#9: From Diminishing to Multiplying: How Real Leaders Unlock Team Potential
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I have seen leaders across the spectrum of skills and ages make profound change, but it's only when they really, really want to change. Welcome back to Divot, a community for people trying to make their mark in the world, where each week I'm interviewing the best creatives in business, tech, sports, and entertainment to learn how they've made their mark. You can watch episodes on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and X.

Liz Wiseman is a renowned researcher and executive advisor who's dedicated her career to teaching leadership to executives around the world. As the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm based in Silicon Valley, she's collaborated with some of the top organizations including Apple, AT&T, Facebook, and Google. Liz is the author of several influential books including the New York Times bestseller, "Multipliers," "How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter," the Wall Street Journal bestsellers,

rookie smarts, while learning beats knowing in the new game of work and impact players, how to take the lead, play bigger, and multiply your impact. Her significant contributions to the field of leadership have earned her recognition in the Thinker 50 list. Liz's insights have been featured in the Harvard Business Review and Fortune. Before founding the Wiseman Group, Liz served as the vice president of Oracle University. Hope you enjoy it. How did you end up in Silicon Valley?

Well, this is where I was raised. I was raised in Silicon Valley and I knew it was a weird place back when I was a kid because my dad was...

would drive me around and I couldn't recognize any of the names of the buildings because they were names like Amdahl, Dionix, like these strange, you know, fabricated tech names. And I knew that there was something really special about that. I went to school out of state and like more than any particular job, I just wanted to come back to Silicon Valley because I

It was still nascent then, and interesting things were happening. I think I read...

that it had something to do with donuts? Well, you know, I am the daughter of a donut maker and my dad had a donut shop that sat on Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino, like directly across Apple's world headquarters. And yeah, that's where I grew up. I'm the daughter of a donut maker. What are the things we need to know about being in the donut business that you learned as a child?

Well, I'll tell you the lesson I learned the hard way is when your dad says, do not let customers in the back room to use the restrooms. You should definitely not do that because I was actually held up at gunpoint when I was, I was probably 14 years old working alone.

at night, closing down the donut shop. So it's gonna be like at nine o'clock at night. And some, you know, man or woman came in to ask if they could use the bathroom. I let her in. And then I was in a pretty compromised position and had to make a decision. Do I defend myself?

my family's earnings for the day, or do I give them the cash? And I gave him the cash, called my dad and said, "Sorry about that, dad." - Wow. - And you know, it was funny, it was a young age, but it was one of the things I learned is that there's sometimes rules for a reason. And 'cause I thought, well, what harm is there in letting her use the bathroom? But you know, being in a donut shop, it's like you learn the law of supply and demand, because if you don't make enough donuts,

You know, you're underachieving on your own. - You could start a riot. - But you know, if you make too many donuts, then you've got, you know, a spoilage. So it's like I would watch my dad kind of try to figure out what would be the demand for the day and try to produce the right number of donuts.

What was your dad's reaction to you giving up the cash? You know, he's like, you did the right thing. And I knew that was the answer, but it's hard. You know, you don't make a ton of money as a donut maker. And so I knew like that money matters. Like our family needs that money to get through the month. And so to give that up to someone, you feel like you're doing the wrong thing. But being in the

Being the daughter of a donut maker, you take home a lot of day-old donuts. And it actually is one of the management lessons I learned because

I have this, what I call an accidental diminishing tendency. It's one of the things that I've studied is like leaders who have diminishing effects and leaders who are accidental diminishers. And one of the ways you could accidentally diminish is by being too quick to respond to everything, jumping on problems and opportunities when really you should let your team jump on the problems and opportunities. Like we give other people ownership of

But then as soon as a problem arises or an email comes into your inbox, you jump on it and it absolutely erodes ownership and accountability in organizations. And one of the ways I fix this is channel like my donut days is I tell myself like your job as a leader is to solve day old problems. Like if the problems are fresh,

Let other people jump on them. Give other people a chance to take ownership, to take initiative, to take responsibility. And then if it starts to like go stale, that's when you do something about it.

