A multiplier is a leader who amplifies the intelligence and capability of their team, making work feel challenging yet exhilarating. Diminishers, on the other hand, unintentionally hold people back and create an environment where people defer to them. Both types of leaders have vastly different impacts on their teams.
Liz Wieman, the author of Multipliers, joins Henry and Maureen to discuss how to recognise the genius in others, create an environment that elicits the best thinking, provide challenges, encourage debate, and foster ownership and accountability.
Liz’s tips for a happy workplace
- Empower team members by giving them control, which helps them feel less like victims and more in charge of their work.
- Point people to where they can be most impactful and show them how their work is making a difference.
- Lighten the load, not by doing other people’s work for them, but by doing the small things that make work easy for others.
Links
- Impact Players: How to Take the Lead, Play Bigger, and Multiply Your Impact – Liz’s new book
- Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smart – Liz’s previous book
- The Fearless Organization – Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy Edmondson
- The Multipliers Accidental Diminisher Quiz
- Adam Grant
Transcript
Welcome to the Happy Manifesto podcast I'm Henry Stewart.
Maureen:And I'm Maureen Egbe.
Henry:In this episode, we have one of my favorite, most impactful people, Liz Wiseman but before that, what's bringing you joy at work, Maureen?
Maureen:What's bringing me joy?
Maureen:It's not actually at work.
Maureen:It's outside of work.
Maureen:I'm gonna share.
Maureen:Okay.
Maureen:Because as well as being a facilitator and a digital skills, um, I'm a athletics coach.
Maureen:And yesterday I watched one of my athletes who competed in her first indoor competition over 60 meters.
Maureen:And, um, it was, she was so nervous and, um, she ran her little heart out and she won her heat and it was the delight on her face that gave me so much joy when she realized how well she had done.
Henry:Excellent.
Henry:And you did used to, you did used to run track, didn't you?
Maureen:I did used to run track, you know, in my head I still do, but yes, I used to run track when I was very young.
Maureen:Okay.
Maureen:So yeah, that was awesome.
Maureen:Henry, what's been giving you joy?
Henry:Uh, well, we, uh, um, yesterday I facilitated a session on making the four day week work.
Henry:And I'd love the four day week.
Henry:I love, uh, talking about it.
Henry:I, and, uh, I love the fact that all these people were so excited about it.
Henry:Um, so that, that, that's what, uh, brought me joy at work.
Henry:I, I just love that facilit.
Maureen:Henry, for your mobile phone, do you have your emails on there?
Henry:I do, but I don't look at them.
Henry:I don't, I never, I never have notification on there and I don't look at them, at, at all.
Maureen:Great.
Maureen:And that's what I wanted to hear because that is one of my tips.
Maureen:Cause yesterday by accident, I put my phone on airplane mode.
Maureen:And I was working away, had no distractions for the day, you know, got through things.
Maureen:I was wondering what's going on.
Maureen:And then I checked my phone and I noticed that was off.
Maureen:So my tip is to manage your distractions.
Maureen:So manage your phone, take your emails off your phone.
Maureen:You've got them on your laptop, you know, and you'll find you'll be end up being more focused with less distractions.
Maureen:And it will give you your time back because you know when you put down your laptop at five 30 or whatever time you finished, you won't have your phone going off of your emails or
Henry:Absolutely.
Henry:Cause a lot of people check their email first thing in the morning.
Henry:I never do that.
Henry:In fact, I never used to look at my phone until about nine o'clock.
Henry:But now, now I do word on it,
Maureen:Okay, so what's your tip?
Henry:Well, my tip is the four day week.
Henry:Um, it's been immensely productive for happy.
Henry:Uh, we've got, as, uh, everybody says, they've got as much done as they did in five days.
Henry:And you might think, well, they would say that, but actually, at Happy we've been, we've grown our sales by 40% this year and expecting to do it 10% next year without.
Henry:extra staff.
Henry:So the four day week is working brilliantly and people are actually sticking to it, whereas before, they would often work over hours, but they actually, now we have 77% to saying they only work the 32 hour, hour week and, and, um, the other 23%, only one or two more.
Henry:So, uh, I would say that's a great tip for Happy Workplace.
Maureen:Yeah, it sounds like a successful tip as well.
Henry:Absolutely.
Henry:So now onto Liz.
Henry:In the 35 years of Happy's existence, there have been three people who have had most impact on the way we work.
Henry:One is Ricardo Simler, one is Friederike Leu, and the other is Liz Wiseman, whose book Multipliers had such a big impact, didn't it, Maureen?
Maureen:It certainly did.
