How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter - Multipliers

I have never seen a book pull together so much research and comprehensive management thinking into such a succinct, balanced and life-changing premise. This book explained why some managers are good bosses and some are bad bosses without resorting to the old explanation that a manager isn't a leader or vice-versa. Truly ground-breaking and a must read for anyone who wants to know how to make a difference in their circle of life.

After having this book recommended by friends, I started reading it but just it was too 'businessy", too focused on the leader and not on why the led would behave in the way the multiplier is supposed to lead them.

Easy to read practices & principles of leadership that raises everyone's performance while allowing team members to find fulfillment & growth in stretching themselves. Applicable at home & at work with many examples cited

This is a must read for anybody who is involved in relationships in any organization! Helps take a step back to see our own actions and the actions of others. Gives helpful advice on how to eliminate unhelpful actions and increase helpful actions.

This book is outstanding! Wiseman's insights into our leadership dilemma here in the United States are profound. She has a tremendous skill of melding scientific evidence together with her theoretical beliefs. Her beliefs, regarding leadership teams, are against the grain, when it comes to our "Lone Ranger" style of leadership.

This would have made a good article. It doesn't hold up as a book. And the "research" is really thin. It's rare that I don't finish a business book, but I ended up just skimming the chapter summaries.

The content of the book is valuable but it's incredibly repetitive and really not all that mind-blowing. I agree with some of the other reviews that it's about 10 pages worth of content spread over 250. The material really could have been presented in a short paper or long newspaper article. I'm somewhat surprised that someone went as far as to call this a real "page turner".

I love the general premise and the goal of the book to multiply yourself by enabling and freeing the people around you. The only thing I question is they tend to thin a bit black and white about being a "diminisher" versus a "multiplier" and you gotta wonder if this is more of a spectrum than one or the other.

The five areas of becoming a multiplier are well defined with excellent, actionable summaries at the end of each section. Some of the people profiled could have been better - there was too much focus on investors.

NOTE: 'Multipliers' is a secular business book. I am reviewing it from the perspective of a Christian minister who thinks its insights have application in church and nonprofit ministry contexts. If those are not your contexts, this review may not be the one you want to read.

One of the reasons why leading a church is hard work is the problem of what David Allen calls “new demands, insufficient resources.” For example, youth ministry is vital to the health and future of the church, but we all know how hard it is to get volunteers to work with junior high students. Even Jesus faced this problem: “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37).

The first solution to the problem of new demands and insufficient resources is specific prayer. “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:38). God sees the new demands, but unlike us, He doesn’t lack sufficient resources: “my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Complementing prayer is a second solution: the right people. Jesus taught us to pray for more “workers.” Paul described the Church as a “body” with variously gifted “parts” (1 Corinthians 12:12–31). The unfortunate fact is that too many pastors and other ministry leaders try to respond to new demands on their own — with only the gifts, talents and resources God has given them personally. They fail to see the gifts, talents and resources God has given them corporately, in their congregations. The consequence of this failure is burned-out pastors and leaders on the one hand and bored, frustrated and underutilized followers on the other.

Liz Wiseman wrote Multipliers, now out in a revised and updated edition, to figure out how leaders can grow both the intelligence and capability of their organizations. Although she wrote it for a business audience, I couldn’t help but see its relevance to the problem of new demands and insufficient resources in churches too.

Let me try to explain:

Multipliers vs. Diminishers
Wiseman begins the book with this observation: “There is more intelligence inside our organizations than we are using” (emphasis in original). Multiplication taps into this intelligence. Its logic can be understood through three statements:

1. Most people in organizations are underutilized.
2. All capability can be leveraged with the right kind of leadership.
3. Therefore, intelligence and capability can be multiplied without requiring a bigger investment.

As a former staff and senior pastor and a current church member, I agree with the first statement wholeheartedly. Too many people in any given congregation sit in the pew on Sunday morning … but nothing else. They are spiritual consumers, not spiritual producers.

Regarding the third statement, I certainly hope my church can do more without investing in additional staff and buildings. I’d like to see a more productive and efficient use of what we already have before we lay out more money for sparkly new stuff.

The second statement, then, is key: We need “the right kind of leadership.” Wiseman calls these leaders Multipliers and contrasts them with Diminishers. Multipliers tap into the intelligence of their organizations, grow it and increase the capability of their team members and of their organization. Diminishers “shut down the smarts of those around them.” Multipliers begin with the assumption, “People are smart and will figure this out.” Diminishers begin with the assumption, “They will never figure this out without me.”

According to Wiseman, no leader is entirely a Multiplier or entirely a Diminisher. Instead, all leaders perform on a spectrum, with both Multiplier and Diminisher tendencies. This means leaders can move either way on the spectrum.

Two important questions now arise: How do Multipliers lead? And how do I become a Multiplier?

Multiplier Practices
Wiseman’s research indicates that Multipliers lead by engaging in five specific roles:

1. The Talent Magnet: “[T]hey attract and deploy talent to its fullest, regardless of who owns the resource, and people flock to work with them because they know they will grow and be successful.”
2. The Liberator: “Multipliers establish a unique and highly motivating work environment where everyone has permission to think and the space to do their best work.”
3. The Challenger: “They seed opportunities, lay down challenges that stretch the organization, and in doing so, generate belief that it can be done and enthusiasm about the process.”
4. The Debate Maker: “Multipliers engage people in debating the issues up front, which leads to decisions that people understand and can execute efficiently.”
5. The Investor: “Multipliers deliver and sustain superior results by inculcating high expectations across the organization.”

Now, before you dismiss this as so much business-book gobbledygook, try thinking of Jesus’ leadership in terms of Wiseman’s five roles:

The Talent Magnet: Jesus’s disciples, despite not being religious, political, economic or academic elites, established a religion that is still thriving 2,000 years later.

The Liberator: Jesus empowered His followers to preach the same message as He did, with signs and wonders following (Matthew 10:1–42; Mark 6:6–13; Luke 10:1–24).

The Challenger: Read those three Synoptic Gospel passages cited above, then reminder that Jesus commissioned His followers to do these things in His absence. Not only that, He left the task to “make disciples of all nations” both to His first-century followers and to us (Matthew 18:18). The Great Commission is a perpetual challenge that Christ has called and empowered us to fulfill.

The Debate Maker: We rightly think of Jesus as a master teacher, but we fail to appreciate how often He taught by means of debate. In his book, All the Questions Jesus Asks, Stan Guthrie notes that Jesus asked 295 questions. That number doesn’t even include all the questions Jesus was asked by others.

The Investor: Could any expectation be higher than what Jesus told His disciples in John 20:21: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”?

