Are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher?

Welcome to the “The Catalyst,” Kevin Noble’s weekly newsletter about becoming a more effective leader.

Past newsletters can be found online here.

If you find this content helpful, please forward this to a friend!

If you’re that cool friend, sign up for the newsletter here 🤗

My week off work culminated in a rare evening all alone.

Rare, as in during the last decade and a half, I’m not sure that I’ve ever been in my house for a night alone. 🤔

My wife was gone for training, and the kids were staying with friends. While I thought I’d have this wide expanse of time to play with, in practice the time was limited – one free hour at night, 30 minutes the following morning. I think I used it well, however!

When was the last time you ate mindfully?

I grilled a steak and ate it on my back deck. The smoke from the grill lingered in the air. The birds sang, the bugs buzzed, and things rustled in the grass. I’d take a bite of food, close my eyes, and pay attention to the taste of the food. Then I’d open my eyes and pay attention to the noises around me.

Connecting to the present by being mindful is a great grounding exercise. 🧘

Looking back at the week off itself, I’d also consider that a success, but it’s hard to fail at taking time off work 🤣

I got my big things accomplished each day.

Rather than starting with a desire to get 10-12 things done and stress if I missed, I’d start my day with an intention around the 1-3 things I’d accomplish. I’d make sure those got done, and then pull in anything else as a bonus.

The end result was about 10 tasks per day completed, but the mental feeling around it was much more spacious.

I also learned that I stuffed too many meetings into the week and would want to temper that next time.

I don’t like meetings in the afternoon since I spend my whole day devoting some mental energy into making sure I don’t miss it. I did morning meetings instead, but then after three meetings the whole morning is gone with no deep work done!

I might experiment with this next time: a) Fewer overall meetings b) Shove them all into Monday and Tuesday so the rest of the week has more deep work.

How do you structure your work? What have you learned about setting yourself up for success? I’d love to hear about it at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz – let me know!

Kevin

A Quote

“ Creativity is about connecting the dots, and playfulness allows us to find patterns and make those new connections. Connecting dots and creative play, for both children and adults, is essential to problem-solving, as well as cultivating a sense of possibility. — John Fitch et. al. in “Time Off”

Three Things

1 – 🎙️ Microsoft on the Acquired Podcast – Did you know, in the year 2000, when the US Department of Justice found Microsoft guilty of abusing their monopoly power, that they ordered the company to split into two entities; one on the operating system, one for applications? Bill Gates had to run one, and Steve Balmer the other. They were not allowed to work together. This podcast by acquired covers Microsoft’s history from 1999 through to modern time.

2 – 🚗 High Cost of Free Parking – How did the US end up with so many parking spaces (estimates of 8 spots per car)? Anything free has hidden costs, and that’s no exception for parking. What would happen if the rules changed and businesses weren’t required to provide free parking?

3 – 🚽 $22K Toilet – What phase of your life, and at what income level, would it take for you to invite this $22K toilet from Toto into your house?

Deeper Dive on the Five Disciplines of the Multiplier

Do you multiply the capabilities of your team, or do you diminish them?

As a reader of this newsletter, I’m going to assume you didn’t get into leadership to diminish. You’re someone who wants to multiply the capabilities of others.

I first read Liz Wiseman’s book, “Multipliers”, on the beach back in 2019 and found it extremely enlightening. Liz asserts that Multipliers get 2x the results, whereas Diminishers get 0.5x.

Multipliers assume “People are smart and will figure it out.”

Diminishers assume “People won’t figure it out without me.”

Today I’ll share with you the Five Disciplines of the Multiplier, and pepper in some Diminisher behaviors for contrast. These are important things to pay attention to for the impact they have on your own effectiveness, the wellbeing of your employees, and the impact it can have on your business.

The Five Disciplines are:
1 – Talent Magnet
2 – The Liberator
3 – The Challenger
4 – Debate Maker
5 – The Investor

Let’s dive into the details of each one!

​

Talent Magnet

Multipliers: “Attracts talented people and uses them at their highest point of contribution.”
Diminishers (The Empire Builder): “Hoards resources and underutilizes talent.”

In 1914 Ernest Shackleton wrote one of the world’s worst job descriptions to attract people on his expedition to the Antarctic.

I say it’s the worst job description because it sounds so unpleasant, but it was successful in attracting the right men for the journey. Shackleford was a Talent Magnet.