Maureen:It really showed me who I am, you know, and got me to really think about how to be a better leader.
Maureen:So the Thank you, Liz.
Henry:Liz, um, what is it that makes a manager who multiplies rather than one that diminishes?
Liz:Hmm.
Liz:Well, a multiplier, very simply put, is a leader who magnifies, multiplies, increases.
Liz:The intelligence and capability of people around them.
Liz:There are leaders that we are at our very best around.
Liz:We are at our smartest around.
Liz:We, um, are, are our most impactful around these leaders.
Liz:And the work.
Liz:Feels hard but exhilarating.
Liz:Like we're at our happiest around these leaders as well, and it's not because they're patting us on the back and doing overt things to make us seem happy.
Liz:Amy, Liz, you're great.
Liz:Love you.
Liz:You're so happy you're, you're on the team.
Liz:It's not that kinda happy, it's that deep happy of, I was entrusted with an important piece of work.
Liz:They kept trusting me, meaning they didn't bungee and take it back away from me.
Liz:And I did something really hard.
Liz:It made a difference.
Liz:I grew, I stretched, I used every IQ point like the good Lord gave me and then, and then I grew a few more through the challenge.
Liz:And now it feels tiring, but totally exhilarating.
Liz:It's that kind of deep, deep, like, joyful, happy.
Liz:Those are leaders I call multipliers and diminishers are leaders who are often very smart, very capable themselves, but they have a diminishing effect on other people.
Liz:They're smart, but the people around them don't get to be smart or maybe more precisely put, don't get to be all the way smart.
Liz:Like, you know, these are leaders who we hold back around, we play it safe.
Liz:Um, when they walk into a.room, you know, light bulbs aren't going off over people's heads.
Liz:You know, people are sort of sitting back, shutting down, being quiet, deferring to them.
Liz:And what I found is, you know, at first glance these diminishers, I studied that at first glance, they're like narcissistic, tyrannical, bully, these kind of very overbearing, know-it-all kind of bosses.
Liz:And that's often who people think of when you think about diminishing leaders.
Liz:That might be the image that comes to mind.
Liz:But, uh, the big shock of the research was that most of the diminishing that happens is, is accidental.
Liz:It comes from good people with good intentions, trying to build a, you know, a good team, a happy team, and, and that's where it gets more interesting.
Maureen:I mean I can really relate with that, so Liz, because I think once I was looking into multipliers, one of my things accidentally, I thought I would protecting my team by standing up and doing things for them.
Maureen:And I realized that was also characteristics of a diminisher.
Maureen:So I just wanna touch a little bit more of what you were saying, cuz you, you, you said about intelligence, trust, challenging and some of the characteristics that you've used before was about like seeing the genius in others, create intensity that requires best thinking, extend challenge, debate decisions, and instill ownership and accountability.
Maureen:Is there one thing that you'll say is more important over the other?
Liz:Yeah, I, I don't think there is one thing that's more important over the other, you know, there is a set of things leaders do.
Liz:If I could boil 'em down to a couple things, it would probably be, um, trust.
Liz:Like, you know, as managers we want people to trust us.
Liz:Like, trust me, you'll be able to do this.
Liz:But people can't trust us unless we trust them.
Liz:So I think trust is kind of at the core.
Liz:And it was my mom actually who helped me see that we were at a family gathering.
Liz:It was a couple years, I don't know, a year after I had written the book.
Liz:And I overhear my mom talking to one of our relatives and she said, if I could summarize, uh, Elizabeth's book in, she calls me Elizabeth, of course, um, she said, if I could summarize it in one word, it would be trust.
Liz:And I'm like, trust?
Liz:This isn't a book about trust.
Liz:Like where did she get that now?
Liz:Then of course, I remembered my mom copy edited the whole book for me, so I sent it into the publisher copy, clean, and they were like, we've never seen a book like this.
Liz:I'm like, you haven't met my mother.
Liz:Like my mother's really good at this.
Liz:She had read every word, but that was what she saw underlying it all.
Liz:Another thing I, it took me a couple years to be able to see, you know, after I started decoded, here's what these leaders do.
Liz:They issue challenges.
Liz:They ask big questions.
Liz:They see people's genius.
Liz:You know, they, they make debate rather than weigh in on debate.
Liz:They, you know, invest like all of that.
Liz:It was pulling back from that one day.
Liz:I said, oh, actually there's really two things that these leaders are doing.
Liz:There are two things, and they're equally important, but they actually have to coexist these two things.
Liz:And it really comes down to two words, safety and stretch.
Liz:They, they create a safe environment, uh, one with psychological safety as Amy Edmondson and others have really pioneered.
Liz:, you know, where people feel like, okay, it's safe to speak up, you know, to be me.
Liz:You know, I, I feel trusted.
Liz:It's intellectual safety, meaning I can see the issue a different way, and I'm not gonna have like my ideas bullied.
Liz:It's in some places it's physical safety.
Liz:You know, I, I, I'm in a safe environment.
Liz:And some leaders are great at.
Liz:Like, you know, they put their arm around you.
Liz:Oh, Maureen, we're so glad you're here, Henry, you're great.
Liz:Oh, love you.
Liz:And you feel trusted and safe, but like they never ask you to do anything hard.
Liz:They do all the hard work.
Liz:They're buffering you, they're protecting you from the evils of the organization.
Liz:And, and honestly, most organizations have some evil kind of . Like there's usually you get more than three or four people working together and something starts to go a little haywire, but they're, they're protecting you from hard.
Liz:But we also don't love working with leaders who are all stretch.
Liz:You know, people who are asking you to do something hard.
Liz:So think about, you know, if a leader is like giving you a big challenge, you know, um, asking you a tough question, holding you accountable, um, pushing you, asking you to do something unreasonable.
Liz:But they haven't created safety?
Liz:Well, that's diminishing these, they're both diminishing dynamics in different ways.
Liz:Like the, the nice safety oriented leader is diminishing for sure.
Liz:It just is sort of a soft diminishing, it happens slowly over time as your capability erodes.
Liz:Um, but the best leaders do these two things and they, they do them together.
Liz:Like in a given meeting, they create safety.
Liz:Okay?
Liz:I want people to speak up.
Liz:You know, I, I expect people to disagree with me on this issue.
Liz:We're gonna disagree with each other.
Liz:You know what?
Liz:We're gonna do some hard hitting on this issue.
Liz:It might get a little bit ugly at times.
Liz:You know what we're doing is really hard here, and then the big stretch, okay, not good enough.
Liz:Let's think about this harder.
Liz:What are the underbellies?
Liz:Like in a given?
Liz:Meaning?
Liz:They've created those two dynamics.
Liz:And this is where that space, where these come together, you know, in roughly equal measures, that's where people do their best thinking and their best work.
Liz:It's our happy place to borrow your.
Henry:A happy place.
Henry:Yes, definitely.
Henry:Can you give a, uh, an example of, of a leader who's who, who your experience has done that?
Liz:Well, this is not someone, that I've worked for, but it's someone that we all know about.
Liz:I was just looking at the, um, the Golden Globe Award winners, uh, yesterday, you know, and I saw that, um, Steven Spielberg's new movie that The Feldermans, um, which I saw is up there.
Liz:And I was thinking about what I learned about him back when I was doing the research for the book.
Liz:One of the people that I interviewed was a Hollywood director, sort of an up and coming director.
Liz:He had done some work with, with Spielberg, and he talked about how he works and, and it, it actually has had a deep impression on me.
Liz:He, he said that Spielberg would say, you know, all good ideas start as bad ideas.
Liz:That's why it takes so long to get there.
Liz:I mean, think about working on one of Spielberg's movies and you have a concept to pitch.
Liz:Like how nervous you would be is like, I only expect the best ideas and the best thinking.
Liz:Like if it's not good, don't bring it to me.
Liz:You know, and, and he would like, entertain those ideas and nurture those ideas and build on 'em until they were great.
Liz:Um, and you know, the way he works, it's with this economy and consistencies of, people wanna work on his movies, not only because he wins awards, because they get to be at their best.
Liz:He's not one of those directors who has to call every shot.
Liz:And so people stay working for him, and it's one of the reasons why he's so prolific.
Liz:And, and I, I learned that it's an interesting thing about him is that he always has two movies going on at any given time.
Liz:He's got one in film an in post-production.
Liz:And he can do this because his crews are so loyal to him that they, you know, like once you know, the production of one film completes, like there's another film that's being filmed that can roll to that group.
Liz:And so he's kind of, he, he actually multiplies his, his portfolio as repertoire because people are so good working for him.
Liz:So that's someone that, that everyone knows.
Liz:Um, but I would really encourage you to think about like someone who was a multiplier to you.
Liz:What did, what did someone do to you, for you, with you that brought out your best thinking and your best work?
Henry:Yeah.
Henry:Cuz I often ask our, our, our participants, you know, Who has had, had a manager who, uh, they did less well than they expected to.
Henry:And normally everyone's hand goes up.