Please don’t misunderstand me. Multipliers is a business book, not a ministry book. It’s written from a secular perspective, not a biblical one. It addresses a specific question in leadership — how to leverage capability through leadership. It is neither the first nor last word on leadership, let alone the first or last word on the pastoral leadership of Christian congregations.

Still, it has incredible diagnostic value because it helps identify the kinds of practices that do (and don’t) make the best use of resources in an organization, including, in my opinion, the local church.

Becoming Multipliers
So, how can pastors and other ministry leaders become Multipliers?

To answer that, we need to depart from Wiseman for a moment and remember the words of Jesus himself, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matthew 9:38). Ministry is not about making widgets but about making disciples, and the only person who can make a disciple is one who is himself being discipled. Ministry is spiritual work and requires spiritual growth, which comes first and foremost through a prayerful relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Ministry is also relational, however. And the ministry of leadership requires that we work in relationship with the spiritually gifted people God has placed in our pews. Wiseman offers five pieces of advice to business leaders as they resolve to move from the Diminisher to the Multiplier side of the leadership spectrum, and I’d like to tweak these for ministry settings:

First, start with the assumptions: Do I assume that my congregation is spiritually gifted to do the ministry (Multiplier) or do I assume that I must do it myself or micromanage them in the process (Diminisher)?

Second, work the extremes (neutralize a weakness; top off a strength): Am I surrounding myself with others whose ministry strengths complement my ministry weaknesses? Am I working hard to develop the ministry gifts that I am best at personally?

Third, run an experiment: Am I actively trying to develop new Multiplier habits by identifying my Diminisher tendencies and replacing them with Multiplier assumptions and practices?

Fourth, brace yourself for setbacks: Change always involves a measure of failure. The apostle Peter, for example, was the first (and only) apostle to walk on water, but also the first (and only) apostle to sink after walking on water. If Jesus picked Peter up and got him back on the boat, He can do the same for you.

Fifth, ask a colleague: If “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” (1 Corinthians 12:21), then Christian leaders cannot isolate themselves from either their ministry peers or the people they lead. The title of Reuben Welch’s classic book on Christian community gets it exactly right: We Really Do Need Each Other.

So, back to the problem of “new demands, insufficient resources” that I mentioned at the outset of this review. Yes, it is a real problem that pastors and other ministry leaders feel deeply. But prayer to our infinitely resourceful God and wise leadership practices can help us more fully utilize the capabilities of our spiritually gifted congregations. There are, after all, more spiritual gifts in our congregations than we are currently using.

Are you the kind of leader who can multiply them?

A couple of chapters into “Multipliers”, I was tempted to set it aside. I’ve been doing organizational development work for over 30 years, and the concepts and approaches Ms. Wiseman describes felt simplistic and rudimentary, so much so that I believed my time could be better spent elsewhere. I’ve also been blessed and fortunate to have spent more than half of that thirty-year span working with organizations that operate at a more advanced level, where leaders understand and mostly embrace the blocking and tackling basics of this book. I realized, as well, that many others are not as fortunate as I have been, that there is enormous work to be done, and that leaders who truly “multiply” those around them are few and far between. There is a much greater majority of corporate leadership that struggles with these basics, that misses much of the point of a book like this, and that more often than not doesn’t care anyway. I’ve worked with a few of them, too.

So this book actually becomes very necessary, for that vast and relatively obtuse community. And because of that, I kept reading. As it turns out, there are some definite pearls of wisdom to be had. Wiseman turns a phrase relatively well, and has done her research, and there are a fair number of insights available, if one chooses to see them. I’m not going to tell you what they are; that would be too easy. The discerning mind will catch the drift. For those who operate at certain levels, this book is mostly a softball. For the vast majority, it is a useful and thought-provoking instrument. If you are in that community, you may not know it. If you do, and you are trying to elevate the leaders around you, I recommend Wiseman’s book, and wish you well in the application of the concepts. For the advanced practitioner, this is a nice piece to hand around to your colleagues to stimulate conversation. For the advanced leader looking to develop or augment their “multiplicity”, it’s likely a little shallow, but still worth a few hours (it doesn’t take much longer than that to get all the way through it). I’ll even forgive the Mitt Romney/Bain anecdote (which didn’t exactly highlight authorial credibility). If the book is revelational for you, then I commend your interest. If not, you either have a long way to go or a long (and hopefully fulfilling and successful) road to look back upon.

In the first edition of this book, written with Greg McKeown, Liz Wiseman juxtaposes two quite different types of persons whom she characterizes as the “Multiplier” and the “Diminisher.” Although she refers to them as leaders, suggesting they have supervisory responsibilities, they could also be direct reports at the management level or workers at the "shop floor" level. Multipliers "extract full capability," their own as well as others', and demonstrate five disciplines: Talent Magnet, Liberator, Challenger, Debate Maker, and Investor. Diminishers underutilize talent and resources, their own as well as others, and also demonstrate five disciplines: Empire Builder, Tyrant, Know-It-All, Decision Maker, and Micro Manager. Wiseman devotes a separate chapter to each of the five Multiplier leadership roles.

Wiseman cites dozens of real-world examples that suggest how almost any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can plan, implement, accelerate, and sustain a human development program that strengthens participants' leadership and management skills that (a) will enable them to multiply the intelligence and capability of the people around them and (b) avoid behaviors that can diminish people's ability and enthusiasm

As Wiseman clearly realizes, people combine some of the best and worst traits of both the Multiplier and Diminisher. Strengths can become weaknesses or vice versa if carried to an extreme. A Talent Magnet, for example, could be especially effective recognizing and attracting high-potentials and then hoard their talents, exploiting them to her or his advantage. A Micro Manager could be especially alert for significant details that others ignore but deny other people's professional development by refusing to delegate tasks to them. In the healthiest organizations, there are constant efforts to increase (multiply) positive and productive engagement while reducing (diminishing) waste.

In the revised and update edition (May 2017), Wiseman develops in even greater depth many of her brilliant insights that were first introduced in 2010. In this context, I am reminded of an incident that occurred years ago when one of Albert Einstein’s faculty colleagues at Princeton gently chided him asking the same questions each year on his final examination. “Quite true. Guilty as charged. Every year the answers are different.” All organizations always need leaders who make everyone smarter and they need these leaders at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. Multipliers must also sustain cultural change in a competitive marketplace that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can remember.

What’s new in the revised and expanded edition?

According to Wiseman, they include a Preface “that describes the changing landscape of management and why leaders can and must get more from their talent (Pages xvii-xxii); A new chapter on the ways that well-intended leaders become ‘Accidental Diminishers’ (Chapter 7); A new chapter on how to deal with Diminishers and minimize their impact on yourself and others (Chapter 8); A new section on how to effect lasting change inside corporations (Chapter 9); A new set of tools to enable managers to put the ideas into action (Appendix E).” She also includes a number of new case studies of Multiplier leaders throughout her lively and eloquent narrative.

