How to build a team of impact players

Liz Wiseman:

Generally, I think this dynamic plays out when you look at leaders. When leaders have the answer, their team becomes an extension of them. “Here’s what I want you to do. Your arms, your legs. I’ll be the brain.” And they can end up having this diminishing effect on others, but when leaders have the right question, but don’t have the answer, well, then they need to ask questions. Then they need to listen to people. Then they need other people. And we love working for people who need us. It lets their team find the answer. So, it tends to put leaders in their best space. And it tends to create learners out of us when we don’t have ready answers.

Liz Wiseman:

Most of the planet.

Liz Wiseman:

You’re one of the cool people. Let’s-

Liz Wiseman:

… assume that.

Liz Wiseman:

Yeah. So, it’s a name I gave to this dynamic that I saw. And I saw it in my early days at Oracle. And I joined Oracle when they were young… Rapidly growing. Doubling every year revenue, headcount, market share every year. And they hired a really interesting breed of people. They hired for this kind of trifecta of talent. It was really smart like uber-driven and then kind of fun or nice. And I can tell you, if they compromised on any part of that triangle, it was the nice part of this.

So, I landed in this organization and I don’t think I felt like an imposter there. I just felt so lucky to work around all these brilliant, brilliant people. I was like, “Man, I work with smart people.” But I think because I was a little bit enamoured with how intelligent and driven everyone was, I noticed that when some really smart, capable people got put into management roles, they continued to be smart, but the people around them didn’t get to be knowledgeable, capable, know-how. They had this way of weakening the people around them. But I saw other equally smart, capable leaders who use their intelligence in very different ways. And I called that first group diminishers and that second group multipliers. And these were leaders who used their intelligence in a way that other people were at their best. Like we’re smart, we’re capable. We take ownership. We lean in around these leaders, whereas the diminisher leaders, we tend to lean out, we shut down, we power around them and it was a dynamic I watched play out over and over.

And then I went and did some executive coaching at places like SAP and Apple. And I see this same dynamic. And I’m wondering, “Why is it that some leaders amplify intelligence while others drain it?” And probably the two things that I found there that are important. So, if someone isn’t familiar with the idea, hasn’t read the book, skip it, and let me just give you kind of the nuggets maybe is-

Liz Wiseman:

I will warn anyone who hasn’t read it that some people say it was the most painful book they ever read.

Liz Wiseman:

No, but Alex, I was a first time author and people say this. I’m like, “What do you mean painful?” Like poorly written pain?

Liz Wiseman:

Like no self-reflective painful. But here I think-

Liz Wiseman:

Two big ideas. One is that the research I did, which I have replicated over and over and in virtually every country, is that diminishing leaders are getting less than half of people’s available intelligence. So, they may be working for companies that are working really hard to hire smart people, but they’re only yielding half of that capability, which seems to me like a bit of a crime. Not just in terms of waste for shareholders or what have you, but these people were promised a great environment to work in. And they got duped because they now have a bit of a ceiling, a wall on what they can do.

So, that’s the first thing that these multiplier leaders tend to get twice the level of insight, know-how, and capability from people they lead at zero cost. The cost of good leadership or maybe the cost of self restraint. The second idea which was really more disturbing to me was that most of the diminishing that’s happening is not coming from tyrannical, bossy, narcissistic, know-it-all kinds of leaders. Yes, they’re out there. They exist. And some people have surely worked for one and they shut people down overtly, but most of the diminishing was coming from really well-intending people. The good guys. People who take management training. People who read management books. People like me who write management books who are trying to do the right things, but yet following some just popular leadership guidance end up shutting people down to the same extent as those narcissistic know-it-alls.

Liz Wiseman:

And I think if you want to create, what I call, a high contribution organization where people are contributing fully, as a leader, you really have to understand the difference between your intention and your impact. And it is human nature to judge other people on their actions and their impact, and to judge ourselves on our intent because we know our intent and I think my mission with this body of work is to help people kind of look into this dark space. That’s what you meant. Someone was struggling on your team and you extended the hand of help. What you thought you were doing was saying, “I support you. I care about you. I want you to be successful. You’re on my team. I love you, man.” But what you actually just said to that person was, “I don’t think you can do this. I don’t think you can handle the hard things. I’m here for the hard stuff. You can’t do this without me,” which is actually at the very core of the diminishing logic, which is, “Nobody can really do this without me.”

