Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter (12 page)

THE THREE PRACTICES OF THE LIBERATOR

Among the Multipliers we studied in our research, we found three common practices. Liberators: 1) create space; 2) demand people’s best work; and 3) generate rapid learning cycles. We’ll examine each in turn.

I. Create Space

Everyone needs space. We need space to contribute and to work. Liberators don’t take it for granted that people have the space they need. They deliberately carve out space for others to be able to make a contribution. They do so in the following ways.

Release Others by Restraining Yourself

It is a small victory to create space for others to contribute. But it is a huge victory to maintain that space and resist the temptation to jump back in and consume it yourself. This is especially true in formal, hierarchical organizations where people are accustomed to deferring to their leaders.

Ray Lane, former president of Oracle Corporation and current managing partner at Kleiner Perkins venture capital, is a master at executive restraint. One of his portfolio CEOs remarked, “Ray has learned the importance of restraint in leadership. He knows that less is more, and he never wastes an opinion.”

When Ray goes on sales calls to meet with executives at a potential client’s, two things are certain: 1) The client will want to hear from Ray and his vast experience and 2) Ray will be prepared. But despite these forces pulling him in, he holds back. He makes a few opening pleasantries, but he lets the sales team do the deal. Issues come up in conversation that Ray has a point of view about, but still he waits. The sales team, knowing full well that Ray could probably be doing a better job than they, continues their work nonetheless. When they are done, Ray then comes into the conversation. He still doesn’t unleash his ideas and give a monologue. He has listened carefully and knows exactly what he wants to add. He dispenses his views in small but intense doses.

A longtime colleague of Ray remarked, “He’ll often be quiet for long stretches of an important meeting. He listens to what others are saying. And when he does speak, everyone listens.”

Ray is well known as a brilliant strategist and perhaps one of the most
articulate communicators in his business. But instead of overplaying himself and his own ideas, he creates room for others and uses his presence where it can have the greatest potency and impact for the team.

Shift the Ratio of Listening to Talking

Liberators are more than just good listeners. They are ferocious listeners. They listen to feed their hunger for knowledge. They listen to learn what other people know and add it to their own reservoir of knowledge. As management guru C.K. Prahalad said to me, “How smart you are is defined by how clearly you can see the intellect of others.” They listen intently because they are trying to learn and understand what other people know.

John Brandon, one of Apple Inc.’s top sales executives, runs an organization that brings in over $12 billion in revenue each year across three regions of the world. John is a high-energy sales leader and maintains an aggressive travel and meeting schedule, so getting time on his calendar can be tough. But when his direct reports meet with him one-on-one, they get his whole presence. John listens intently to them and is keenly interested in understanding their reality—what is really happening on the ground, with customers and with deals. He asks probing questions that get to the heart of the matter. One of his direct reports said, “The difference with John is not that he listens; it is that he listens to an extreme.” In a typical conversation, he spends 80 percent of the time listening and asking questions. By listening, asking, and probing, John develops an understanding of the realities of the business and an understanding with his team of the opportunities and problems they face. This collective insight into the market has enabled John’s organization to experience a phenomenal 375 percent growth over the last five years. John, who can certainly talk a good game himself, knows when it is time to listen.

Liberators don’t just listen the majority of time. They massively shift the ratio, listening most of the time. This creates space for others to share what they know.

Operate Consistently

Imagine a troop of young girls competing in double-dutch jump rope. Visualize the smooth, even rhythm of the turning ropes. The turners stand at the ropes’ ends and rapidly turn the two ropes in opposite directions. Their role is clear and vital—maintain both a consistent arc and a constant speed. Their consistency is what makes it safe for the jumpers to enter the whirling space. Any erratic turns or inconsistency and a jumper can’t enter or trips doing so. Consistency creates predictability. When leaders are consistent, it lets others know when they can jump in and allows them to contribute.

Operating with consistency is one of the most vital of the practices of the Liberator. In our interviews, we continually heard how Multipliers operate with a consistency that enables others. For example, John Brandon was described as “comfortable, consistent, confident, relaxed, and disarming.” Craig Conway, former CEO of PeopleSoft, “took emotion out of every situation. He put a consistently professional front to everything.”

The consistency of their actions creates two effects: 1) It establishes a predictable pattern of behavior. This allows others to know when it is their turn and where there is space for them to contribute. 2) It creates safety. When people operate in predictable ways, we know what to expect and we become comfortable around them. This comfort allows people not only to jump in, but to do so with full power of thought.

Recall how Robert Enslin’s consistent leadership created a calming effect on his organization. He was able to contain stress instead of flowing it out to the organization. This consistency gave people the platform for transparency and the ability to focus on the real issues—delivering value to SAP customers, which, in turn, delivered revenue to the corporation.

Level the Playing Field

In any formal organization, the playing field is rarely level, and certain voices are inherently advantaged. These include senior executives, influential thought leaders, critical organizations like product
development or sales, and people with deep legacy knowledge. Unless managed, other voices that are perhaps closest to the real issues can become muffled. Liberators amplify these voices to extract maximum intelligence and give advantage to the ideas and voices on the lower end of the playing field.

When Nick Reilly—the first president and CEO of GM Daewoo Auto and Technology (GMDAT)—took the reins, he brought together the American automaker and a very traditional Korean company. He also took explicit steps to level the playing field. Reilly created a senior leadership team consisting of four Koreans, three Europeans, and four Americans. Reilly, a native of the U.K., knew the GM team was likely to dominate. Yet it was clear to him that the success of the operation depended on the team’s ability to draw on the talent and intellectual assets of the former Daewoo members.

Reilly served as an amplifier, establishing systems for drawing out the contributions of the Korean team members, who were all in their midfifties and initially spoke limited English. He made sure that all executive meetings were simultaneously translated into Korean. At every turn, he showed respect for the Korean team and the legacy Daewoo had built. He asked the Korean team members what aspects of Daewoo’s culture needed to be preserved, and consequently protected them. He created learning teams by pairing Koreans and non-Koreans to work together and learn from each other. Out of these two cultures, he created a third joint culture based on a set of common values and a level playing field. The team created a new mission, vision, and values for the organization and began to embed them in the Korean operations.

Under Reilly’s leadership, functional silos were reduced and a company that had been on the brink of liquidation became a major revenue source for General Motors. It also became a hub for global small car design and development, with complete vehicles and kits for assembly at other GM facilities being sold in more than 150 countries worldwide (a 3,000 percent volume increase in one year alone!). One
senior executive stated, “The way Nick led this joint venture created a higher level of aspiration for all of us.”

GMDAT is not exempt from the challenges of today’s business world and has recently posted a loss, but in October 2009, GM increased its ownership stake in GMDAT to 70.1 percent—a strong statement of its belief in its Korean unit. Reilly now heads GM International Operations and, in October 2009, was named an honorary citizen of Seoul.

Liberators begin by creating space, but they do more than create space for others to contribute. Yes, they do provide the space, but they also expect extraordinary work in return.

II. Demand People’s Best Work

Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, was a master at getting people’s best work. According to one story, his chief of staff once handed in a report he had written on an aspect of foreign policy. When Kissinger received the report, he asked simply, “Is this your best work?” The chief thought for a moment and, worried that his boss would think the report was not good enough, responded, “Mr. Kissinger, I think I can do better.” So Kissinger gave the report back. Two weeks later the chief turned in the revised report. Kissinger kept it for a week and then sent it back with a note that said, “Are you sure this is your best work?” Realizing that something must have been missing, the chief once again rewrote the report. This time when he handed the report to his boss he said, “Mr. Kissinger, this is my best work.” Upon hearing this, Kissinger replied, “Then this time I will read your report.”
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Here are a few ways that Liberators demand the best from those they work with.

Defend the Standard

Larry Gelwix, the head coach of Highland Rugby, stood at the center of a huddle of rugby players at the side of the field for the team’s first
game debrief of the season. Larry asked one question, “Did you give your
best
?”

One player enthusiastically spoke up, “Well we won, didn’t we?” Not unkindly, Larry said, “That’s not the question I asked.” Another player jumped in. “We just dominated that team. We won 64 to 20. What more could you ask for?” Larry said, “When you came for tryouts, I said I expected your
best
. That means your best thinking out there as well as your best physical effort. Is that what you gave today?”

One player described one game played on the island of Tonga when he could answer “yes” to Larry’s question. He said, “I had a painful shoulder contusion after a devastating tackle on my opponent. I was ready to quit, ready to let my team down. I couldn’t lift my arm and the pain was excruciating. I remember I began to chant the
haka
[a traditional Maori war chant] in my head. I remember looking over at the sunset through the palm trees. At that very moment the game seemed to stop, and I had a choice. A voice told me that I needed to keep going and do my best, not only for myself, but for who I am, and most importantly for the team—for my brothers. The voice was the recollection of countless practices and games when Coach Gelwix simply asked, ‘Is that your best?’ I finished that game with two tries [each the equivalent of a touchdown] becoming the first high school American to score in Tonga.”

As a manager you know when someone is below his or her usual performance. What is harder to know is whether people are giving everything they have to give. Asking whether people are giving their best gives them the opportunity to push themselves beyond their previous limits. It is a key reason why people report that Multipliers get more than 100 percent intelligence out of them.

Distinguish Best Work from Outcomes

Requiring people’s best work is different from insisting on desired outcomes. Stress is created when people are expected to produce outcomes
that are beyond their control. But they feel positive pressure when they are held to their best work.

K.R. Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, innovator of green-power generators globally, and a renowned scientist himself, has mastered this distinction in his company. He said, “If you want your organization to take risks, you have to separate the experiment from the outcome. I have zero tolerance if someone does not run the experiment. But I don’t hold them accountable for the outcome of the experiment. I only hold them accountable to execute.” This is one of Bloom Energy’s secrets for innovating across complex, integrated technologies.

K.R. understands the distinction between pressure and stress. He cites the famous image of William Tell shooting an apple off his son’s head: “In this scenario, William Tell feels pressure. His son feels stress.” K.R. keeps the pressure on his team to act, but doesn’t create stress by holding them accountable for outcomes beyond their control.

III. Generate Rapid Learning Cycles

In studying Multipliers, I have often wondered,
How smart do you have to be to be a Multiplier?
The answer from Bill Campbell, chairman and former CEO of Intuit was perfect: “You have to be smart enough to learn.”

Perhaps most important, Liberators give people permission to make mistakes and the obligation to learn from them.

Admit and Share Mistakes

When Lutz Ziob took over as general manager of the education business at Microsoft in 2003, it was falling short of its goals for revenue and reach. Lutz needed to make progress fast and could have easily created a stressful environment around him. But he also needed the organization to be creative and take risks if they were to catch up in the market. It was a classic management dilemma. If you take the obvious
path, the climate will become tense and your people may become risk averse. However, if you lessen the pressure by softening the goals, then your organization becomes complacent. Lutz did neither.

Instead, he created an environment that was equal parts pressure and learning. Lutz never backed down from the natural pressure for the business to perform, but he made it safe for people to take risks and make mistakes. He did this by how he responded to both his mistakes and the mistakes of others.