Wiseman again focuses on seven familiar archetypes:

Multiplier sees issues in Technicolor
Diminisher sees them in black-and-white
Talent Manager builds a consensus driven by ability and diversity
Liberator creates a culture with discipline that nourishes growth and development
Challenger embraces opportunity but is wary of assumptions and premises
Debate Maker: Achieves high-impact results, guided and informed by collective judgment
Investor: Sees the objective, applies the resources, and proceeds with strict accountability

Of course, as Wiseman points out, Diminishers reduce morale and performance whereas Multipliers “make everyone smarter.” Empire Builders hoard talent whereas Talent Managers nourish it. Tyrants impose their will whereas Liberators celebrate principled dissent. Know-It-Alls think and live in terms of first-person-singular pronouns whereas Challengers seem to have first-person-plural pronouns in their DNA. Micromanagers are hostage to details that support what James O’Toole characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom” whereas Investors thrive through others’ achievements

For whom will this book be most valuable? First, for those who must -- in Alvin Toffler’s words -- “learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Also, for their supervisors and other decision-makers who need to strengthen leadership and management skills.

I was disappointed with the praise for Mitt Romney and Meg Whitman and the way they got money.
Introducing a political bias and a greed bias into a Leadership book seems like it will alienate some readers.

In lieu of wasting time and money on this book let me summarize. Good leaders inspire, motivate and create collaborative work environments which as a result drive greater productivity and value from their employees. Bad leaders don't.... So many good books out there....this is not one of them.

This book is the quintessential example of researchers trying to find the X factor for success- and just finding common sense.

It's a worthwhile project - to figure out how to make OTHERS better. How to get the most out of people how to multiply your own work and effort exponentially.

This book does make some great points:

1. You know that "genius" or indispensable person that has the smarts, but drives everyone else nuts and makes everyone else feel like an idiot? He should likely be fired. The benefit of his extraordinary brain is not worth the loss is production and creativity he causes in everyone around him.

2. Leaders fall somewhere on the "Multiplier-Diminisher" spectrum.
Multipliers make everyone want to do better. They make you want to work harder, inspire you and make you excited to go to work. They make you think, listen to your input, and help you really succeed. Then there are the diminishing dictators whom everyone despises, and who never encourage meaningful feedback or criticism or want to hear your ideas for improvement. They know what to do and now they just need you to do A,B, and C. Stop thinking and get back to menial labor.

This book basically teaches you, as a leader, how to identify other's strengths, motives, and drive - and then use it to their fullest potential. To seek meaningful discussion, and not give answers, but seek answers. It teaches you to be such a great leader that when you are gone, others will do just fine without you because they've been trained, allowed to grow, and can think for themselves and succeed.

Like I said - the ideas are worthwhile, but 40 examples of the same principle just seems ridiculously redundant and annoying. So while this book may be good, it bogs itself down and is not really worth finishing.

GRADE: C-

A couple of chapters into “Multipliers”, I was tempted to set it aside. I’ve been doing organizational development work for over 30 years, and the concepts and approaches Ms. Wiseman describes felt simplistic and rudimentary, so much so that I believed my time could be better spent elsewhere. I’ve also been blessed and fortunate to have spent more than half of that thirty-year span working with organizations that operate at a more advanced level, where leaders understand and mostly embrace the blocking and tackling basics of this book. I realized, as well, that many others are not as fortunate as I have been, that there is enormous work to be done, and that leaders who truly “multiply” those around them are few and far between. There is a much greater majority of corporate leadership that struggles with these basics, that misses much of the point of a book like this, and that more often than not doesn’t care anyway. I’ve worked with a few of them, too.

So this book actually becomes very necessary, for that vast and relatively obtuse community. And because of that, I kept reading. As it turns out, there are some definite pearls of wisdom to be had. Wiseman turns a phrase relatively well, and has done her research, and there are a fair number of insights available, if one chooses to see them. I’m not going to tell you what they are; that would be too easy. The discerning mind will catch the drift. For those who operate at certain levels, this book is mostly a softball. For the vast majority, it is a useful and thought-provoking instrument. If you are in that community, you may not know it. If you do, and you are trying to elevate the leaders around you, I recommend Wiseman’s book, and wish you well in the application of the concepts. For the advanced practitioner, this is a nice piece to hand around to your colleagues to stimulate conversation. For the advanced leader looking to develop or augment their “multiplicity”, it’s likely a little shallow, but still worth a few hours (it doesn’t take much longer than that to get all the way through it). I’ll even forgive the Mitt Romney/Bain anecdote (which didn’t exactly highlight authorial credibility). If the book is revelational for you, then I commend your interest. If not, you either have a long way to go or a long (and hopefully fulfilling and successful) road to look back upon.

In the first edition of this book, written with Greg McKeown, Liz Wiseman juxtaposes two quite different types of persons whom she characterizes as the “Multiplier” and the “Diminisher.” Although she refers to them as leaders, suggesting they have supervisory responsibilities, they could also be direct reports at the management level or workers at the "shop floor" level. Multipliers "extract full capability," their own as well as others', and demonstrate five disciplines: Talent Magnet, Liberator, Challenger, Debate Maker, and Investor. Diminishers underutilize talent and resources, their own as well as others, and also demonstrate five disciplines: Empire Builder, Tyrant, Know-It-All, Decision Maker, and Micro Manager. Wiseman devotes a separate chapter to each of the five Multiplier leadership roles.

Wiseman cites dozens of real-world examples that suggest how almost any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can plan, implement, accelerate, and sustain a human development program that strengthens participants' leadership and management skills that (a) will enable them to multiply the intelligence and capability of the people around them and (b) avoid behaviors that can diminish people's ability and enthusiasm

As Wiseman clearly realizes, people combine some of the best and worst traits of both the Multiplier and Diminisher. Strengths can become weaknesses or vice versa if carried to an extreme. A Talent Magnet, for example, could be especially effective recognizing and attracting high-potentials and then hoard their talents, exploiting them to her or his advantage. A Micro Manager could be especially alert for significant details that others ignore but deny other people's professional development by refusing to delegate tasks to them. In the healthiest organizations, there are constant efforts to increase (multiply) positive and productive engagement while reducing (diminishing) waste.