And so really understanding how our best intentions can be received differently. If you really want all that capability you just hired and then more because people say, “Man, I got so much smarter and more capable working for these leaders.” You really have to understand your shadow as a leader. What is it like to work for you? What true impact do you have on people?

Liz Wiseman:

Yeah. Sure, sure. I’m going to try to get as many as I can in a minute-

Liz Wiseman:

Start with awareness. And it’s like, assume you’re having a diminishing impact and find out how you’re doing with the best of intentions.

Liz Wiseman:

Well, thank you. And I’m not sure I’ve ever articulated it quite that way, but I haven’t really found too many leaders who aren’t having an accidentally diminishing impact. So, assume you are, talk it up on your team. I find that the leaders who make the most progress are the ones who don’t hide their accidental diminisher tendencies. They put them out there on the table. For me, I’m super lazy about this kind of stuff.

Personal growth. Everyone thinks I’m a machine. Super lazy. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to tell people what my accidental diminisher tendencies are. Like I might say, “I have a tendency to rescue people.” If I’m jumping in to help you and you really got this, “Say Liz, I got this. Cheer me from the sideline, but let me finish the work.” So, tell people and let them help you correct.

So, things to do. Tell less, ask more. It’s probably the most profound shift a leader can make is to operate in the mode of asking questions rather than giving directives. Ask the questions that get people thinking, that get people taking ownership. Ask more questions, ask better questions. Have a set of what I call back pocket questions. Five go-to questions that if you’re running into a meeting and you haven’t really prepared, you got them. Like, “Hmm, what’s your perspective on this issue? What are the risks we haven’t explored? What are the reasons why we shouldn’t proceed? What help do you need from me to be successful?” Have your go-to questions.

Talk less in meetings. Take your percentage of the room and maybe even back it off a bit. Look for people’s, what I call, native genius. What do they do brilliantly? A fast way to do this is… And I have to admit. This is Alex. This is a true confession… I’ve done this wrong many times.

So, instead of asking, “Man, is this person smart?” I’ve done that, and I’ve asked that question. Ask, “In what way is this person smart?” And then – maybe one more would be, clarify that… Particularly for entrepreneurs, let people know where it’s okay to make mistakes and where it’s not. We tend to say things like, “Be innovative. Build fast, fail forward.” That doesn’t help anyone because we know there’s lots of parts of the business. You can’t bring the production database down and say, “Oh, bummer, dude.”

Liz Wiseman:

It’s like letting people know. In this part of our operation, you know what? We can’t experiment and make mistakes and recover our reputation, our dignity, our business, our careers. Over here, these are places where getting it a little bit wrong could have devastating consequences like business ending or life ending. Those are freeways. The other places, they’re playgrounds. And letting people know that delineation is one of the most powerful things a leader can do.

Liz Wiseman:

Yeah. And have a go-to question or two. And it really helps because if you’re someone like me who has the curse of processing things really fast, it’s easy to go and just want to jump right in and offer a suggestion. And one of the ways I slow myself down is to say, “Okay, what’s your go-to question here?” And this was a little success story for me. Our youngest son just went off to college. And one of the things… He was preparing for a summer job and I was, of course, giving him a little bit of coaching about how to make himself useful and be helpful. He says, “Mom, you know what? I’m just going to ask that question you always ask me.” And I’m like, “What is that?” And he goes, “Oh, whenever I get stuck on stuff you ask, ‘How can I be helpful right now?’” And I’m like, “Oh, I suppose I do.”

And I ask it when I want to jump in and tell someone what to do and how to do it. It’s my way of saying, “Okay. I need to signal to them that I’m here to help them, but I’m not going to do anything without their permission. So, how can I be helpful to you right now?”

Liz Wiseman:

And it just slows everything down because basically I’m assuming by interfering, I’m not being helpful.

