Summary: Multipliers

Review and Analysis of Wiseman and McKeown's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511018057
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown's book `Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown's book `Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter` shows how different types of leaders have different effects on their team. If you want to be the best manager and promote productivity, you need to become a 'multiplier'. In their book, the authors explain the five disciplines that you need to master in order to become a 'multiplier' and start getting the best out of your people.

Added- value of this summary:
• Save time 
• Understand the key principles
• Expand your management skills
 
To learn more, read “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter` to change the way you think about leadership and start getting more from your team.

Summary of Multipliers (Liz Wiseman with Greg McKEOWN)

Discipline #1: Become a talent magnet

Multipliers act as talent magnets whereas diminishers are empire builders. Develop a track record for delivering good solid results and also a reputation for being someone who utilizes the talents of employees to the fullest so your people can grow and prepare to move to the next level. Become skilled at finding ways to accelerate the careers of the people who work for you and everyone will line up to come onboard.

“I not only use all the brains that I have but all thatIcan borrow.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Good leaders always act as magnets for good talent. They get a reputation as being good to work for. The opposite of a talent magnet is a leader who is busy trying to build his or her own little silo or empire. For the second type of leader, talent is just a means to an end. It’s vital that you learn to act like a talent magnet rather than an empire builder.

A good talent magnet starts a self-reinforcing cycle of attraction going which looks something like this:

By contrast, empire builders start a different cycle going. This is more of a cycle of decline which tends to go something along these lines:

Interestingly, genuine talent magnets not only manage to grow top talent but they also find ways to extract exceptional performance from very ordinary people as well. This is a skill and a mindset well worth cultivating.

“The world of the Talent Magnet is dynamic. Talent is drawn in by the strong gravitational pull of the Talent Magnet. It is then fully utilized, stretched, made continually ready for new challenges. Life with an Empire Builder doesn’t offer the same thrill ride. It is a world of politics, ownership, and limitations.”

– Liz Wiseman

To become a better talent magnet, there are four basic skills you need to get good at:

1. Get into the habit of looking for talent everywhere – because genius comes in many different shapes and sizes. Talent magnets ignore conventional boundaries and organizational charts and spot diamonds in the rough. Look for fresh raw talent which can be polished anywhere and everywhere. To get good at this, make genius watching something you do all the time. This means:
   • Identify what people do exceptionally well
   • Hypothesize – figure out what’s going on here
   • Road test your hypothesis for fit
   • Figure out specific roles which could leverage this genius
2. Figure out how to unearth the natural genius almost everyone has – the things they are good at naturally rather than as a result of training or conditioning. Most people have natural talents and it just takes noticing and labeling to bring them to the surface. Get good at picking up on clues. And, if this means your people leave your organization to go somewhere else which better harnesses their natural genius, celebrate that. You’ll find those celebrations will be one of your very best recruiting tools for more talent in the future.
3. Create viable opportunities to utilize people to their fullest –look for openings where those natural talents can be fully engaged and called upon. Often this is a matter of connecting people with the right opportunity for them to shine and then shining a spotlight on what they’re doing well so others will take note.
4. Remove the blockers – the people who impede others from growing and performing to a higher level. Every organization has naysayers and prima donnas who have their own agendas. One way a talent magnet helps people perform is by removing these blockers out of the loop. Be prepared to do that as and when required. Sometimes this will mean that you have to pull out the weeds which are growing up alongside your best people. To unleash the latent talent within your organization, find the weeds and pull them out in the open view of everyone. That will send a strong signal of intent top performers will love.

And finally, in your efforts to become a talent magnet, watch out you don’t acquire any of the bad habits of the empire builders. Be on the alert if you start:

• Worrying about acquiring resources which then go on show rather than into productive action.
• Putting people into boxes and making it clear there’s no way out. ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of Multipliers (Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright