The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools

by Liz Wiseman, Lois N. Allen, Elise Foster

When you become a Multiplier, your whole team succeeds! Why do some leaders double their team’s effectiveness, while others seem to drain the energy right out of the room? Using insights gained from more than 100 interviews with school leaders, this book pinpoints the five disciplines that define how Multipliers bring out the best across their schools. By practicing these disciplines, you’ll learn how

Genres: Leadership, Education, Professional Development, Nonfiction, Business, Teaching

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 8, 2013

About the author

Liz Wiseman is an American researcher, speaker, executive advisor, and the author of The New York Times bestseller Multipliers

Reviews

[Moh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent perspective on what it takes to drive an effective organization

I throughly enjoyed reading the Multipliers book. The book provides a framework that a leader can follow in order to maximize the potential out of his team and organization.
In summary, a multiplier needs to be a) talent recruiter, b) community builder, c) thought provoker, d) investor in their team's talents, and e) high stakes challenger.
I also specifically loved the section around how someone can become an accidental diminisher while thinking they are a muliplier (eg high energy person who un-intentionally overwhelms their team).

[Nicole Means · Rating 5 out of 5]

A critical book for anyone who wants to amplify the intelligence of educators. Leadership is not about how much the leader knows, but, rather, it is about tapping into the knowledge of others. When teachers feel discounted or micromanaged, it is anti-productive for all involved. The best leaders know when to step back and ask questions instead of delegating instructions and they know that mistakes are not failures but lessons to be learned! "The Multiplier Effect" provides a crucial analysis of the growth mindset and should be read by all leaders regardless of years of experience.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Ed Leadership Book

This book encapsulates all of the management principles I strive to have. Whether you are managing students or teachers or both, the guidelines in this book will help you to create a community of learners and contributors to solve problems and harness the power of a community of contributors!

[Sally Hanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having never read any of the other multiplier/diminisher books by Wiseman, this was a refreshing read. Wiseman takes the reader into schools which utilized the wisdom of her insight, and the results are quite remarkable. It goes to show that we are all made up of a good mix of skills, personality types, and talents; and when all those parts are put together, honored, and used, a school can only get better.

Each chapter presents a different type of multiplicative method one can use, and while the idea of multiplication can become repetitive, it's always good to go over great material so that it sinks in. With stories, studies, templates, and summaries (along with excellent editing and layout), this book should be a big help to any teacher wanting to maximize his/her students' abilities in the classroom, but even better, maximize and activate the greatness in a school's leadership team and district.

[Jeff Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book helps you see where your actions may compromise the ability of subordinates, or colleagues to succeed.

[Scott Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The key idea in this book is that some leaders enhance the intelligence of their staff, and others shut it down. The former are multipliers and the latter diminishers. What is it that causes some leaders to drain intelligence while others amplify it?

There are five key things multipliers do, and behind these five are a couple of key assumptions. Firstly multipliers assume people are smart and that intelligence is dynamic - it is able to change.
1. They tap into people's talents regardless of their position - they don't put people into boxes. People will put 'discretionary effort' into their native talents and what they enjoy doing. To find out where people are skilled, ask what they do better than others (or better than other things they do), and what they do without being asked. People love to contribute their genius.

2. They liberate people and give them space to do their best thinking, creating an intensive environment that demands people's best. Stress in people is caused when they are expected to produce outcomes that are out of their control. Stressful environments drop the IQ of a team. What we need to do is create an environment of comfort and pressure. We need to give our team space to make good choices, but in return they owe us their best thinking. We become small so they get a chance to be big.

3. Multipliers lay down challenges that stretch organisations. We can do this by asking provocative questions. This moves the burden of thinking to our teams. We should lay down challenges and generate belief in what is possible.


4. In addition to these things, multipliers are community builders. They are transparent in constructing debates and in decision making forums. They do not just keep decision making to small groups. We need to frame issues by clearly explaining the options, who needs to give input, how a final decision will be made. We then can spark debate creating safety for all to participate. We demand rigor from staff by asking tough questions and evidence for their ideas, as well as by asking them to argue for the opposite point of view. We need to be transparent in the decision. We should communicate the decision making timeline and who will make the decision and how it will be made.

5. Finally multipliers give people the ownership for results and invest in their success. Leaders should 'give it back' when someone comes to us with a problem that we think they are capable of solving. It's easy to want to take over. But this will not allow them to develop capability and independence. Rather, give others ownership and responsibility. Provide backup in the form of coaching and teaching, and finally hold people accountable.