In the revised and update edition (May 2017), Wiseman develops in even greater depth many of her brilliant insights that were first introduced in 2010. In this context, I am reminded of an incident that occurred years ago when one of Albert Einstein’s faculty colleagues at Princeton gently chided him asking the same questions each year on his final examination. “Quite true. Guilty as charged. Every year the answers are different.” All organizations always need leaders who make everyone smarter and they need these leaders at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. Multipliers must also sustain cultural change in a competitive marketplace that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can remember.

What’s new in the revised and expanded edition?

According to Wiseman, they include a Preface “that describes the changing landscape of management and why leaders can and must get more from their talent (Pages xvii-xxii); A new chapter on the ways that well-intended leaders become ‘Accidental Diminishers’ (Chapter 7); A new chapter on how to deal with Diminishers and minimize their impact on yourself and others (Chapter 8); A new section on how to effect lasting change inside corporations (Chapter 9); A new set of tools to enable managers to put the ideas into action (Appendix E).” She also includes a number of new case studies of Multiplier leaders throughout her lively and eloquent narrative.

Wiseman again focuses on seven familiar archetypes:

Multiplier sees issues in Technicolor
Diminisher sees them in black-and-white
Talent Manager builds a consensus driven by ability and diversity
Liberator creates a culture with discipline that nourishes growth and development
Challenger embraces opportunity but is wary of assumptions and premises
Debate Maker: Achieves high-impact results, guided and informed by collective judgment
Investor: Sees the objective, applies the resources, and proceeds with strict accountability

Of course, as Wiseman points out, Diminishers reduce morale and performance whereas Multipliers “make everyone smarter.” Empire Builders hoard talent whereas Talent Managers nourish it. Tyrants impose their will whereas Liberators celebrate principled dissent. Know-It-Alls think and live in terms of first-person-singular pronouns whereas Challengers seem to have first-person-plural pronouns in their DNA. Micromanagers are hostage to details that support what James O’Toole characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom” whereas Investors thrive through others’ achievements

For whom will this book be most valuable? First, for those who must -- in Alvin Toffler’s words -- “learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Also, for their supervisors and other decision-makers who need to strengthen leadership and management skills.

I was disappointed with the praise for Mitt Romney and Meg Whitman and the way they got money.
Introducing a political bias and a greed bias into a Leadership book seems like it will alienate some readers.

In lieu of wasting time and money on this book let me summarize. Good leaders inspire, motivate and create collaborative work environments which as a result drive greater productivity and value from their employees. Bad leaders don't.... So many good books out there....this is not one of them.

This book is the quintessential example of researchers trying to find the X factor for success- and just finding common sense.

It's a worthwhile project - to figure out how to make OTHERS better. How to get the most out of people how to multiply your own work and effort exponentially.

This book does make some great points:

1. You know that "genius" or indispensable person that has the smarts, but drives everyone else nuts and makes everyone else feel like an idiot? He should likely be fired. The benefit of his extraordinary brain is not worth the loss is production and creativity he causes in everyone around him.

2. Leaders fall somewhere on the "Multiplier-Diminisher" spectrum.
Multipliers make everyone want to do better. They make you want to work harder, inspire you and make you excited to go to work. They make you think, listen to your input, and help you really succeed. Then there are the diminishing dictators whom everyone despises, and who never encourage meaningful feedback or criticism or want to hear your ideas for improvement. They know what to do and now they just need you to do A,B, and C. Stop thinking and get back to menial labor.

This book basically teaches you, as a leader, how to identify other's strengths, motives, and drive - and then use it to their fullest potential. To seek meaningful discussion, and not give answers, but seek answers. It teaches you to be such a great leader that when you are gone, others will do just fine without you because they've been trained, allowed to grow, and can think for themselves and succeed.

Like I said - the ideas are worthwhile, but 40 examples of the same principle just seems ridiculously redundant and annoying. So while this book may be good, it bogs itself down and is not really worth finishing.

GRADE: C-

I was debating whether or not to read this because I thought that the material looked similar to what I would find in a run-of-the-mill business leadership book, but I decided to read it and I'm glad I did. Liz Wiseman and her team did excellent research in multiple businesses and sports teams across four continents, and I found the material in this book fresh and unique.

Through reading her book I realized that I'm both a multiplier and diminisher, so I was grateful that in the last chapter she gives steps for how to change our leadership style from a diminisher to a multiplier. I'm excited to start working on developing myself to be as much a multiplier as I can be.

So multiplier is a new hot word, and this is one book with that in the title so most wannabe managers are now reading this and or similar nonsense. I waded through as much as I could and with as open a mind as I could. I found that this book would excel as much as an episode of the "Brady Bunch" or the "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" in teaching managers to act more like patient parents, and create a comfortable work environment for those who cannot perform under duress. I find it ludicrously ironic that the first story involves an Israeli tank commander who supposedly could perform under the pressure of enemy fire but failed to perform under the selfconcious criticism of a poor manager. From there it becomes a repetitious brag of the author's belief that all the wolds problems can be solved with constructive support from your manager, even if your manager lacks the intelligence of the worker (which by itself creates a unhappy work situation, mainly the less qualified person is the manager while the more qualified person needs to be managed). I get the feeling that this book is popular among managers because it affords them the opportunity to pat themselves on the back for the successes of their employees, because it is the management of the employees that leads to success, not the insight or intelligence of the people actually doing the work and solving the problems.

This concept is everything that is wrong with the workplace today. There are toxic managers, clearly, but believing that a manager improves the situation by catering like a mother hen is contrary to years of proven business case studies.

If you are a manager and intimidated by the fact that your reports are more qualified than you, then this could be a placebo to hide your adequateness. If you are actually trying to improve your management skills then you should look something with actual measures of success rather than just a collection of colloquial stories and catch phrases like "talent magnets".

Some leaders inadvertently or on purpose drain intelligence and capability out of the people around them. They resolve to be the smartest person in the room - creating a diminishing effect on everyone else. Idea-killers. Other leaders use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capability of those around them. Ideas grow and people grow, challenges are issued (eg. 'stretch goals') and surmounted, hard problems solved. They believe most people in the organization are underutilized, and are willing to consult others - rather than simply decide himself.

Another diminisher is a leader that constantly changes the objective. Then there are micro-managers that not only demoralize, but also become bottlenecks.

Good material, but far too long.

Quick summary: Nearly every page of this book is quotable. I blushed to read some of my own Diminisher habits on the pages, but it motivated me to emulate behaviors exhibited by Multipliers. It also provided practical ideas for how, and I put principles to work the same day I read them. For example, texting an employee this phrase inspired by the book, “You’re really smart and I know you will figure it out. Use your best judgement and we’ll loop back after.”