Henry:And who has had a manager who did, who helped you do better than you expected to do?
Henry:And again, nearly everyone's hand goes up.
Henry:Nearly everyone has a diminisher and a multiplier, um, in, in their, in their, uh, background.
Liz:And there, there are definitely some common themes.
Liz:It's what I've studied and and written about, but there's some uniquenesses, like some of the people who have been multipliers to me, they might show up on somebody else's diminisher list, which is where this, this, but like for me, my diminishers were not the sweet feel good kinds of leaders who loved me up.
Liz:These were people who had extraordinarily high expectations of me.
Liz:The people who brought up the message me are people who I would've done anything legal, you know, ethical to not let them down.
Liz:And, and they were actually leaders in some ways who operated without a shred of mercy.
Liz:And what I mean by that is they didn't jump in and, like, bail me out of my own little problems.
Liz:They let me figure things out, sort things out.
Liz:They didn't just jump in at the first sign of distress.
Liz:They kind of stood back and watched me struggle and maybe suffer through a little bit.
Maureen:So what did the safety look like then?
Liz:Well, they would tell me, I'm thinking of a cluster of two or three in particular.
Liz:They would tell me that my work was really good.
Liz:They would always say, this is really, really good.
Liz:And they would often tell me things like, Oh, you, you could do this.
Liz:Like, you could do anything.
Liz:I'm like, I can't do anything.
Liz:And they're like, they just would reaffirm their belief that what they were asking me to do was kind of reasonable.
Liz:And then I remember one was Ray Lane, the president of Oracle, who, you know, was not a really soft, warm, you know, fuzzy kind of leader.
Liz:But what he would, he would say things to me like, Liz, I feel like I can do anything when I work with you.
Liz:He's like, it was kind of like this sense of like, together we got this, we can do anything.
Liz:Like he actually made me feel like he was better around me, and so I didn't feel like a victim in this relationship, which a lot of people feel with their bosses, which is like, I'm a victim of their whims.
Liz:They want me to do this, I do that.
Liz:They don't like this, then it's bad.
Liz:And I, I felt very much like a partner with him.
Henry:Yeah.
Henry:I like, I like the bit and multiplies where it is for liberators.
Henry:I give you space, I give you trust, you give me back your best work.
Liz:There's space there and it's the word.
Liz:Um, Henry, I'm glad you pulled that out.
Liz:It's a word that came up over and over when I talked with people about their multiplier leaders is these were leaders who gave them space.
Liz:And I think there's so many ways we can give people space, like, space to figure it out on your own.
Liz:Like giving someone ownership.
Liz:And, and, and power is giving them their own space, giving people physical space.
Liz:During the pandemic, a lot of managers were forced to give people space.
Liz:Like, you can work in another building and I don't have my eyes on you all the time, and I'm good with that.
Liz:Like you can be in a different physical space, giving people time-based space, not more time to do the work.
Liz:But, one of the things, um, that's really changed about me and how I lead after doing this research is I give people time to prep.
Liz:Like I'll say, here's, here's our agenda for our meeting on Thursday.
Liz:And instead of giving people topics, I, I put it in the form of questions.
Liz:Here are like six questions I want you to come in having thought about.
Liz:Like, don't just show up and do this extemporaneously.
Liz:Like, come prepared.
Liz:I want your best thinking.
Liz:and I found that just giving people time to gather their thoughts, if you want them to come in sharp changes.
Liz:And for someone who's probably a little tilted extrovert for the introverts, they're like, thank you, thank you for like, letting us think before we speak.
Liz:Like that's, that's our jam.
Liz:Like that's the way we roll.
Henry:I, I get that absolutely, because I used to not do that at all, didn't I, Maureen?
Henry:And the, the introverts would absolutely say, I, I can't, I can't answer this.
Henry:Um, um, whereas now I try, I dunno if I do well, Maureen, but I try to, to do that, to ask, to pose the, the, uh, agenda, the questions in advance.
Henry:Um, now we, we, one thing we use is your accidental diminishing questionnaire, which is really interesting because a lot of people don't get what you're wanting from it because, uh, for instance, one of the points is when you see people failing, you jump in to rescue them or the project in order to help them avert failure and get in the path of success.
Henry:Now, why is that a bad thing?
Liz:Well, it's actually a good thing for the project many times,
Liz:but.
Liz:, it tend to be a bad thing for the person who was responsible for that piece of work.
Liz:And you know, maybe in the short term they're like, phew.
Liz:Yeah, I was struggling.
Liz:I mean, I can think of so many times where I was given this hard piece of work, and if someone would've come along and offered me a rescue, oh, I would've taken it.