So it's not as much how severe it is or how big an impact that moment hits you. You actually, do you give everything time and space to get resolved? Or are there some things you do jump into right away? Well, you know, I studied these leaders who,

had either a really multiplying effect on people or a diminishing effect on people. And one of the words that came up over and over is that the best leaders, leaders who get the best out of others, leaders that were smart and sharp and successful around, they give people space.

And, you know, we need space to do our best work. We need space to think. We need space to experiment, to make mistakes. We need space to debate. And we also need time to take responsibility. So when the leader is constantly jumping at things, their narrative, of course, is, hey, I'm keeping my organization moving quick. I'm quick to respond. I'm, you know, I'm sort of fast, fast.

But it actually ends up slowing other people down and eroding ownership. So I guess that's one of the lessons that I learned or that I've taken sort of channeling my heritage as the daughter of a donut maker. There's sort of this outside impression that some of the very best leaders are all in on all the details all the time, almost to the point of it appears micromanaging huge organizations at once. Elon's an example of this, where he gets into the

tiny little details on the manufacturing floor or steve jobs was sort of famous with this as well where he cared about every design every prototype where the chips went inside the phone and how everything functioned but nobody really wants to be micromanaged are those the kinds of people or is that the kind of leadership style that we should adopt or is it are the best leaders maybe they have that perception that some of them are doing that but actually

they're being more hands-off than they lead on. Well, when I studied leaders who had either a multiplying effect or a diminishing effect, the number one behavioral trait of the diminishing leaders was micromanaging.

And maybe before we dig into micromanaging, it's important to understand, like, what is the consequence of diminishing leaders? You know, so diminishing leaders are leaders who tell people what to do, make the decisions, micromanage. They use people rather than utilize people. And here's what I found in this research is that the diminishing leaders were getting less than half of people's available intelligence, whereas the multiplier leaders were getting virtually all of it. So

Diminishing leaders are often really, really smart, capable, brilliant designers, amazing, but they tend to underutilize other people. They shut other people down. So it's a successful way to get a product designed. It can be if you hire twice the number of people you need in many ways. And so if you have...

maybe early days in a company it could work, if you've got maybe a monopoly in a market you can work, if you're working in a very stable environment where the leader has all the answers, knows everything, has been there before, has seen this problem before, it's a legitimate way of working.

but it's really, really expensive and you don't get a whole lot of innovation and you suffocate an organization's ability to navigate uncertainty. But it can be necessary in a moment. I had this conversation with a group of doctors at, it was Yale New Haven, an academic medical center. And we were talking about being a multiplier leader and we

We were having a really good conversation for several hours until they kind of had gotten to a point where they thought, this can't be the way we lead. Because, you know, I'm talking about leaders who ask good questions, who see and use genius in others, who give people space and create like an intense environment, but not a tense environment, and leaders who debate important decisions, and leaders who put ownership first.

and trust in other people. And they're like, okay, that sounds great. Like we want to be led like multipliers, but like, Liz, we're not sure you understand what we do. Like we deal with life and death moments. And you know, when somebody is flatlining in the OR, like this is not a multiplier moment. We are not going to be

take a day to figure this out. Yeah, we're not going to give people space. We're not going to wait for day-old problems. Right. So they lay out kind of this dilemma. And I pause and think for a second, and I ask them, well, what percentage of your time are you dealing with life and death moments like that? And their answer was 2% to 3% of their time, 2% to 3% of their time. And so my response was, well, in those 3% moments,

Yeah, it probably makes sense to micromanage, to tell people what to do. Like, you might need to yell, like, be extremely commanding. You might need to shut down debate.

But what happens if you lead that way in the other 97% of your time? A company, if you do that. So yeah, some selective micromanaging can lead to brilliance. It's when leaders micromanage as their like constant MO. How do I as a leader identify my own diminishing behaviors, the things I'm doing to hurt my team or to create barriers?

Well, I mean, we find that diminishing leaders tend to make a lot of the decisions, micromanage, tell people what to do. They tend to exude a lot of stress. Why are you telling everyone about my leadership style? That's how I felt like when I was writing the book. One of my worries in writing the book was that I was going to be outed as a

a diminisher, that like somehow I was going to be on like a live radio program and someone was going to call in and like, Liz, let's talk about the diminishing leaders of my past. Like you remember me, I'm Steve. So I was worried about that. But I realized, of course, I've had my diminishing experiences.

