Which of the five Multiplier disciplines do corporate managers struggle with the most? After several months of assessing management teams across a number of companies (and industries), we found the lowest scores and the most challenging of the five Multiplier disciplines is consistently The Challenger! Why? It seems most of us aren’t asking people to [...]
It was almost a year ago that I finished writing the acknowledgements for Multipliers, sent it off to Harper Business and checked it off my list of things to do. Those acknowledgements reflect our deep gratitude for the myriads of people who contributed time and talent to produce Multipliers. But, our work to get the [...]
“Can a Diminisher really become a Multiplier?” This is, perhaps, the most common question we hear – in workshops, at speeches, and even on mysterious inquiries on our website. Accidental Diminisher Seeking Reform. Several weeks ago we got a short, mysterious inquiry regarding executive coaching on the Wiseman Group website. It simply said, “Accidental Diminisher [...]
Can poor farmers in China make better decisions about how to spend the government budget than the experts and elected officials? Can collective intelligence actually outperform the individual intelligence of an elite group of experts? Setting Policy from the Bottom. In the September 13, 2010 edition of Time Magazine [http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2015481,00.html], Joe Klein writes a brilliant [...]
It is fascinating when two people have a shared experience that they remember so differently. Thus was the dinner conversation with my old Oracle colleague Chris Pirie who is now a General Manager at Microsoft. Although the org chart at the time showed him working for me, I always felt lucky to work with Chris. [...]
I know of a Stanford professor who is a brilliant thinker and renowned researcher. The unintended consequence is that he is so busy publishing papers, books and blogs that he has a tendency to overlook the brilliance in his students. Specifically, his PhD candidates confess to having no face time with their highly regarded academic [...]
Multiplier Fest or Feast? Last week, when the Wiseman Group held our Multipliers Executive Briefing, it was a real “Multiplier Fest.” We had 4 of the Multipliers from the book on an executive panel, and, we have 2 additional Multipliers join us in the audience. The insights flowing from the panel were non-stop. As one [...]
Confessions of This Accidental Diminisher. Recently I decided to take our own “Are you an Accidental Diminisher?” quiz. I had managed to develop it, test it with others, and click through the test dozens of times to make sure it was returning accurate results, all without completing it on myself. I was preparing to teach [...]
The Accidental Diminisher. When we put together our “Are you an Accidental Diminisher?” quiz, I had no idea I’d hear so many personal confessions. A few nights ago at a community fundraiser, I got stopped by at least five people telling me how they scored on the quiz. Some shared enthusiastically that they were in [...]
Today Gordon Brown offered his resignation. It provides an opportunity to reflect on his tenure as Prime Minister which, to my reading of history, is that of a tragic leadership figure—someone whose own intelligence seemed to get in the way of his ability to access other people’s. Even Brown’s toughest critics would accept that he [...]