Liz:I would've handed that hard piece of work to them.
Liz:I would've hugged them, you know.
Liz:But what happens is like, what is the messaging that's gets sent?
Liz:Well, okay, let's look at the long term con consequences.
Liz:That's probably the most obvious, which is if you rescue struggling people before they have a chance to struggle through and figure it out, like they've never built the capability.
Liz:And who's gonna get called in to rescue, you now are in firefighter mode and you've built a team of weaklings around you.
Liz:That is the medium to long term consequence of rescuing people.
Liz:But I think there's sort of a, a short term, a little bit more subliminal below the surface kinds of immediate consequence, which is like, let's say, you know, Maureen steps in and rescues me when I'm working through something.
Liz:The messaging Maureen thinks she's sending to me is, Liz, I care about you, I want you to be successful.
Liz:I got you.
Liz:I got your back.
Liz:I'm on it.
Liz:You can count on.me.
Liz:That's what she thinks she's doing until she does it and she feels good.
Liz:But what's the messaging that actually gets sent to me?
Liz:The subtext is what?
Liz:don't think you can do this.
Liz:I don't think you can do it without me.
Liz:I don't think you're capable.
Liz:You're not gonna figure this out, which is the absolute essence of the diminisher mindset.
Liz:If you're not gonna figure this out without moi, me.
Liz:And so rescuing is insidious
Henry:Whereas Multipliers know, know that people intelligent will figure it out, don't they?
Liz:absolutely.
Liz:And, and part of the problem is people look like they want the rescue and.
Liz:You know, people are used to, like, if their manager comes along and says, okay, like, give that to me, or, oh, don't worry, you're pretty little head over this.
Liz:Like, I'll finish that.
Liz:I'll get this through the hard thing, people are used to acquiescing to that, like, they don't say no, give it back.
Liz:Like I, I, I learned this one.
Liz:. I, I, this was very vivid for me learning this.
Liz:I am a fairly new, I mean, young manager.
Liz:I'm running Oracle University at Oracle and there's a woman in my office who's running, um, our bootcamps for our sales consultants, and she's in my office and she's, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 minutes are going by where she's telling me all the reasons why we aren't gonna be able to hold this bootcamp because we don't have enough server space, so we have to install the database on like 30 different machines and these people have to be able to bring up and down databases.
Liz:So it's a massively resource intensive program.
Liz:And the data center can't give us space and she's going through this.
Liz:So I reach over and I grab the phone, you know, and this is back in the day where we had like the Curly Q phone and you know, the cords on our phones.
Liz:And I grabbed the phone and I'm dialing the data center.
Liz:I probably have 'em on speed dial because I'm dealing with the data center all the time.
Liz:Like, I know all these guys, like they owe me favors and I'm calling the data center.
Liz:And this woman, she says to me, she goes, Liz, you can, don't you, you can put down the phone, like, don't make the call.
Liz:And I'm like, what?
Liz:She's just been telling me about how this isn't gonna happen.
Liz:This is a mission plan.
Liz:We're like a big product launch.
Liz:Like all eyes are on this bootcamp.
Liz:I'm absolutely doing what I thought she needed.
Liz:And she goes, no, you don't need to make that call.
Liz:She said, I'll figure this out.
Liz:And then she said this thing that blew my mind, she said, I just wanted you to know what I was working on.
Liz:And as one who's kind of like, I think a little bit more lo logic oriented rather than emotionally oriented sort of in my core personality, I was like, what?
Liz:You don't need help.
Liz:Like you just were telling me, I'm like, oh my gosh, she wants sympathy.
Liz:Oh, okay.
Liz:My bad.
Liz:I was just doing the logical thing, which is she needs help.
Liz:She's raised a flag and it, I was, um, I was a little bit ashamed of myself after that meeting, and she put me in my place and she's just like, whoa, you're doing it wrong.
Liz:And I'm so grateful she did.
Liz:And I've learned, um, our, our probably mutual friend Adam grant, uh, a lot of people have read Adam's book.
Liz:He's, he's kind of a big fan of multipliers, and he says, I ki I have rescuer tendencies.
Liz:And what he told me, he, he does, his little mantra is when people come to them, him looking for help, looking like they need help, he tells themself people want sympathy, not solutions.
Liz:And I think it's a great reminder.
Maureen:Most definitely.
Maureen:And I almost feel like, Liz, you were talking to me.
Maureen:You know me.
Maureen:Yes.
Maureen:I am a rescuer.
Maureen:I was a rescuer.
Maureen:I was a rescuer.