But what we find is that most of the diminishing is not coming from tyrannical, narcissistic, bossy, bully, you know, like put the thumbs, grows to you kind of leaders. Most diminishing is coming from a good place. Most diminishing is coming from what I call the accidental diminisher, meaning that

the good person trying to be a good leader, but they're doing things with the very best of intention that's having a diminishing impact. And this person as well. Yeah. And it's not that we think our ideas are better than other people. We just love a good brainstorm and it's like, okay, well, what about this? Maybe we should try this. Hey, let's consider this. And of course, we think that we're going to toss out ideas and that's an invitation for other people to share their ideas and like innovation will ensue.

But what actually happens is usually confusion ensues. People are like, okay, Derek's got me doing this and now he's got me doing this. And there's a lot of movement but not a lot of progress. Yeah. So the idea found the always-on leader, energetic, you know, full of energy. Like they're motivating their team like, woo! And of course they think their energy is infectious. Right.

But, you know, other people's reaction to them is avoidance. Like, you're killing me with this energy. It's actually draining for other people. And we tend to shut these people out. The rescuer, big hearted. You know, they love their people. They care about others. They want other people to be successful. And so they step in and they offer a hand of help.

But actually in offering that hand of help, what they're saying is, I don't think you can do it. I don't trust you to get this done. And I don't think you can do this without me. The pace center, the driven achievement oriented leader who gets out ahead of their team and they're showcasing, here's what good looks like. And we think, of course, that we're going to get out ahead of our team

Other people notice and they'll do likewise. They'll follow. But what people actually do is they tend to hold back and watch. The rapid responder, the leader who's quick to jump on problems and opportunities. This is where I've learned to solve day-old problems, like the daughter of the donut maker that I am, and give other people a chance to jump on things and take responsibility for things they own.

The perfectionist, you know, who loves... You looked guilty. I'm very guilty. I'm caught with my hand in the cookie jar on many occasions here as you're speaking, but go ahead and finish. Get it all out. Okay, so the perfectionist who loves to get it exactly right...

But like, what's it like to work for a perfectionist? You feel like your work is never good enough. It always gets like upgraded and undone. You know, people learn to turn in incomplete work. Like, you know what? He's going to redo it anyway. So I might as well just give him like an early version of this because they're going to rev this. The strategist.

big, bold thinker, and they paint like a big, compelling vision of the future.

which is kind of an essential leadership role, but they paint such a big, clear and complete vision of the future. It's also exhausting. It's exhausting. And nobody else has to do any big thinking. Like they're going to let the boss do it. Like, you know, they've got a vision for this. So I'll just do my piece. And then, you know, the boss can't figure out why is everyone working in silos rather than putting this all together? Right.

Like as leaders, maybe we need to, I don't know, frame the vision, but not complete it. The protector who, it's like the rescuer has just moved upstream of the problem because the protector is not letting people get into difficult situations. Like I will shield you from the politics. I will shield you from this difficult situation or this person. And these leaders become like a banyan tree. They provide comfort and shade.

But the problem with the banyan tree is nothing grows under it and people don't grow under these leaders. Those are a few ways. And often we recognize this in ourselves like, oh, I do that. Oh, there's one more I forgot. You know what's ironic? Because this is one of my big accidental diminished tendencies. The optimist. Positive, can-do kinds of leaders. They believe in other people. They see possibilities.

But what they often overlook is the struggle it takes to get there. And perhaps they're so convinced it's going to go well that people feel like there's no room for it to ever go wrong. And so people stop innovating. They stop experimenting. They stop pushing the boulder up the hill. So this is one way to recognize your accidental diminisher tendencies. And the other way is to ask your team. And, Derek, if you go and ask your team, like, am I a diminisher?