Liz Wiseman:

Just use it. And all of you who work with Alex, I want you to hear this. It is okay to use the same questions, and it’s okay to steal other people’s questions. Having a go-to question shows discipline and consistency. So, use it. There’s so many questions you can just use. One of my favourites is just, “What is your perspective on this?” Or “What do you think we should do?” Most people don’t mind being asked. Like, “What’s your opinion?” “That’s what I like. Thanks. I’m glad you asked, Alex.”

Liz Wiseman:

And I think there are people who operate predominantly in that mindset. And there are people who operate predominantly in, what I call, the contributor mindset. And my goal is-

Liz Wiseman:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Some of it is very coachable. Some of it is a little less coachable.

Liz Wiseman:

Here are the things that are less coachable. One of the things is it pivots around internal focus of control, which is what the psychologist terms this belief that either I act on situations or I am acted upon. And it’s probably something that happened long ago in our childhood that set this expectation of, “Am I a victim of circumstance or do I shape the world around me?” And impact players very much operate from a notion that “I shape the world around me.”

So, if I’m starting a company, this is one of the things I want to look for. This should be top of the hiring profile is higher actors, not people who are acted upon. Speaking of which, when I think about starting a company, I have to tell you, Alex, because I know you work with a lot of high-growth companies and startups. I’m a researcher. I’m having so much fun in this research, but midway through talking to managers, about 170 of these amazing contributors, and then interviewing 25 of them personally to really understand their head and their game, I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should abandon the book project and I should start a company and just hire these 170 people.” Because wouldn’t that be amazing? Because these people are the kind of people you would want to build your company around.

Liz Wiseman:

And no one’s going to do it for you. If you want a website, there’s no department to do it, you build it.

Liz Wiseman:

Oh, these are such great questions, Alex. And these are the questions I don’t have great answers for yet. So, here’s what I know. I know what impact players tend to do and how they think. I know which of these behaviours and assumptions are most coachable and those that are least coachable. And I know a little bit about how to use that framework to know who not to hire. And I’m learning about how to use the framework to hire. So, I built the framework, and we haven’t really gone through it. So, maybe we should back up-

Liz Wiseman:

… and talk about some of that, but…

Liz Wiseman:

So, I gave the framework to my buddy, Ben, who is one of my favourite test pilots. I always give him stuff and say, “Ben, try this out. See what happens.” So, I give him this hiring profile and built a behavioural based interviewing tool for him and said, “You know what? He is part of — He had to hire 10 people in a month.” And he’s like, “Great. I’m going to give it a try.” Here are the behaviours. Here’s a set of questions, “Ask her this.”

And after interviewing about four people, he reaches back and he says, “Liz, here’s the thing I just learned. I now know what to look for in interviews. And I can tell now who is uncomfortable in these situations where impact players tend to distinguish themselves.” He says, “I am certain who I should not be hiring.” And he said, “I’m not yet certain who I should be hiring.” It’s hard to guarantee a pattern of behaviour in an interview, but I think it helps us say, “Oh wow. That person, they’re skilled. They’re interesting. They’ve got capability, but they are not comfortable in the messy ambiguity of everyday work life.” And they’re constantly looking to avoid those situations where impact players say, “Yeah, that’s a great big ocean wave.” And rather than run, I’m going to dive into that thing because I think there’s something interesting on the other side.

Liz Wiseman:

And then you can deep-dive on that.

Liz Wiseman:

Alex, can I just give you-

Liz Wiseman:

… a little something on that because I want-

Liz Wiseman:

… that whoever is listening to know what to do with that is this is the tip my buddy, Ben, gave me. He said, “Liz, one of the things I learned to watch for is body language.” And he said, “When I described like, you know what? Roles are unclear here. You’re going to be in situations where da, da, da. And he described one of these messy situations. He would ask people like, “Tell me about a time when you had to be involved in the project.” It was unclear who was leading and da, da, da, da. He said some people were like, they backed away and they threw up their hands like, “Oh yeah. Let me tell you about that.” Versus the person who was like, “Ooh yeah.” And were literally physically leaning in. So, I think body language is maybe a first litmus test for some of this.

