation as a “the place to grow.” This reputation spreads and more
A
players flock to work in the Talent Magnet’s organization, so there is a steady flow of talent in the door, replacing talent growing out of the organization.

This cycle of attraction, outlined below, is exactly what happened to Mitt Romney at Bain & Company and why Meg Whitman knew to join his organization.

THE CYCLE OF ATTRACTION

A Talent Magnet creates a powerful force that attracts talent and then accelerates the growth of intelligence and capability. These leaders operate like an electromagnetic force that, through interactions between atoms, propels matter in the universe.

A Cycle of Decline

For many years, I had the pleasure of working closely with a colleague named Brian Beckham
¹
, a brilliant and affable Canadian. Brian had a reputation for being smart, optimistic, and collaborative, and could solve just about any complex problem that got tossed his way. This reputation earned him a key role as the vice president of operations in a rapidly growing division. The problem was that the division was run by an uncontrolled Diminisher and determined Empire Builder.

Brian went to work solving the complex problems of the emerging division; however, he soon found that the SVP running the division
didn’t really want the underlying issues addressed. The SVP wanted one thing: Grow an empire! And he wanted growth at all costs. Brian’s role quickly degenerated into window dressing, where he and his team fixed issues on the surface, just enough so the executive committee would continue to fund additional headcount into the organization. For many months, Brian continued to pursue his work at full throttle, but deep problems were festering at the core of the division. With continued indifference from his manager, Brian became numb and started to settle into mediocrity. He lost good players on his team. When other leaders in the company saw the depth of the problems in this division, Brian’s Midas-touch reputation quickly tarnished. After several years hanging in there hoping for things to improve, he found himself stuck in a dying organization, watching his opportunities fade.

Soon Brian became one of the walking dead that roam the halls of so many organizations. On the outside, these zombies go through the motions, but on the inside they have given up. They “quit and stay.” It was painful to watch this happen to Brian, whom I knew to be an absolute superstar. No doubt you have seen this happen to colleagues in other organizations or have even been there yourself. Is it possible that it is happening inside your own organization?

Empire Builders create a vicious cycle of decline. Talent recruited into their organization soon becomes disengaged and goes stale. The cycle of decline begins much like the cycle of attraction (which is why it is easy to be deceived by Diminishers). Empire Builders seek to surround themselves with
A
players. But unlike Talent Magnets, they accumulate talent to appear smarter and more powerful. The leader glosses over the real genius of the people while placing them into boxes on the org chart. The
A
players have limited impact and start to look more like
A–
or
B+
. They fail to get noticed for their work, and they lose intellectual confidence. They begin to recede into the shadow of the Empire Builder. Their value in the job market drops and opportunities begin to evaporate. So they stay and wait, hoping things will turn around. This cycle of degeneration impacts not only one person; it
infects an entire organization. The organization becomes an elephant graveyard earning a reputation as “the place people go to die.” As one technology superstar said of his empty vice president job, “I’m definitely past my sell-by date here.” The resignation in his voice made it clear: if he were milk, he’d be curdled.

Empire Builders, having earned their reputation as career killers, continually struggle to get truly top talent into their organizations. Perhaps this is why they labor hard to hoard the resources that they have. Empire Builders may initially be able to attract top talent, but their focus on building themselves and their organizations underutilizes the true talent that they have in their organization and renders it stagnant and inert.

They generate a cycle of decline that spirals downward as illustrated below.

THE CYCLE OF DECLINE