The answer would probably be no, of course not. Not you. Or even if, am I an accidental diminisher? No. But if you ask, how might I be suppressing good ideas, energy, like innovation? How might I be shutting down people or possibilities with the very best of intentions? And that's a question people can answer. Talk to me about the difference between intent and

and my behavior, what I'm actually doing. Yeah. You know, when I started doing this research, looking at diminishing leaders versus multiplier leaders, I saw these diminishers as power hungry, maybe very ego driven, maybe narcissistic people, almost like willfully shutting down others. Like kind of, I'm the smartest person in the room and I need everyone to know it.

And what I found is that's not where most of the diminishing is coming from. Most is coming from a really good place and a good intention. And in many ways, leaders who are shutting down, you know, initiative, energy, ideas, accountability on their teams are doing it with the best of intent. And they're shutting it down not because they're power hungry.

They're shutting it down because in some ways they don't actually understand their own power. They don't understand, like, okay, so we're both kind of the idea fountain variety, you and me, Derek. Like, we just think, oh, I'm like, I'm the daughter of a donut maker, like, and I'm just tossing out ideas and they're just for consideration. Right.

But to the people who work for you, that's not just an idea. Right. Like, you weren't just like, oh, I'm just a kid from a small town in New Hampshire. Like, no, you're the mayor of their town. And it feels like a command to other people. I remember once having a conversation with the president of Oracle, and I was telling him about this initiative that was going on.

And he's like, what? I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, no, there's a whole team that's formed and there's like a commission on this and we're sitting this and this and this. And he's like, I didn't know that. I'm like, don't you remember in that meeting when you mentioned we ought to like maybe look into that? I'm like, I think those people took you seriously because they're out now making an investment in that. And he's like, oh, I had no idea. Yeah. And I think that's

Leaders often underestimate the influence that they have. They underestimate the impact they have. And I think in many ways it's a numbers game because a leader might have 10 people that report to them directly, maybe a team of hundreds or thousands of people. But to one person, you're kind of their only leader. And so you have this outsized impact.

I actually think it's irresponsible for someone to hold a leadership position and not understand power. Why is that? Because if you don't understand, I think if you don't understand the power you hold, you're going to do damage. You're going to do damage to people. It's kind of like me deciding I want to go work on a construction site.

And I don't know how to use power tools. And I don't know how electricity works. Like I am probably going to dig up an electrical line. Someone's going to get their power shut down. I'm probably going to hurt myself. I might hurt other people. And I do think it's important to understand like because leading is about power and it's about using our power effectively.

to create and to build and to move things. And you should probably know how to use it well. I think it's a great insight because people put so much time and energy into their careers and their professions. And for some people, maybe it's healthy, maybe it's unhealthy. It is the center of their, the universe of their life. And people come in and they, you

they trust you to come to your company or they trust to come work on your team. And as I was reading, as I've read your work over the years, it's such an obvious insight, but also I've never really heard anyone say it the way you've said it, that people don't take jobs. Everyone that

everyone that comes to work wants to do a good job. Everyone wants to be an impact person. And we can instinctively think of those people inside of our companies like, wow, I'd be in a really tough place without a person. They're so amazing. They do all these things. And this person does this. And this person, they're making my life harder. They're not trying to make my life harder. And I'm probably making their life harder. But it's trying to figure out

As a leader, how do I empower? How do I motivate? How do I still be the person that I need to be as the leader that makes me unique in my way to lead this organization or these people, but also not so much that I smother the fire or in some ways abuse the power that I have, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It's a really...

it's a really difficult thing and no one's really taught either. You just kind of jump into the workforce and you see who leads you. And I mean, yeah, there's some trainings every once in a while if you perform well, but it's really, I think it's really hard to sort of self-identify these things that you just, as you talk through these different characteristics of different types of leaders, as you're saying all of them and as I've read them, I'm thinking that's this person, that's this person, that's me, that's me, oh, that's me again.

But it's very hard, I think, as you're supposed to just leave. You're supposed to just know the way. And yet we're probably making all these mistakes that are totally unintentional that we don't even realize. Right. And I think we approach our job as leader too casually. I don't think we understand. And I've certainly over time tried to understand the damage that I can do.

I mean, I can think of names of people, which includes my mother, who I have had a diminishing effect on as we've worked together on something. And like once you see it, it's hard to not see it again. Like, wow, like I shut that person down. And maybe even for a long time. I had this...