Liz Wiseman:

They get dear eyes like panic. Oh, yeah. I hated that.

Liz Wiseman:

Versus, “Oh, yeah. I don’t like it.” And it’s not like impact players like uncertainty and ambiguity better than anyone else. I don’t know. Many of us like it. If they know how to navigate through it and that’s what lights them up, which is like, “Yeah, it’s messy and uncomfortable, but I walked through the valley of death and I survived. I can’t wait to tell you about this.”

Liz Wiseman:

Yeah.

Liz Wiseman:

Oh, absolutely. So, it’s these five situations.

Liz Wiseman:

And here’s how they handle… Some of them seem like very small differences, but they actually produce a big impact. So, the first is when problems are messy and they’re no one person’s job. Most people do their job and they do it well. It was one of the things that struck me in the interviews. How many managers say, “Yeah, here’s one of my typical contributors. They’re awesome. They’re so good at what they do. They do a great job, but they’re not having a big impact.”

And the people with impact, when the problems are messy, they don’t just do their job. They do the job that needs to be done. It’s not like they abandon their job, and it’s not like they chase every wild problem. It’s that they’re willing to expand their range. Like you know what? That’s not my job, but it’s not her job either. So, let me go over to where there’s something that’s important, but it’s broken or unattended and I’m going to throw myself over that. And they’re drawn to these unattended problems-

Liz Wiseman:

And leaders love them. Entrepreneurs love them because… Once you’ve got an org chart and job descriptions, that’s a great capture of the past. But actually if you’re doing your job, you’re probably handling yesterday’s priorities. All the interesting and new and important stuff is in the white space between jobs. We haven’t had time to codify that yet. And that’s the space they work in. Like, “It’s not my job, but if it…” You asked for practical things. If I could suggest one thing people can do in this part of it is, you know what? Find out what’s important to your boss or your clients or your internal stakeholders. Find out what’s important to them and make it important to you. And you will end up spending your time on different things. And if you really want to plus that, let people know. “I understand what’s important and here’s how I’m working on what’s most important.”

Liz Wiseman:

What executive doesn’t want to hear that?

Liz Wiseman:

And there is a little bit… We all say this. We see really busy executive senior leaders, “Hey, how can I help?”

Liz Wiseman:

I don’t even know where to start because it’s all in the white space. If it was that person’s job, I would’ve already given it to them or they would’ve figured that out. I’m like, “It’s all messy, messy work.” And I had a friend who was recently… Just struggled with a lot of personal things and it was one of those things, “Hey, do you need any help?” “No, no, no.” And then finally I just said, “Hey, I’m coming over and I’m doing this thing.” And afterwards, her husband said, “I don’t think we realised how much help we needed until you just bossed your way over here and just did the job that needed to be done. And thank you because I couldn’t have figured out what we needed, but you just decided.”

Liz Wiseman:

Yeah. But as leaders, we can also just give people permission like, “You know what? Don’t take your job description so seriously. Do what needs to be done.” Okay. So, that’s the first. The second is when roles are unclear. We’re collaborating, but we can’t figure out who’s in charge. Most people wait for role clarification. They wait for direction like, “Somebody give me a racey or a rockier.” Like, “Okay. Who’s responsible? Who’s accountable?” They’re looking for the powers that be to declare who’s in charge. The impact players spot a leadership vacuum and they just step up and they fill it, which is interesting, but not really the nuance of what makes them so valuable. It’s not that they’re willing to step up and lead. It’s that they’re willing to step back when that leadership job is done.

So, if anyone spent any time in the corporate world, it’s like… Once you go into management, it’s like your price to keep for life like, “I’m a manager. I’m in management.” And we hold onto these management jobs and titles. And the impact players had this much more fluid orientation to leadership, which is, “Hey, I’m willing to take the lead, but I don’t need to always be the leader. I don’t have to be in charge of everything. I’m as happy to follow someone who’s a peer or who works for me on the org chart.” And they practise this sort of on-demand form of leadership. When a situation needs coverage, boom, I’m on it. But then when that job’s done, “Let me step back so other people can take over.” It’s more like Canadian geese. Do they make it down to your part of the world?

