Leading Like A Multiplier in Detroit

Why do some leaders drain all the intelligence and capability out of their teams while other leaders amplify intelligence and capability? This was one of the questions that led Liz Wiseman, former Vice President at Oracle, to research 150 leaders from around the world.

She discovered that while leaders who drain intelligence (Diminisher) and leaders that amplify intelligence (Multipliers) did many things the same, there are five key behaviors that separate the two types of leaders and the results that their teams achieve. These findings are the focus of her Wall Street Journal bestselling book “Multiplier: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter”.

The research suggests that Multipliers can receive much more from their teams (even twice as much) without adding resources or overhead. Addition information can be found in two of Liz’s Harvard Business Review articles, Managing Yourself: Bringing Out the Best in Your People and Smart Leaders Get More Out of the Employees They Have.

While the book identifies many Multipliers we need to continually find and acknowledge other leaders from all walks of life who are practicing these critical behaviors. These are the leaders who demonstrate the Multiplier behaviors to gain access to the full intelligence of their teams which greatly contribute to organizational success.

In his riveting corporate biography, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, Bryce Hoffman documents many Multiplier behaviors exhibited by Ford’s current President and Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally.

A foundational trait of all the Multipliers behaviors is the critical reliance on questions. For many leaders this is a difficult trait to first accept and then ultimately master. As we begin our careers we typical excel and advance by answering the tough questions and demonstrating our individual intelligence. Thanks to the Multipliers book, we understand that as leaders advance in their careers they add more value to an organization by asking questions as opposed to providing all the answers. This is one of the techniques used by Multipliers to more fully utilize the intelligence of their teams.

We begin our analysis of Mulally by considering this statement about him, “He asked more questions than he answered and seemed genuinely interested in what people had to say, be they world leaders or waitresses.”

By contrast consider the classic Diminisher behavior demonstrated by a member of Ford’s upper management team prior to Mulally’s arrival as documented by Hoffman. When staff began questioning this former Ford executive’s marketing plan, the executive raised his hand to stop the debate and said sharply “If you don’t agree with it, I’ve got somebody from HR who will work out your retirement”. It is easy to see how this frightening combination of a Tyrant and Decision Maker can both shut down intelligence and demoralize staff!

Early in his career, Mulally learned a valuable lesson that he never forgot. Alan was quickly promoted to management but his first employee quit after Mulally kept redoing all his work and showing the employee his mistakes. The young boss realized that his job was not to show his subordinates how much smarter he was but to bring his teams up to his level. Self-aware leaders are able to recognize their diminishing behaviors and shift to multiplying behaviors during their career. This example showed how Mulally’s self-awareness allowed him to transition from being a Know-It-All to being a Challenger. Whereas Know-It-Alls assume they must have all the best ideas, the Challengers ask the hard questions that propel their teams to find the answers.

Multipliers understand the need to utilize all the intelligence and capacity around them as Woodrow Wilson once remarked, “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.” Not only do leaders need to engage others, but they also need to implement strategies to ensure their teams are sharing ideas amongst themselves.

Before joining Ford, Mulally was a successful leader at Boeing. At a time when the Boeing organization was struggling, a project was underway to create the revolutionary new 777 airliner with the hopes of turning the company around. When he was brought into the 777 airliner project it was already behind schedule. Mulally implemented a process to bring project leaders together each week to discuss and resolve issues. This approach was a shift in team thinking because typically engineers pride themselves on solving problems individually. To keep everyone on their best behavior he brought in a film crew to record the sessions which ended up being part of the documentary "21st Century Jet: The Building of the 777". The 777 airliner went on to become a major success for Boeing.

When Mulally was hired by Ford employees within the organization expected that, as typically occurs when new CEOs are hired, there would be a house cleaning within the ranks of upper management. Curiously Mulally did not remove any of the managers at Ford and instead opted to establish his processes and expectations and let those unwilling to follow choose to opt out.