The authors also note that people can be 'accidental diminishers.' Two forms mentioned are the 'ideas guy' who tosses around lots of ideas that people pursue, but before you know it there is another idea sending them off in another direction. Another diminisher is the rescuer, a person who swoops in to rescue their team at the first sign of trouble.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book at the recommendation of a boss. The book is okay. Not terrible, but not amazing. It definitely gets you thinking on your interactions with others, especially around decisions that need made in your organization and how you can gain greater consensus with your team by allowing them to make a decision instead of forcing the ideas upon them.

I'm not a teacher, nor do I have a team, so parts of the book didn't apply to me. But, it did get me to think about group meetings I call where I need consensus from a group and know which way I'd like people to go.

Some of the sentences could've used some tweaks - I had to reread a few times to find out what the author meant. There are also a few typos in the Kindle edition.

[Margo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so enlightening for those of us that are "accidental diminishers" in our area of leadership. The book provides a way of talking and thinking about how we lead others, and how we accidentally snuff out talent in our teams. This book has become one of the pivotal reads in my quest to be a leader in schools. The book is an easy to read format with tons of examples and easy to access charts for reference and summary of chapters. Great appendices in the back with FAQs to use as discussion questions for team building activities.

[Chris Wejr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the concept of a multiplier but I struggle with the regular use of polarizing examples - multipliers vs diminishers - as we often end up somewhere in between. I enjoyed reading about how focusing on strengths bring out the best and the examples were fairly relevant in North American schools.

[Abby Filsinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was certainly interesting and made me aware of elements in the work place that hadn’t thought of before, however, it repeated itself a lot. It seemed almost as if the first 50 or so pages were giving the reader new material, but then the rest of the 100 or so pages was either just repeating the same information or giving too many examples as well as worksheets.

[Cappy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book's central insight - the best management is one that delegates responsibility throughout an organization - is well-taken. But the real value of this book is in the exercises it offers to help a manager put that insight into practice.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A succinct professional title about effective leadership needing to come from recognizing and magnifying the genius in others and exploiting that for effective work in (any) institution.

The directness works, then the recap at the end helps to solidify it though it’s hard to extend any more into the book because the focus is while being necessary is hard to dive deeper in to: don’t be a micromanaging tyrant who squashes people’s ability to contribute and use their genius. Enough said.

[Dr.Given · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the focus on growing people around you. Practical suggestions. Can't wait for school to begin to try and be a better teacher leader based on focusing on talents and strengths of students and peers.

[Nina Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

A humbling perspective of leadership! Definitely helpful as I go toward edu admin and reflect on my time in retail management. Found it a little repetitive; a change in structure could probably help with that. I hate to be that person, but there were some serious typos, too 😂

[Jamie Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book for anyone wanting to know more about dynamic leadership and how to cultivate leadership within themselves or their organization.

[Greg Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on mentoring, and liberating everyone in the organization to meaningfully contribute to the group’s success.

[Kevin Demel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Skimmed book because mostly about getting people to work together.

[Jenna Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my Leadership in Education class! It was definitely a great textbook to have on hand!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

My biggest quibble with this book is that the people described who aren't "Multipliers"--leaders who tap strengths, build community, develop others, etc.--aren't really leaders at all. And there's no advice for counteracting their destructive behavior. But...this book is great for helping those in positions of influence in schools--administrators, coaches, teacher leaders and consultants--evaluate their own practices, work to improve culture, and inspire others. Great tools and exercises, too, for putting the ideas into action.

[Seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent follow-up to Multipliers. As someone who has had a career in education for over 14 years, this book is right on target. If the principles that are not only taught but proven were implemented in our schools, we would see amazing growth at all levels of our education but most importantly, helping to ensure our children receive the education, support and future they deserve. This is a must read.

[Alex Brown Santoyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed how I think about power.

The distinction between diminishers and multipliers is simple, but incredibly revealing. The idea that “the best leaders make others smarter” challenged me to reflect on when control masquerades as competence.

As a coach and leader, this reinforced that leadership is not about being the most capable person in the room. It’s about creating conditions where others can think, stretch, and lead.

Humbling in the best way and extremely actionable.

[Karin Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the ideas in this book, but sometimes I felt that I know these ideas in different formats. I am looking forward to talking about this book with colleagues. I think this book should be read with a group and discussed.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is usually not my kind of book, but I did find it interesting. As an administrator beginning the year at a new school site, there were things that I could reflect on and use for the upcoming year with a new staff.

[Pam Howell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book. The concepts are clear. The challenge is putting them into practice. The authors give you practical steps to practice and become a Multiplier. The examples are great!

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it - I was hoping for more from this after reading the original Multipliers, but felt this was a lot of the same concepts (some re-packaging).

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous read, especially as a complement to Dweck's Mindset.

[Teacherman]

I don't remember exactly when I finished this one, but the strategies in this book are amazingly effective!

[Elizabeth Finn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for educators.