Maureen:Now that I understand, as you said, the diminishing side of it all.
Maureen:So taking that on board, like what Henry said, we usually give the accidental, um, questionnaire to people and they are shocked when they realize the score.
Maureen:So my question to you is what are the steps you think people should take?
Maureen:What's like the first steps people should take to move from the place of a diminisher to a multiplier?
Liz:You know, I think, maybe years ago I would've said, oh, well, you know, read the book and build your multiplier skills and, you know, go do those things.
Liz:Well, they don't hurt.
Liz:They don't hurt.
Liz:But I've seen that it's more about the conversation.
Liz:Okay.
Liz:Um, some steps.
Liz:First of all, know that having a, a high score isn't bad.
Liz:Let's look at the inverse.
Liz:Um, I once had someone who was very like big white eyed came up to me and he goes, Hey Liz, I took your accidental diminisher quiz, and you know, he'd gotten a low score on that.
Liz:And he tells me a score, I can't remember what it was.
Liz:And he goes, yeah, look, I'm not a, an accidental diminisher.
Liz:And I said, oh, so you took our self-assessment quiz?
Liz:And he's like, yeah.
Liz:And I'm like, so what that score tells you is that you don't think that you are a diminisher, but that doesn't tell you what the people around you see.
Liz:Some people can catch it there.
Liz:Like, oh, I do that.
Liz:And like, yeah, I see how that's diminishing other people.
Liz:I'm, I'm like, so having a a, a high score means that you are aware of the things that you're doing that could have a diminishing effect.
Liz:So kind of enjoy that.
Liz:Like, oh, and these are all things we do with the best of intentions.
Liz:So like take a moment to like lock in Oh, my intention is good here.
Liz:Like, I'm a rescuer.
Liz:I want people to be successful.
Liz:Okay.
Liz:Wow.
Liz:What's another way I can help people to be successful, which is to help them successfully get the thing across the finish line themselves?
Liz:Um, and then h have a talk about it.
Liz:Um, what I have found is that the organizations and, and hence then the people in them that make the most progress, building these multiplier mindsets and capability and this culture, are the people who talk a lot about diminishing.
Liz:if you wanna be more of a multiplier, you can be hyper aware of your diminishing tendencies, understand your accidental, diminish your tendencies, you know, try any one of the dozen or so multiplier practices and be hypervigilant about situations that might bate your accidental diminisher.
Liz:And you can go it alone.
Liz:But there's a much more powerful way, which is to talk so openly about your accidental diminisher tendencies that everyone knows, like for me, I'm an idea fountain.
Liz:Like everybody knows this about me.
Liz:Maybe everyone would know.
Liz:Maureen that you're a bit of a rescuer.
Liz:Henry, what's your a one of your accidental diminishing tendencies?
Liz:I can give you a pick list.
Henry:go on, gimme a pick list.
Liz:Okay, lemme see.
Liz:Um, optimist, rescuer, rapid responder, pacesetter, perfectionist strategist, protector.
Henry:No, not the perfectionist or that they're optimist.
Henry:I'm the one who, who, who?
Henry:Yeah.
Henry:I, um, that was the card.
Henry:I remember.
Henry:There's a set of multiplier cards, aren't they?
Henry:And, uh, that, that was the one that I,
Liz:we share this one.
Liz:We share this one.
Liz:I am an optimist too.
Liz:I'm like, ah, got this.
Liz:We can do this.
Liz:That's gonna be fun.
Liz:Everyone's like
Maureen:That's Henry
Liz:Okay,
Liz:so let's say if everyone on the team knows that Henry is a massive optimist, then when you're talking about, Hey, this, we're gonna do this, this, I know it's a lot, but you know what?
Liz:We're gonna be successful.
Liz:gives
Henry:me, isn't it?
Henry:That's
Maureen:Hey, so is
Liz:It gives permission for people who work for you to go, okay, but can we just talk about what might not go right?
Liz:And it also, and it like, might cue you to do what I do.
Liz:Um, and I think one of the great workarounds to being an optimist is to just signal the struggle.
Liz:Like, okay, what we're gonna do is hard.
Liz:Um, you know, we we're gonna make mistakes along the way.
Liz:We might fail at this.
Liz:And it's amazing what happens when you counter your optimism with acknowledgement about the downside.
Liz:We might not win this time.
Liz:And it doesn't act as a downer.
Liz:It actually acts as like a liberator for people.
Liz:Okay, so let's say everyone on the team knows Marine the rescue.
Liz:, someone who works for her, you know, is just about to get a Maureen rescue.