One of the processes that he established at Ford was a weekly Business Plan Review. At these sessions each of the senior leaders from across the globe were expected to report status of their organization. One component of the report was a traffic signal indicator; green, yellow or red to summarize the heath of the operations.

Initially all the reports proudly displayed a status of green which was very perplexing given the business challenges and difficulties that were being faced by the Ford organization. This unanimity of green appeared on the reports even though Mulally stressed that he was expecting openness and honesty during the meetings.

Finally a member of the leadership team who thought he would eventually be removed by the new CEO displayed a status of red due to the expected delay of a new car rollout. The other members of the team held their breath in anticipation of Mulally’s reaction. How did he react? He reacted by clapping his hands and asking who could help with the problem. A solution to the problem was identified during the meeting and quickly implemented.

The brilliance in Mulally’s response was that he asked a question of who could help which provided the team with the opportunity to solve the problem as opposed to providing a solution himself, which represents a great example of a Challenger behavior. Additionally this simple response of ‘who can help’ demonstrated how Mulally gave his team ownership for the organization’s success in the fashion of a true Investor.

The following week all of the reports were still green because everyone was wondering if the leader who displayed a red status the previous week would be invited back. Next week, the leader was in attendance and at the following meeting Mulally was greeted by a rainbow of status colors which allowed for open discussion and resolution of critical issues being faced by the organization.

Mulally did not clean house as expected because he knew that there was untapped knowledge within the Ford organization. As he predicted several managers chose to voluntarily leave the organization. The realization that underutilized resources exist within an organization is the primary view of a Talent Magnet.

One of the biggest crises ever encountered by the domestic automotive industry came in the early 21^st century. As each of The Big Three was suffering from the downturn in the world economy they took their infamous trip to Washington DC. As the federal government was identifying potential bailout options for the auto makers, Mulally engaged his executives in rigorous debate to determine if Ford should take the federal dollars along with the rules that would be tied to the relief.

In the end Mulally and his team decided that Ford could survive the downturn without the federal aid due to the strategic moves that Mulally had orchestrated prior to the downturn such as selling off foreign brands and stock piling cash.

Unlike their domestic competitors, this debate allowed Ford to collectively decide to operate without the extensive government oversight and allowed Ford to not only survive but to prosper once again. This is a perfect demonstration of Debate Maker behaviors and the extraordinary benefits that organization can achieve by fostering debate.

Both Multipliers and Diminishers engage in debate. The difference between the two being that Diminishers (acting as Decision Makers) make decisions with the result being that debate then occurs in uncontrolled and secret settings. The problem with this situation is that once a decision is made, it is not unilaterally acted upon until the informal debate occurs which costs the organization more time and resources than if debate had been embraced within the decision making process.

Being engaged in the debate before the decision was made, allowed the Ford executives to weigh in which resulted in their ability to more quickly understand and execute this momentous decision at a critical time in Ford’s history.

             

As outlined above, over his career Alan Mulally has clearly demonstrated Multiplier behaviors. Simply put, these behaviors allowed Mulally to get vastly more effort and capability from this teams which were instrumental components in successfully creating the revolutionary 777 airliner at Boeing and turning around an American Icon, the Ford Motor Company. In 2011, Mulally was named CEO of the Year by Chief Executive magazine.

Based on the evidence presented in Bryce Hoffman’s book, Alan Mulally would certainly be a candidate to take a place in the Multipliers “Hall of Fame”.

There are many ways to stifle creativity and the smarts of your team, just as there are lots of ways to get the most out of your people. To assess your leadership style, take the survey at the Multipliers Resources Page.

 

JON HAVERLY

Jon Haverly is a Leadership Development Specialist for Garnet River, LLC. He is a Certified Multipliers Workshop Leader providing workshops and keynotes that allow teams to develop a deep understanding of the research behind Multipliers and learn how to get more done with fewer resources, develop and attract talent, and cultivate new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation. He can be contacted at: jhaverly@garnetriver.com.