A Talent Magnet doesn’t necessarily mean you’re exceptional at recruiting. It does mean that you’ve got a reputation for being a person who delivers and grows people, so people want to work with you.

In contrast, a Diminisher recruits talent to hoard them, like Silas Marner with his gold coins. Since the whole point is to seem more important by having a bigger team, the Diminisher underutilizes people’s talent.

The Multiplier notices people’s genius, and puts them in position to use it to great effect.

To get better at noticing genius, pay attention to what lights people up. Pay attention to what looks effortless. Where are they putting in discretionary effort because they love the space?

Tell people the greatness you see in them.

Everyone has different strengths. A Multiplier is keen enough to see your strengths and put them to good use. They know there are many ways to achieve an outcome, and they let the person’s strengths lead the way.

A Diminisher, by contrast, is trying to get people to fit into the box they define, even if they’re less effective. Diminishers aren’t creative enough to see the many paths to success.

A Diminisher’s belief is that people need to report into them in order to get anything done, whereas Multipliers ignore boundaries. I’ll admit that I had the Diminisher belief when I first read this book!

I still catch myself with thoughts like this; “Well, if [this group] reported to me, I’d be able to…” Then I realize that’s a story and I challenge myself to make it happen regardless of where people report in the organization.

One last thing – Multipliers encourage people to grow and leave. Your people may grow faster than the company. They’ll need bigger challenges than you can provide, and that’s great! That’s success! Write recommendations for them. Connect your people with opportunities. Celebrate them as they go.

Those celebrations are the signal to other excellent people that they should come work for you – a Talent Magnet.

​

The Liberator

Multipliers: “Creates an intense environment that requires people’s best thinking and work.”
Diminishers (The Tyrant): “Creates a tense environment that suppresses people’s thinking and ability.”

This one can be a gray area; what’s the different between a tense environment and an intense environment?

It’s subtle, but a lot of it comes down to psychological safety, and people’s comfort level in challenging the status quo and inertia of the team.

Multipliers liberate people from the bureaucracy of work. Free to “think, to speak, and to act with reason.” “They give people permission to think.”

Diminishers are tyrants. They create fear and intimidation.

Multipliers remove unnecessary policies and procedures and put the onus on people to think and act with reason.

A Multiplier will make someone several levels down in the org. structure feel important because they’re being listened to. The Multiplier is sincerely interested in what they have to say.

A team presenting to a Diminisher doesn’t want to stand out. The end result is worse thinking because people won’t share challenging ideas; just safe and mediocre. They don’t want to draw the ire of the leader if they share a bad idea.

Multipliers are okay with bad ideas because they’re a necessary first step in creating good ideas! You have to be bad to get good.

One thing Multipliers do is shift the ratio towards listening from talking. If you’re busy asserting your perspective, you’re not hearing that of others. Multipliers listen. Diminishers take up all the space.

Pay attention to how much you’re talking in a meeting. If you’re talking 80% of the time in a five person meeting, you might be a Diminisher.

One more thing that Multipliers do to create an “intense” environment is to set direction or a goal, but not tell people how to get there. Solving this challenge will bring to the surface the best thinking of your team.

“Multipliers don’t tell people what to think; they tell them what to think about.”

​

The Challenger

Multipliers: “Defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch”
Diminishers (The Know-It-All): “Gives directives that showcase how much they know.”

Multipliers use their smarts to encourage bigger thinking and challenging the room. They bring the knowledge of the team to bear.

Diminishers feel like they have to have all the answers and be a know it all. Diminishers have an answer for everything, even if it’s not the right answer. Eventually in this model people stop thinking because the leader tells them what to do.

You’ll notice the environment of a Diminisher because all roads lead to them. People can’t make decisions without the Diminisher in the room. Progress stops. The team doesn’t know how to move forward, so they wait until the leader is in the room to tell them what do to.

Multipliers seed an opportunity. They create a starting point, but not the full solution. They generate more questions than answers.

They lay down a challenge, ask hard questions, and let other people fill in the blanks. This has a positive byproduct of creating agency in the team. Rather than feeling like they’re executing on the boss’ idea, they’re being given the opportunity to see their own idea come to life.

There’s also something interesting in how these types of leaders question. A Multiplier asks hard questions, and they do it to stimulate thinking.

The Diminisher asks questions, but usually as a test. They want to know that you understood their perspective. They’re not interested in what your perspective is. On the receiving end of this, you’ll feel like the boss knows the answer to their question, and is quizzing you. It’s how they showcase how much they know.