Background: I heard Liz Wiseman deliver a keynote address on the topic Rookie Smarts (another of her books) and it was so electric I live-tweeted quotes like mad and wrote an article about it. When I heard a new revised version of Multipliers was coming out, which I had never read, I dropped her a note and she generously sent me an advance copy of Multipliers to review. No compensation or anything in it for me other than receiving a copy.

Here is a more detailed discussion of the book:
Multipliers focuses on this key question, that consumed Wiseman’s research team for years:
What are the vital differences between intelligence “Diminishers” and intelligence “Multipliers?”

This revised edition follows-up with research addressing key questions people asked after the original was published:

What to do about “Accidental Diminishers?” These are good guys, who sometimes act like bad guys. They have good intentions, but become Diminishers. She also offers practical advice for recognizing and dealing our own diminishing tendencies. Who can make the shift and who can’t? What can we do with those who can’t?

The heart of the book focuses on research showing how people called “Multipliers” get more than double the output from their people, not only because people give more, but because they grow and become capable of more. They get more from people than they knew they had to give. “Multipliers don’t get more with less; they get more by using more.” The opposite is true of “Diminishers,” whose people become simultaneously overworked and underutilized.

Here are some key points I loved:
“It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access you have to what other people know.”

Multipliers use “their intelligence as a tool rather than a weapon…. People get smarter and better in their presence.” I hope I can always be that kind of a person, lifting and encouraging people as my mentors have done for me.

Multipliers believe that people are smart and will figure it out. They ask the question “In what way is this person smart?” On the other hand, “Diminishers appear to believe that really intelligent people are a rare breed and that they are of that rare breed…They are so special, other people will never figure things out without them.”

Multipliers act as Debate Makers, driving sound decisions through rigorous debate. Diminishers act as Decision Makers.

Multipliers “see a lot,” in people “so they expect a lot.” They are tough and exacting. Multipliers ask, "Is this your best work?"

Wiseman describes Diminishers as “Empire builders” who accumulate resources rather than multiply them. “They collect people like knickknacks in a curio cabinet—on display for everyone to see, but not well utilized.”

Multipliers look for people’s native genius or “a talent that people do, not only exceptionally well, but absolutely naturally.” Many are surprised to have their talent pointed out saying, “Can’t everyone do this?”

“Tyrants create a tense environment that is fully of stress. Liberators create an intense environment that requires concentration, diligence, and energy.”

“Tyrants and Liberators both expect mistakes. Tyrants stand ready to pounce on the people who make them. Liberators stand ready to learn as much from the mistake as possible.”

If you’re looking for a great business read, I definitely recommend this one--and I'm pretty choosy about what I read. My only criticism might be that it repeats itself at times. Sometimes reading it more than once helped to drive the point home, but at other times I thought a brutal editor could probably have trimmed it some, assuming that the reader will internalize the point in one pass.

I've read dozens of business books and books about leadership; I have many years of experience as a manager and an MBA. But here's the thing... I do my best to get out of seminars on management/leadership classes and I'll do anything to avoid reading one more repetitious and unoriginal book about how to be a better manager or leader. So... how did I get to writing a review about: "Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter"?

I'm lucky enough to work for an employer who decided to get Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown to give a bunch of their managers an accelerated one-day 'multipliers' talk based on their book (before it was published so I read it a few months later). As I've mentioned before I'm a skeptic. Most of this management stuff is repetitious BS and it's all about the authors/presenters talking about what made them the great managers and leaders that they are today. I didn't have much of a choice about attending and as I listened to Greg and Liz speak about their research and present raw unedited video clips about some of the multipliers they were writing about in their book something changed.

They were offering practical advice about how to be not just a better leader but a better person. What's leadership about? It's not about about being better than everybody else on your team - it's about getting the most out of them. That's what this book is about. The examples are concrete and the advice and techniques are down to earth and useful to everyone from a parent to a C-level executive.

There isn't a day that goes by when something from Multipliers doesn't influence what I do and how I lead. It might be something as simple as thinking before I speak and spending my 'chips' wisely or asking the questions that drive the right behaviour rather than making statements or giving directives. For example, instead of telling your kids that it's time to go bed and that they need to brush their teeth and put their PJs on try asking them what time it is and then follow that up with another question.

One of the exercises we did in the seminar was to pair up to debate a subject and to take turns asking only questions of the other participant. My partner was doing a great job asking questions and he was getting a lot out of me and I was feeling pretty smart and engaged until he slipped up and made a statement. All of a sudden my intelligence shut down and the debate ended.

The book starts with a quote from Bono (of all people) that says it all: "It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person." Who's the multiplier here? Who's the better leader?

The book description is spot on. I read this book as part of my summer PD. I am trying read as much as I can on leadership, mindset, and marketing. I want to take the ideas gained and apply to the field of education and my job.

This book was a great read. As the reader consumes the knowledge between a Multiplier and a Diminisher they have no choice but to self reflect and figure out what type of person/leader they are. I really took the information and figured out how to become better.

The underlying idea that I took away is that everyone who you work with has something valuable to give and offer. A Multiplier will help them find ways to use their talents and gifts to improve the overall business. In terms of education I keep thinking about helping teachers find what they are good at and help them use their gifts to enhance education. With so many issues plaguing education some teachers have lost their vision of what they do well and need to get back to the core level of quality teaching.

This was a quality book. This book applies to any discipline or job. My Evernote page is loaded with notes and ideas that I took away from the book. I will be spending the rest of my summer working towards becoming a Multiplier. I want to be able to work with others and multiply our productivity. I want to help others find their gifts. I want to work on the five disciplines of a Multiplier which are

The five disciplines
1. Talent Magnet - attract and optimize talent
2. Liberator - require best thinking of people
3. Challenger - extend challenges
4. Debate Maker - debate decisions
5. Investor - instill accountability

This is another must read. I found this book to be quite helpful. As always I read the book from the lens of an educator. Instead of thinking of making money and increasing business I reframed the content in my mind as increasing learning and excitement in the classroom.

I will be following the research and materials of Liz Wiseman because she is on a path that man of us can learn from.

The most important thing you can do when reading this book is to be open and honest with yourself and analyze what type of person you are and what you can do to change. We all have room for improvement. This book forced me to rethink my mental approach of what I am going after in my career and more importantly why I am attaining these goals. This is a deep question that only we can answer when open with ourselves.

This book would be a great course or professional development.

I like to read books on business management and leadership. I fancy myself as a good manager and leader of people, but know there is much for me to learn and improve. Every now and then a book comes along that causes me to stop and evaluate where I truly fall on the continuum of good leadership. Multipliers is one of those books.