Liz Wiseman:

Do you have any birds that fly in V formation when they migrate?

Liz Wiseman:

But you’ve seen them in the sky.

Liz Wiseman:

And do you know why they fly in that V formation?

Liz Wiseman:

Okay. So, we have a lot of organizations where we’ve got a bunch of leaders who are exhausted and then we’ve got a bunch of people who are underutilised. And when we rotate this and we normalise like, “You know what? Take the lead in this project, but you’re following someone else here.” It distributes that workload and the organization doesn’t suffer from burnout and exhaustion because most of us like having a turn leading something.

Liz Wiseman:

Absolutely.

Liz Wiseman:

Part of the same question that I’m like a dog on a bone with is, how do we create organizations where people are contributing at their fullest? Deeply engaged. Not emotionally engaged and the rara we do around that, but intellectually engaged, locked on, working at their best, not just so the company has access to all that resource, but we create environments where people are like, “Man, I’m doing big things. I’m having an impact.” It’s like the regenerative brakes on my car. It’s like the more engaged we are, the more it creates energy back for us.

So, it also reduces this time… I did this book, Rookie Smart. And I was looking at why we tend to be at our best when we don’t know what we’re doing. How it prompts all this learning mode. There was a role where there’s a notable exception, which is, when we’re new to this role, we are disasters. And the role is manager.

Liz Wiseman:

Most people suck at this.

Liz Wiseman:

First six months, it’s a write-off. You don’t want to be working for someone in their first management job, but when we have this more fluid model of leadership. When people are now appointed into formal management roles, they’re like, “I got this. I know how to do this. I know how to not have everyone on the team hate me.” I understand the concept of diminishing.

Liz Wiseman:

I know. And it’s mind blowing. But I remember the day, Alex, that I figured this out and it was like 7:00 PM. Lights are out in the building. People have gone home except me. And I’m grumbling over my to-do list that got longer during the day because everyone’s bringing their problems. And I’m like, “Why is everyone else home and I’m still working, and people aren’t doing their jobs?” I’m like, “Oh, maybe you weren’t doing your job.”

Liz Wiseman:

Maybe it’s me. And maybe my job is to give other people work to do and then to keep it there, so it doesn’t all roll back to me. I’m like, “Oh, yeah. No, I am not doing this job well.” And then comes the real aha when I’m like, “Oh, it’s not about me anymore. It’s not about how much I can produce and my skills. It’s how much production we get from the team and innovation and such.” And it’s this outward orientation, which these multiplier leaders all had. This ability to get out of their own head and in… Not into other people’s heads like mwahaha into their heads. But like, “I wonder what they’re thinking. I wonder what they can do that I haven’t yet seen.” It’s other people thinking. And here’s the kicker is that’s the same orientation I saw in these impact players is they aren’t self obsessed. They’re not even around self-awareness. Their awareness is around other people. “I wonder what pressures my boss is under. I wonder what success looks like for my client.” Because you can’t create value for others unless you understand what’s valued. And so, their awareness is all outside of themselves.

Liz Wiseman:

Well, here’s the thing I saw for certain in the evidence. And that is that organizations and leaders reinvest in impact players. We know who our impact players are and we keep giving them more, more responsibility. They become our go-to people. Managers deputise them. And it’s partly because of this performance guarantee, which is, they always get it done. And they always get it done in the right way meaning there’s not blood on the floor. It’s victory like, “I got it done, but don’t talk to the eight people who suffered in this process.”

And so, they naturally get tapped for leadership roles, they get moved into management. It’s strange. There’s some counter-intuition here is because they tend to subordinate their will. They tend to subordinate their agenda, which is like, “Oh, yeah. There’s what I want to work on, but then there’s the job that really needs to be done. And I’m going to be willing to do the job that’s needed rather than what I personally am passionate about.” They do that and they start to build influence. And pretty soon, they get to set the agenda.