Liz:You know, they're about to get this loving hand of help, and it gives them permission because everyone knows Maureen's a rescuer.
Liz:It gives them permission to say, Oh, I so appreciate the offer.
Liz:But you know what?
Liz:I got this, I'm gonna get it done.
Liz:You know what?
Liz:Save the, save the, the hand of help for like a time when I really needed, or you know what?
Liz:Save it for clapping.
Liz:Like you can cheer me when this is done.
Liz:It.
Liz:Or it allows us to just channel sort of our inner three-year-old, which is like what happens when you try to do for a three-year-old what she can do for herself.
Liz:They're like, no, daddy, I do it.
Liz:Me,
Maureen:Yeah.
Maureen:They, they catch you away,
Liz:they bat you away and they don't sit you down and tell you you're like an evil boss and like all the ways you're ruining them.
Liz:They just say, I can do this.
Liz:And for me, you know, I'm a an IU death fountain and everyone teases me about it and it's actually a healthy sign when tea, when people tease you about it, you are doing your job right because now they can bat you away with a lighthearted tap.
Liz:So you know, if I'm like, Hey, we should try this, and I've thought about this and I was thinking, we might wanna write an article about this.
Liz:And then people on my team can say, Liz, is this something you want us to stop or we're working on and go do, or you kind of have one of your idea parties?
Liz:I'm like, oh, this is an idea party.
Liz:Like, ignore me as needed to get your job done.
Liz:And what happens when that conversation is out in the.
Liz:Is now you have, let's say you have a team of 10 people working for you.
Liz:Now you have 10 people helping you be a multiplier, helping you not be a diminisher, rather than have that all set with you and who's actually the one that's most motivated to keep you from diminishing.
Henry:I will often say to people, am I being a diminisher at the moment?
Henry:And sometimes they'll say, no, no, I really need your help on this.
Henry:And other times they'll say, yeah, actually you are Henry.
Henry:Um, so it's, it's really, really helped us with, with, with, uh, with the language of that.
Henry:Um, anyway, we could talk forever about being a multiplier, but you've also had an.
Henry:Just quickly share the new book Impact Players?
Liz:Oh, well, Impact Players is about people who are extraordinarily influential and impactful and do incredibly valuable work inside of the organization.
Liz:And in many ways it's looking at why is it that some people get stuck going through the motions, doing their job, even doing their job well, while other people who aren't any smarter, any harder working, you know, any more capable, are making a big impact?
Liz:And I, I have to like admit it really, for me, it's kind of my post Multipliers therapy book.
Liz:And, and, and really how this book came to be is, um, I call 'em warranty calls where, you know, various leaders around the world will say, oh, I heard you speak, or I went to a workshop, or I read your book, and I went out and I did that multiplier stuff and it didn't work.
Liz:I'm like, what do you mean it didn't work?
Liz:And they're like, I played fewer chips.
Liz:Nobody spoke up.
Liz:I asked questions, but they didn't respond.
Liz:I'm like, oh, okay.
Liz:Well let's look at what could have gone wrong there.
Liz:And as we looked at, and of course there's the obvious things of, well, maybe you weren't doing it very well, or maybe you were, yeah, you weren't good at it yet.
Liz:Like your question was sort of an insulting question rather than a liberating question.
Liz:Or maybe you've been diminishing so long that people don't trust this new behavior.
Liz:You know, maybe the person who's working for you has been diminished so long by somebody else that they don't have the capability to even respond.
Liz:And so I've been looking at like what happens on the contributor side of the equation.
Liz:And you know, there was a particular comment, some, oh, I think I was up at Salesforce.
Liz:I was doing a Multipliers workshop and one of the engineering managers, he raises his hand.
Liz:He's like, yeah, I get it.
Liz:I wanna be a multiplier.
Liz:And I think he legitimately, Dave he goes, but you can't multiply zero.
Liz:And I'm like, what?
Liz:And of course, ouch.
Liz:I'm thinking, he's saying, I got a bunch of dummies working for me and I don't have the raw capability I need to.
Liz:So I am about like, I'm hitting like queued up little speech on, hey, everyone has genius, everyone has capability.
Liz:Your job as a leader is to see it and you say, I'm about to go there.
Liz:And then he keeps explaining.
Liz:He's like, yeah, as a leader, I need to bring the right mindsets and practices.
Liz:to like bring out people's best, but the people on my team, they also need to bring the right mindsets and practices.
Liz:Hmm.
Liz:Yeah.
Liz:What are the mindsets and practices that allow each of us to play at our best?
Liz:To be big and to have impact?