This book operates from the premise that within an organization, there are Diminishers and Multipliers. A Diminisher is ""a person who led an organization or management team that operated in silos, found it hard to get things done, and despite having smart people, seemed to not be able to do what is needed to to reach its goals." A Multiplier is "a person who led an organization or management team that was able to understand and solve hard problems rapidly, achieve its goals and adapt and increase its capacity over time." In short, a Multiplier can get more out of their people than a Dimisher.

Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown researched the question, "What are the vital few differences between intelligence Diminishers and intelligence Multipliers and what impact do they have on organizations?" Through interviews they identified people in both categories and then identified the characteristics and measured the productivity gains, or lack thereof. They found Diminishers tend to tap only 50% of the team's potential, while Multipliers often get more than a 2X increase of productivity from their people.

They identify five key attributes and discuss them, including key activities one can employ to develop these multiplying effects. They include:

The Talent Magnet
The Liberator
The Challenger
The Debate Maker
The Investor
Each chapter is illustrated with many examples of each side of the equation. The examples ring true, as I have worked with many people who exemplify both of these good and bad traits. I could easily see the evidence of the attribute and began immediately identifying them in those I work with now. Then I started seeing them in my own behavior.

One thing I usually find lacking in leadership books are concrete, 'next action' tasks provided by the author to move the reader to the desired goal. Wiseman and McKeown don't fall into this trap. The entire last chapter of the book is devoted development of the characteristics they espouse. The exercises are valid, pertinent, and I look forward to doing them.

For me, the best chapter of the book was one found deep in the appendix: Frequently Asked Questions. The authors answer many questions they have encountered while presenting the material. Not surprisingly, they were the same questions I had. The answers spurred me to take on my own experiment of their work.

I don't have direct reports in my current position. In fact, my organization has purposefully limited the ability of the project manager to influence their destiny by removing any responsibility for the people who work on our projects. This makes it easy to walk away from attempting anything Wiseman and McKeown recommend. washing the hands of responsibility. However, after reading this book, I am determined to hone my strengths and improve my weakness and see if I can multiply my project team. I may not have direct responsibility of the people, but I can attempt to capture their best effort on my project. I am looking forward to the challenge of attempting something they don't even cover: multiplying the efforts of contractors. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what any author would hope to achieve: the reader breaking from their comfort zone to implement the material of their book. This is one of those books. Get it. Read it. And read it again.

More reviews at daninfocus.com/books

In this book written with Greg McKeown, Liz Wiseman juxtaposes two quite different types of persons whom she characterizes as the "Multiplier" and the "Diminisher." Although she refers to them as leaders, suggesting they have supervisory responsibilities, they could also be direct reports at the management level or workers at the "shop floor" level. Multipliers "extract full capability," their own as well as others', and demonstrate five disciplines: Talent Magnet, Liberator, Challenger, Debate Maker, and Investor. Diminishers underutilize talent and resources, their own as well as others, and also demonstrate five disciplines: Empire Builder, Tyrant, Know-It-All, Decision Maker, and Micro Manager. Wiseman devotes a separate chapter to each of the five Multiplier leadership roles.

Wiseman cites dozens of real-world examples that suggest how almost any organization (regardless of its size or nature) can plan, implement, accelerate, and sustain a human development program that strengthens participants' leadership and management skills that (a) will enable them to multiply the intelligence and capability of the people around them and (b) avoid behaviors that can diminish people's ability and enthusiasm

As Wiseman clearly realizes, people combine some of the best and worst traits of both the Multiplier and Diminisher. Strengths can become weaknesses or vice versa if carried to an extreme. A Talent Magnet, for example, could be especially effective recognizing and attracting high-potentials and then hoard their talents, exploiting them to her or his advantage. A Micro Manager could be especially alert for significant details that others ignore but deny other people's professional development by refusing to delegate tasks to them. In the healthiest organizations, there are constant efforts to increase (multiply) positive and productive engagement while reducing (diminishing) waste.

In Appendix B, this is one of the FAQs that caught my eye: Are people either Diminishers or Multipliers or are there people in the middle? Here is Wiseman and McKeown's response: "We see the Diminisher-Multiplier model as a continuum with a few people at the extremes and most of us somewhere in between. As people have been introduced to this material, they almost always see some of the Diminisher and some of the Multiplier within themselves. One leader we worked with is illustrative. He was a smart and aware individual who didn't fit the archetype of a Diminisher, and yet when he read the material he could see how he sometimes behaved in a Diminishing manner. While we studied this leadership phenomenon as a contrast, we see the model as a continuum with only a very few people at the polar extremes and the majority of us somewhere in the middle."

Most supervisors need to increase some behaviors (e.g. providing clear explanations of performance expectations and how performance will be measured) and avoid other behaviors (e.g. withholding information others need). The same is true of those whom they supervise. The challenge is to do more of what will add value and less of what diminishes it.

To me, one of the most valuable insights in this book suggests that, especially during the current economic recession/depression/whatever, the total cost of what must be done (in terms of dollars and hours) is probably much less than what would be saved by doing it. According to Wiseman, Multipliers extract so much more from their people that - in effect - they essentially double the workforce at no additional cost. If that isn't doing more with less, I don't know what is.

This book helps identify and understand how good leaders are able to flourish the productivity of those around them. One can figure out what type of leader they are, such as the multiplier of skills or the micromanager who diminishes once highly effective employees. This will help identify what type of leader you work for. Does their presence enhance your curiosity, motivation, intelligence, and increased pride to work for them, or do they somehow absorb the energy and creativity right out of you? This is a good book to read, especially if you are constantly hiring new employees because they leave to work elsewhere, predictably somewhere they do not feel held back or diminished, and often work twice as hard for a better leader.

I'm allergic to business books. One reason is that, in telling us how to succeed in business, I worry that they stray into telling us how to live, what kind of character to develop. The latter, I think, is the domain of ethics. Business books, like anything else, can make a claim to discuss ethics, but I think they should be above-board in doing so, and confront objections from dimensions of life other than business. And I think we should resist cultural tendencies to conflate success in business with success as a person, or being a "good" person.

All that said, the reason I was drawn to this book was that it sounded like it appealed to my own ethical choices. I want to be a "multiplier". I want to be the kind of person who respects and enables the autonomous creativity of others. If I'm ever the smartest person in the room, I want someone else to get smarter, real quick.

What this book does is break down that idea of a "multiplier" into five different virtues or "disciplines" -- talent magnet, liberator, challenger, debate maker, and investor. Not everyone is going to be good or great at each one -- in fact, the authors' research indicates that more effective multipliers excel at up to three of those disciplines, not all five. They tell stories of hero multipliers to illustrate each, and they abstract out guidance on how to develop yourself in each of the five areas.

Overall, I think it's a good practical book, not just on leadership, but on self-development.