The organization just keeps pouring back into them, but it does take a couple of different forms. The impact players that I looked at, some of them are rising up the management ranks or are very high in the management ranks, but others take that reinvestment and all that influence and cache that they’ve built, and they don’t use it to expand their influence to rise in the organization. They use it to have more influence about how they work, where they work. Like, “You know what? Let somebody else climb the corporate ladder, but I want to work on this kind of work.” And people are like, “Yeah, you’re going to have anything you want because I trust you, you get it done, you get it done in the right way. You’re my go-to person on this.”

And some of them just gain a bigger voice in the world and in the organization. They’re the people that when management is meeting, everyone’s like, “Okay. Let’s bring our managers together and we’re going to do this.” Oh, and then these three people, they’re not managers, but they’re the influencers in this organization. They are the leaders of this organization.

Liz Wiseman:

Let me answer that from two angles. I’ll try to be brief. Can you have an entire team of impact players? Let’s answer that question. So, here’s what you can’t really have is an entire team of MVPs like most valuable players. People tend to say, “Well, there’s someone who’s more valuable than everyone else,” but can you have an entire team of impact players? Now, I chose that word on purpose because what an impact player does, to circle back to where we began, and to perhaps like sort of see it for the first time really is, an impact player is someone who is playing at their best, their fullest. They’re making an enormously positive contribution and they have a positive effect on the whole team. I’ll take a whole team of those people because you can have people having impact from all types of roles. Because you’re not saying this one person is more valuable than anyone else. They’re not the superstar of the team necessarily. I actually believe with the right kind of thinking and reframing, you can have an entire team of impact players.

Now, then there’s a second question. And there’s a whole way to think about that. There’s a chapter in the book on it. We don’t have time for this, but the second question is, can everybody be an impact player? And I don’t think the answer to that is yes. I think there are some of the mindsets that some people will struggle with and maybe don’t want to get beyond, but I’m sort of a hopeful learner in that I’ve seen people learn to do some amazing things and let go of some mindsets and beliefs, But the only ones that are successful are the ones who have chosen that for themselves. I’ve seen these raging diminishers become multiplier leaders, but I’ve never seen someone else turned them into a multiplier. I’ve only seen them turn themselves into it. So, if you’re a manager, you can’t sprinkle lavender fairy dust on your people and say, “Okay. We’re going to all-”

Liz Wiseman:

Read the book. Boom. No, that’s not going to happen. But here’s the thing. I mean, it’s very similar to how I felt about multipliers. That way of working is hard for some people, but once you get there, it is such a more rewarding way of working. It’s worth that. Here’s what I have learned studying the best leaders is actually what it’s like to be on their team, and what it’s like to be on a team led by a diminisher is that people come to work every day desperately wanting to contribute everything they have. When you’re used at 50% of your capability, it’s actually painful. It’s exhausting strangely to be underutilised.

Liz Wiseman:

I’m like, “I need hobbies.”

Liz Wiseman:

It’s like we are built for challenge. And we’re actually built for change and growth. And what I’ve learned is that people don’t want to be job holders. People want meaning and impact and people want to contribute everything they have and know that it’s making a difference.

Liz Wiseman:

Everyone wants it.

Liz Wiseman:

I’m not sure. I am sure about this. This is probably… If you had to say, “Liz, what’s the one thing you know?” Everything else I’m suspicious about this thing, I know. People want to contribute. Now, there are plenty who have learned not to.

Liz Wiseman:

Who wouldn’t want to-

Liz Wiseman:

And doing meaningful work like everyone. And I have been looking at this in different cultures and different industries. Everyone wants it. Now, there are some people who’ve been working for a diminisher so long, they’re like, “I’m not even innovative thinking. Not at all. Doing anything more than I’m asked? Mm-mm. Dangerous.” So, some people have learned not to, but I don’t know someone who doesn’t want it. And if given a safe environment, wouldn’t try. Because you don’t have to actually work more hours. It’s about working in different ways that create more impact for the time you spend. And I think everyone wants that. I mean, no one wants to have no life because their job has consumed them and eaten them up.

Liz Wiseman:

I actually think it’s possible to have a team of people who are playing at their very best and having really deep, meaningful impact in their work.

Liz Wiseman:

Collective vision.