Liz:Like sometimes our impact is thwarted by our managers, but sometimes our impact is thwarted by ourselves and the way that we think about our job.
Liz:And so this, this piece of research was really trying to understand what are some of the small differences in how people think and what they do that end up creating this extraordinary difference and how impactful they are.
Liz:And it really is for me about the difference of working sort of as a position holder, going through the motions, doing your job and working as a difference maker.
Liz:One is exhausting, one is exhilarating.
Henry:Yeah, absolutely.
Henry:Okay.
Henry:And finally, Liz, your three tips for a happy workplace?
Liz:Well, these are a combination of things leaders do, contributors do.
Liz:These are things that, um, on a team you can do.
Liz:Number one, give people control.
Liz:You know, when, so people don't feel like a victim.
Liz:It's like I am in charge, I'm in charge of my work, I'm in charge of my role.
Liz:Um, give people as much control as you could possibly give them.
Liz:If you're the team member, operate with this.
Liz:Heightened sense of agency and control.
Liz:Like I'm in control of my job.
Liz:Like, no, I don't have to be a victim of this.
Liz:I can push back.
Liz:I can speak up.
Liz:That's number one.
Liz:Number two is, is do work that has impact, like do work that is highly impactful.
Liz:What I've, you know, we've been dealing with this epidemic of burnout and people are sort of miserable and tired and it's so easy to assume that people burn out because they have too much work.
Liz:And everything in my research points to something different.
Liz:And that is we tend to burn out ,not because we have too much work, but because we're having too little impact.
Liz:And I think, um, particularly with the hybrid environments we're working in, people remotely like managers, help point people toward where they can be most impactful and help people see how their work is making a difference.
Liz:That creates joy when we know our work matters.
Liz:And, and lastly is, um, make work light, which it's one of the things we found, uh, one of the five practices of Impact Players what they do differently than than others is they just make hard work lighter.
Liz:And it's not that they do other people's work for them, it's that they are easy to work with, they're kind of no drama types.
Liz:You know, they're the kind that if they forward you a big email chain, they just summarize it like, oh, below you'll find da da, here's the core issue.
Liz:And their managers and colleagues are like, Thank you, you just saved me 15 minutes of like, Trying to unravel this.
Liz:They do small things that just make it easy for other people.
Liz:They're easy to work with, they're low maintenance.
Liz:They're um, they're delightful.
Liz:They're positive, not toxically positive, but they are hopeful and they're fun and, and it's not that they necessarily even reduce the workload, they just make it easier for everyone to carry the heavy, the heavy load.
Maureen:Love that.
Henry:Thank you, Liz.
Henry:Thank you for, for, for this session.
Henry:Um, and, and, uh, listeners, if you haven't read Multiplies or Impact Players, do so now.
Henry:It will have a, a real impact on your organization.
Liz:Thank you Maureen and Henry.
Maureen:There was so much in there, Henry.
Maureen:Um, I wouldn't even know which part to say was my favorite.
Maureen:There was so much.
Henry:The safety and stretch bit.
Henry:Uh, you know that point that, yes, you want to challenge people, you want to stretch them, but it doesn't work unless you have the safety.
Henry:You know, if, if it's a blame culture, if it's something like that, then people will be terrified if, if they, if they're trying to take risks or do something new.
Maureen:Yeah.
Maureen:And I think the step before, that's the trust building up the trust.
Maureen:Because, you know, safety, you know, comes from trust.
Maureen:So we have to trust there.
Maureen:But I love that thing when you're talking around, um, like the rescuer, you know, I felt like the spotlight was on me for a moment.
Maureen:Uh, um, that thinking about it turning around from solution, it's like someone's coming to you not for solution, but for sympathy.
Maureen:So it helps you just stops you in your track rather to try to rescue, but allowing them to just, you know, get things off their chest and just tell you so you can just be a listening ear rather than a rescuer.
Henry:And listeners, you must read multipliers.
Henry:I, I just went back to it, uh, just before, before this, and I make notes on Kindle.
Henry:Um, I make, you know, highlight things and normally I highlight about five or six.
Henry:Um, with multipliers I highlighted 84.
Henry:You know, there were so many good bits in there.
Maureen:Yeah, it's a must.
Maureen:Um, so look guys, if you wanna find out more about Liz Wiseman, why not go over to the happymanifesto.com where we've got links that will direct you, and you can get to listen to other episodes from the Happy Manifesto.
Henry:Absolutely.
Henry:onto the next episode.
Maureen:That's it.
Maureen:remember, let's keep creating happy workplaces.