One odd thought -- books like this are written to help "leaders" develop their "leadership" skills. Not everybody is a leader, in a hierarchical sense. And the hierarchy is bigger at the bottom. But everyone should be a "multiplier", shouldn't they? How would this be written differently, if written from that perspective? How does a good team member make the team smarter? I think, in much the same ways as "leaders" do. But I guess the book market is made up for aspiring "leaders", not aspiring "teammates".

There are so many ideas packed in this book, it would be impossible to not improve as a leader with some careful and thoughtful self inventory. As a manager of over 12 employees I am always looking to further leverage my employees skills and habits to grow my business. For the most part the advice given from the author is nothing ground breaking but I believe we must continually allow these positive management techniques to ease into our habits. There are several references to fostering an environment of having people blossom into what they are exceptional at and that has reminded me of the other great books about strengths based leadership. I am 100% committed to rereading this book occasionally to make sure the great ideas become my habits.

Like many business concepts there is nothing revolutionary in the leadership attributes identified in this book. They could be classified as "common sense". However, personal experience has shown that common sense does not necessarily mean common practice. I have seen the negative behaviors described in this book in leaders I have worked with as well as in my own leadership actions.

I found the authors grouping and summary of behaviors concise and informative and find myself regularly referring back to them. I also found the illustrative anecdotes help focus my understanding of the concepts. I will sometimes go back and read some of these anecdotes for inspiration when I am not feeling especially effective. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to managers, supervisors, or anybody whose job it is to lead others.

This book answers the question,"How is it that given the same environment, with the same circumstance, and the same skills an employee's performance can vary widely based solely on who their supervisor is?"

The authors speculate the primary difference is based on whether a given leader's behaviors fall into one of two categories that they dub "Multiplier" and "Diminisher". They further break these categories down into five major classifications dedicating one chapter to each sub classification.

According to the authors leaders are rarely all of one or these categories but instead other but fall somewhere along the spectrum between these two extremes. In their words:

"We see the Diminisher-Multiplier model as a continuum with a few people at the extremes and most of us somewhere in between. As people have been introduced to this material, they almost always see some of the Diminisher and some of the Multiplier within themselves. One leader we worked with is illustrative. He was a smart and aware individual who didn't fit the archetype of a Diminisher, and yet when he read the material he could see how he sometimes behaved in a Diminishing manner. While we studied this leadership phenomenon as a contrast, we see the model as a continuum with only a very few people at the polar extremes and the majority of us somewhere in the middle."

Throughout the book the authors provide a number of anecdotes that demonstrate the effect Multiplier and Diminisher behaviors have in real life situations. They show that by moving from negative behaviors to positive behaviors a leader can double his team's output without adding more staff.

Multipliers are leaders who are able to amplify the capability of people around them. They are able to optimize output by playing to people's unique intelligence and capability. The goal of a multiplier is not to get more done by multiplying his own efforts but instead to multiply the output of those around him.

They are talent magnets: they attract and optimize talent.
They are liberators: they create intensity that requires the best thinking of the team.
They are challengers: they define opportunities that cause people to stretch.
They are debate makers: they drive sound decisions through rigorous debate.
They are investors: they instill ownership and accountability.

Diminishers, despite having smart people on their team they are unable to reach their goals. They are absorbed in their own capabilities They tend to stifle productivity and deplete the organization of intelligence and capability. Many times this organizational depletion is done unintentionally by the diminisher. They are unaware of the affect they are having on those around them.

They are empire builders: they hoard resources and underutilize talent.
They are tyrants: they create tense environments that suppress thinking, creativity, and capability.
They are know-it-all's: they give directives that showcase how much they know.
They are "the decision maker": they make centralized, abrupt decisions that confuse the organization.
They are micro managers: they drive results through their personal involvement.
Review

Another book that claims to offer new insight based on research. Like many other books that make this claim, the research is full of halos. And the findings are really nothing new - just new labels for concepts we've been teaching for over a decade.

Having said that, they are GOOD concepts about how to view your role as a leader. The multiplier gets the most from people by first transforming how they think about the roles we play at work and then by offering others a more challenging and rewarding contract for getting things done.

The best thing about the book are the stories and examples Liz tells to support her points. She brings not only the interviews from her "research" but also her considerable experience as an executive and consultant.

Despite it's shortcomings, this book is well worth your time.

The key theme of the book resonated with me - i.e tapping the potential in people, unlocking their zeal and enthusiasm to perform and ultimately getting more productivity from them, should be the focus of a true leader. I could relate many of the situations listed in the book to past and present managers i have observed or worked.

This is a good, useful book, which a reader can take something out from and apply in practice in the step to being a better leader, getting more from oneself and others!

Why hog all the glory when you can share in the fun and excitement of seeing your disciples growing, winning achievements and even promotions beyond your wildest expectations. That is what being a Multiplier is all about! If you as a leader are not making others around you smarter then you have missed it. Multipliers value the qualities that are evident or untapped in the people whom they work with. Multipliers have an uncanny ability to draw the best out of each person on the team.
You think you may be a very smart leader, but if your not tapping into the talent you have on your staff helping them to give their best you have missed it! Its not about ME! it is about the TEAM multiplying and valuing each one unconditionally.

I have already bought seven of these books in Portuguese to give to my Brazilian friends who are in active leadership roles and I know they will put into practice some if not all the concepts of MULTIPLYING. This book has changed my attitude about being a leader and will change my leadership model.

This is an outstanding book. The authors put words on what most of us experience at work. Their insights on leaders as multipliers vs. diminishers is insightful and helpful. They put words on experiences many of us have at work. This book can be useful for bosses who wonder why they struggle getting people to perform better. The book can be used by employees who want to understand how their boss' work. if leaders would listen to and apply these ideas, they would do a better job. Work today demands a new type of leader and this book lays out what that leader looks like. Well done!

Meh. A fluff corporate inspirational aimed executives with no free time to read. No real treatment of - or tactics for - dealing with "diminishers" at the top and tribal political cultures.

Try R. Greene's 48 Laws of Power for more thorough treatment of political awareness and coping tactics. Or, for those adept at assimilating abstract patterns & strategies, read Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess, if for no other reason than to understand where you live on the corporate chess board.

The book was somewhat interesting until the authors decided to make the comparison between President Bush and Obama. Their evaluation was so far off that it made reading the rest of the book difficult. They completely lost credibility. Shame on them! I would not recommend this book.

This book is incredible. It allows you to know how to work with people and get the best work out of them. Most people don't know these principles. Successful people may disregard the principles as 'not being relevant' TO THEM. This book will give you the tools to be a successful leader, parent, husband, and business man/woman. It is great.