Instead, a Multiplier knows how much they don’t know, and asks questions to take advantage of the diversity across the team.

​

Debate Maker

Multipliers: “Drives sound decisions through rigorous debate”
Diminishers (The Decision Maker): “Makes centralized, abrupt decisions that confuse the organization.”

Multipliers care about getting it right, not being right. Diminishers want to be the one in charge of decision making.

Diminishers will obfuscate the decision-making process. It’s often not clear that a decision has been made, or how it’s been made.

Multipliers will frame an issue and spark debate.

Sparking debate in the right way can be tough! The author describes a yin and yang. The yin is creating safety for best thinking. The yang is demanding rigor.

To demand rigor, a Multiplier will ask questions that challenge the thinking. They’ll probe to unearth assumptions. They’ll ask questions to get people to think harder and deeper about the topic at hand. They’ll ask for evidence, not beliefs.

Multipliers aren’t necessarily consensus-driven, however. When it’s time to make a decision, a Multiplier can make the decision.

Then they communicate the decision and the rationale so it’s well understood by the broader team.

The decisions from a Diminisher can feel like whiplash to the team because there’s often no underlying process, key assumptions aren’t surfaced, and there’s a need to go back and re-think things.

For the Multiplier, the decisions are stronger because it was underpinned by strong debate, and demanded rigor in the process.

​

The Investor

Multipliers: “Gives other people ownership for results and invests in their success”
Diminishers (The Micromanager): “Drives results through their personal involvement.”

You might be in a Diminisher environment if things only move forward if the leader is involved. Diminishers don’t give up ownership, and if they do, it’s often in name only. The boss will say someone else is in charge, but then continue to require decisions to go through them. They may also only give out ownership of tasks, not for the overall body of work.

Multipliers define ownership, and truly put others in charge. They know that the business won’t scale if they’re the crutch everyone leans on.

When Multipliers give ownership, it’s also for the end goal, not the process for achieving it. They know that part isn’t what matters and let’s the owner and team figure it out.

Multipliers also teach and coach. They’re able to share what they’ve learned so that others can benefit from it, as opposed to keeping that knowledge to themselves.

Multipliers aren’t rescuers, however. They keep the ownership where it was assigned. They expect complete work, and respect natural consequences that may come along.

One small way in which this plays out is in action items in a meeting. Multipliers try not to come out of a meeting with action items or more ownership. Again, how they’ll scale is by giving ownership to the team.

If you’re in a meeting with your boss and they’re taking action items, jump in! Raise your hand and take something off their plate. Let them Invest in you instead of doing the work themselves.

​

Accidental Diminishers

Leaders often have the best of intentions when it comes to working with the team, and sometimes these good intentions have negative outcomes. The book ran through some “accidental diminisher” personas that I want to share with you. Do you see yourself in any of these?

Idea Fountain – Always bringing up new ideas, but when the team starts to execute, the leader brings out even more new ideas. The team never makes progress.

Always On – Has high energy and big personality. Ends up sucking the energy out of everyone else.

Rescuer – Doesn’t like to see people struggle or make mistakes, so jumps in and helps. This is a drama role!

Pacesetter – Achievement-oriented leader takes the lead, sets pace, and assumes everyone will come along. The team doesn’t catch up, but instead watches.

Rapid Responder – Leader who likes agility and fast turnaround. They’re always “on it.” Like rescuer, the team stops doing, because they see the boss is always on it.

Optimist – Saying “it’s not that hard” when it is indeed hard. Be honest, not a cheerleader.

Protector – Shielding your staff from challenge, limiting their growth.

Strategist – Setting the vision, but being too prescriptive. People need some sense of ownership, too.

Perfectionist – Points out little mistakes and flaws. “Sometimes a 90 percent solution executed with 100 percent ownership is better than getting it 100 percent right with a disengaged team.”

​

Call to Action

The best place to start with this is to be honest with yourself on practices. To what extent do you have diminisher behaviors? To what extent do you have Multiplier behaviors?

No one sits fully at one end of the spectrum or the other. What can you focus on to tip yourself in the direction of a Multiplier?

Pick a single discipline topic and focus on improving your behaviors this week.

And let me know how it goes! As always I love to hear your thoughts. Did you notice yourself anywhere in this newsletter today? Email me back at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz and tell me about it.

Have a great week!

Kevin 😁

​