The key ideas

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

Liz Wiseman, Greg McKeown, 2010

Around some leaders, people become bolder and think more clearly; around others, they fall silent. Liz Wiseman interviewed around a hundred and fifty leaders and their employees and described what distinguishes the first group. An unexpected idea: you can diminish people with the very best intentions.

Who it is for

For managers, teachers, coaches, and parents: anyone around whom other people think and work.

There is more intelligence inside our organizations than we use.

What the book is about

In nineteenth-century Britain, two prime ministers, Gladstone and Disraeli, were rivals. Liz Wiseman quotes musician Bono: supposedly, after meeting Gladstone, people left feeling he was the smartest person in the world. After meeting Disraeli, they left feeling they were the smartest people themselves.

Wiseman spent seventeen years at Oracle and noticed that around some leaders, people thought faster and more boldly, while around others they fell silent. With Greg McKeown, she interviewed around a hundred and fifty leaders on four continents and people who worked with them.

She called the first group Multipliers and the second Diminishers. An important point first: this is the author’s model, built on interviews and surveys rather than a controlled experiment. Ahead are “the stupidest question,” poker chips, and leaders who diminish people with good intentions.

Idea 1. Almost twice as much

People were asked what proportion of their abilities they brought to work around a particular leader. For Diminishers, they generally gave figures between twenty and fifty percent. For Multipliers, between seventy and a hundred percent, sometimes more than a hundred.

This produces the book’s central figure: by the author’s calculation, Multipliers get 1.97 times as much from people, almost twice as much. Wiseman explains that people around them hold nothing back and voluntarily take on more than their job requires.

This is employees’ own assessment rather than a productivity measurement.

Two friends take turns helping you renovate. With one, you silently pass tools. With the other, you start suggesting better ways to lay the tiles.

If the author’s estimate is even partly right, a team may have substantial untapped capacity in the people already there rather than only in new hires.

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About the author

Liz Wiseman is an American leadership researcher. She worked at Oracle for seventeen years, leading the creation of Oracle University and overseeing staff development, then founded The Wiseman Group. She is included in the Thinkers50 ranking. Greg McKeown coauthored the research and later wrote Essentialism.

All books by this author: Liz Wiseman, Greg McKeown

Terms from the book

  • Multiplier: The author’s term for a leader around whom people report using more of their abilities. The author’s model rather than a scientific category.
  • Diminisher: The author’s term for a leader around whom people report bringing a smaller share of their abilities to work.
  • Accidental Diminisher: An image from the revised edition: a well-intentioned leader who may unwittingly hold people back, for example by rescuing them from difficulties.
  • Talent Magnet: One of five disciplines in Wiseman’s model: finding people’s strengths and giving them work that needs those strengths.
  • Native genius: The author’s term for what someone does well, easily, and willingly, sometimes without noticing it themselves.
  • Multiplication logic: The author’s view of growth: results can improve by making fuller use of existing people’s abilities rather than only adding new people.

All terms

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