As an avid business literature reader, I've grown to adopt a strategy for reading books on marketing, leadership, strategy, and the other host of business topics that we all have to be well versed in to lead people and produce results. Typically, I try to find things to read that are based on research or some kind of rigor around best practices. Also, I read the reviews ahead of time and try to get some idea around what return I will get from my time spent with the topics.

I ask myself things like"

"Is this new thinking, or just a rework of some existing ideas?"

" Am I going to be able to improve myself or my abilities from reading this, or is this just to inform me?"

" Is this based on someone's opinion, or is it grounded in some real research?"

"Do I believe that I will be able to take action and apply what I'm reading when I'm done?"

This work brings all of these questions to the right place. If you have to deal with people as part of your role in whatever you're doing, this book will provoke you to think differently about how you engage with the people around you. You will get a very high return on your time and money spent on this book.
Probably the most fun aspect of it is afterward, tracking all the diminishers in your life. If you look at how these people engage and lead, it becomes a really stark and obvious trait that's really, really easy to spot once you've read this book.

I just finished reading "Multipliers" and have loved the chance not only to identify multipliers and diminishers around me, but to identify my own traits that fall into both categories. The ideas and suggestions in this book can be applied to all aspects of life; its not just for people working at a Fortune 500 company. It is a "must read" for anyone who seeks to better their interactions with colleagues, peers, family members, and everyone else.

This book has changed my way of leading and freed the potential of many people in my organization, for which we all thank you. I have read many many books on leadership (including all the famous Gurus) and this is by far the most life changing book I would describe it a a Liberating Epiphany where the wheels have been set for true personal and organizational development. I would recommend anyone leading an organization to read and study the concepts outlined in it.

Loved the quick read and plan to implement what I learned.
The comparison between multipliers vs diminishers was engaging.
I'm excited to know there is more I can do to make me and my crew become more productive.
Liners to remember:
- Ask the bigger questions
- Leaders are not the center of gravity
- A chat with Benjamin Disraeli left you thinking you are the smart person!
- Be like Shai outstretch people to their best potential.
- Leave people a challenge on a daily basis

This book provides managers with a well-researched foundation on how their behavior impacts not only the morale but also the performance of their teams. A demanding leadership style, characterized by trust, honesty and consistency leads to much better results than micromanaging tyranny. Not completely surprising, but a great confirmation for those who try to be good people and successful managers at the same time. In addition, Multipliers provides a rich set of examples and helpful techniques to make sure that the diminisher inside all of us doesn't bring us off track too often. It's an entertaining read. Not too long and not too brief.

Read the first chapter and you have basically read every chapter. The concepts are good, but the ideas could have been summed up in an essay. Check this book out from your local library and you will have it for as long as you actually need it.

You think you are so smart until you read this book and find out that if you think you are so smart, maybe you aren't getting the most our of your employees, co-workers, family members, etc. Worth the read.

This book provides managers with a well-researched foundation on how their behavior impacts not only the morale but also the performance of their teams. A demanding leadership style, characterized by trust, honesty and consistency leads to much better results than micromanaging tyranny. Not completely surprising, but a great confirmation for those who try to be good people and successful managers at the same time. In addition, Multipliers provides a rich set of examples and helpful techniques to make sure that the diminisher inside all of us doesn't bring us off track too often. It's an entertaining read. Not too long and not too brief.

Read the first chapter and you have basically read every chapter. The concepts are good, but the ideas could have been summed up in an essay. Check this book out from your local library and you will have it for as long as you actually need it.

You think you are so smart until you read this book and find out that if you think you are so smart, maybe you aren't getting the most our of your employees, co-workers, family members, etc. Worth the read.

The issues I have with this book is that there is nothing concrete at all in any of the chapters, it is all soft anecdotal stories that can be interpreted and worked around any way to prove anything.

It's all words, and stories designed almost like it was before the book was even written to appeal to people and make them feel smart and better about themselves rather than tell them anything or any real knowledge.

All the stories could have multiple interpretations that could be argued forever, because there is no solid truth about what goes on in companies and why, and a heck of a lot of it is politics or luck.

They seem to pull out some awfully bad quotes from people and make a big deal about them, as if they prove something permanent about that person, or that a person who says bad quotes must be a bad manager.

They tell stories about a tank commander who did not get along with one student and tried to flunk him out, but the student did great with a different commander. So the "bad" tank commander was a DIMINISHER and the good tank commander was a "MULTIPLIER" .... wow! Except we have to assume the DIMINISHER tank commander was graduating other students who were competent, and the MULTIPLIER tank commander may have had problems with other different kinds of students. The problem is there is no depth or scientific control to anything in this book.

After listening to about half the book where it is all about the same I started to just get the feeling this was just a book to appeal to certain people wanting to read a book like this as opposed to anything that really have something to say. You can read this book and think to yourself ... my last manager was a MULTIPLIER, or if I was a manager I would be a MULTIPLIER.

Names and companies are thrown around all-knowingly like the author is totally familiar or best friends, but to really find out what is going on in a group of co-workers, I think it is pretty difficult, and often does not matter. Some of the bad managers might just be ones who get results but leave a lot of damage in their wake, and some of the most decorated managers in companies as anyone knows who has worked in corporate America are not motivation behind whatever accomplishment is being touted.

Read "Thinking Fast and Slow" and you find out that there is a lot we think we know or can analyse that just is not so, but it is comforting to think or makes money for a certain group .... maybe some might like this book because it is comforting but I don't think there is much in here that will really make any kind of difference in anything but comfort level with ideas that are very soft.

If you feel you must read this book I would suggest getting it in Audible format where they allow you to return it if you do not like in within a certain time. If you think I am wrong ... then keep it, and come back here and tell me why, please. But one thing, Audible/the store is nice enough to trust people with this really customer-centric ability, do not abuse it please - I'd like them to keep it around for a while.

Great book for anyone looking to improve leadership skills or life skills. Interesting concepts for anyone to test and apply. I can identify many diminishers and a few multipliers in my world- this book helps you see things differently.

This book is tremendous. It is a great follow up read of Good to Great by Jim Collins. The book is well written and laid out. It is worth the read, you will connect instantly, and you can put these practices to work immediately.

the intro just states the same concept over and over. it is repetative drivel. the concept is hard to disagree with on the surface. but there is no research or alternative arguments covered. the author just talks to executives at well known companies which is mostly just to make the aufhor and reader feel important i suspect.

Because I firmly believe in the power of multiplication ... investing $10 a day at 10% interest results in $1.8 million in 40 years ... I purchased this book on title alone. Mistake! I should have spent more time reading the Introduction and Index. While the principles presented are sound, I found them dry, academic and lacking practical steps to implement.