13
diminishing that fact of life or choosing not to
acknowledge the difficulties in turn diminishes the
efforts of the people actually implementing a plan or
project. Why try hard if the boss thinks it’s easy?
In her book, Wiseman cites a study by Carol
Dweck of Stanford University. The study gave a
series of progressively harder puzzles to children.
Her research found that a group of kids was praised
for their intelligence stagnated for fear of failure or
reaching the limit of their intelligence. Another
group praised for
their
hard
work
actually
increased
their ability to reason
and solve problems.
Her
book
includes a section
titled “A Tale of Two
Managers.”
Both
were geniuses. One,
George
Schneer,
was
a
division
manager for Intel,
and one of his
workers,
Vikram,
described what it was
like to work for
Schneer.
“I was a rock star
around George. He
made
me. Because
of him I transitioned
from an individual
contributor to a big-
time
manager.
Around him, I felt like
a smart SOB – everyone felt like that. He got 100
percent from me. It was exhilarating.”
Vikram’s other manager was equally brilliant but
had a very different style.
“He was very, very smart. But people had a way
of shutting down around him. He just killed our ideas.
In a typical meeting, he did about 30 percent of the
talking and left little space for others. He gave a lot of
feedback – most of it was about how bad our ideas
were,” Vikram said.
Based on her research, Wiseman compared
“Diminishers” to “Multipliers” in what she referred to in
her book as “The Five Disciplines of the Multipliers.”
They included:
The Empire Builder
(Hoards resources and
underutilizes talent) vs.
The Talent Magnet
(Attracts talented people and uses them at their
highest point of contribution)
The Tyrant
(Creates a tense environment that
suppresses people’s thinking capability) vs.
The
Liberator
(Creates an intense environment that
requires people’s best thinking and work)
The Know-It-All
(Gives directives that showcase
how much they know) vs.
The Challenger
(Defines an opportunity that causes people to
stretch)
The Decision Maker
(Makes
centralized, abrupt decisions
that confuse the organization)
vs.
The Debate Maker
(Drives
sound
decisions
through rigorous debate.
The Micromanager
(Drives results through their
personal involvement) vs.
The
Investor
(Gives other people
the ownership for results and
invests in their success)
Educator and author
Stephen R. Covey, who died
last year, wrote the book
The
Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People
, wrote the
foreword to Wiseman’s book.
In
that
foreword,
he
addressed the issue of “new
demands,
insufficient
resources” -- a problem facing
schools just as much as
business. Covey wrote: “At a
time
when
many
organizations do not have the
luxury of adding or transferring resources to tackle
major challenges, they must find the capabilities
within their current ranks. The ability to extract and
multiply the intelligence that already exists in the
organization is red-hot relevant.”
Wiseman made it clear that being a multiplier
does not equate to being soft as a manager. She
used a William Tell analogy to differentiate between
placing employees under pressure to perform versus
placing them under stress. In that analogy, the
person under pressure is William Tell. The one under
stress is the guy with an apple on his head, the one
who has zero control over the outcome.
Leadership Thoughts will be a monthly feature in
the newsletter. If you would like to submit a column,
please send it to
.
(Continued from page 12)
“There are
accidental
diminishers,
leaders who,
despite their good intentions,
drain instead of amplify the
innovation, productive effort and
collective intelligence of the
people around them.”
— Liz Wiseman, author of best-
selling book
Multipliers: How the Best
Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.
Leadership Thoughts:
Multiplier or Diminisher? ___________________