One of my children, I have four children, one of them was struggling to read. Like this is maybe like first grade or something. And I remember this child is on my lap and we're reading this book and she's struggling with some of the words. And this is what I did, Derek. I just went, that's it. And she noticed.

And like, it took her a while to like get over that. She's like, why is mom disappointed? Why is mom frustrated? And I had no idea like that it had that kind of impact. And I think as leaders, like we don't realize sometimes small behavior has really big impact for others. So we approach it too casually. Yeah. And I think as we deal with that,

leadership challenges and performance problems and organizational problems and disappointments, it's easy to start to build a narrative that people aren't giving me their best. People aren't stepping up. People aren't playing big. They're not thinking big. And what I have learned is that the exact opposite is going on. There's a contra-narrative to this. And I think it's some simple math. Let me go through kind of the simple math.

When I ask people to think about a leader who had a multiplying effect, I ask, what percentage of your capability, your intelligence, your know-how, your talent did they get from you?

100%. Or it's 90. Like, you know, when it's low, it's like in the 80s. But like, they got everything I had. And then more because they saw things in me I didn't think I could do, which was the case for so many of my leaders, particularly working at Oracle early in my career. Boy, I

I had leaders who believed in me and gave me things. I have no idea why they're asking me to do this. But people say they got 100% of their capability, sometimes like 120%, because I'm growing so much. I'm learning so much working for that person that I'm getting smarter and stronger in the process. Then I ask, okay, think about a diminishing leader. What percentage of your capability did they get?

Those numbers sometimes are in the teens, but it averages in the 40s, less than half of people's capability. And then when I ask, what percentage of your capability, your know-how, your insight, your talent were you wanting to give?

Even amongst the most diminishing leaders, the answer is almost always 100%. And here's the thing I've learned studying some of the best leaders, some of the worst leaders all around the world, is that people come to work desperately wanting to contribute.

contribute ideas, contribute capability, like to work, to work hard, to make a difference. And when they can, work is tiring but thrilling. And when they can't, when they encounter leaders that only see or use a fraction of their capability, they describe work as frustrating, exhausting, like draining, soul-sucking even, exhausting.

And I find it's really interesting that people describe being underutilized as exhausting. Why is that? I think, you know, this is what people have said to me over the years as I've asked that. They're like, well, I'm trying, but I don't know where to put my energy. Yeah. I can't figure out if she wants me to speak up.

Or to sit back and take notes and take orders. Like, I can't figure out what to do. So a lot of that energy and intelligence is going to second guessing. Yeah. People say, I'm trying. I'm working hard, but I'm not seeing the results of my work.

And like there's no regenerative braking technology, you know, where like somehow that effort is creating energy as well. They feel like there's nothing to show for it. I once had a woman, I asked this question in a very large room and a woman in the back of the room, thousands of people, when I asked like, why is it exhausting to be underutilized? She yells, because it's a lot of work to act this stupid. Right.

And I think there are a lot of people who are working hard, acting dumb or trying to like not play big because they're trying to make room because their boss needs to be the big one. They're trying to figure out how to play in the game that they've been put in. And you're maybe the one setting the rules or you're setting the terms of the game and

you haven't made it explicitly clear what those rules are, those terms are. So they're just trying to feed off your energy, feed off your vibe to understand how they can have an impact in that space. And I think it takes energy to not have power. Like think about maybe someone might be thinking about politics or something that's happening in your community where you don't have power.

to affect a change, it consumes us. And like we're churning, like wishing like I could do something about this situation, but I can't. So we stew on it and we idle over it. And, you know, I think maybe this really comes down to, I don't think people really want positions.

Or even jobs. Like, of course people need jobs. But what... People take a job really wanting to make a difference. I think people want to be difference makers, not position holders. You think the vast majority of people, not just millennials and others, like everyone, they take a job to make a difference. Absolutely. I think that's what they want out of work. Like when work means that you get used...

used up, spit out, cast aside. Nobody wants that. But I think people want to be utilized. I think that's our hope, is that I want to do work that matters. I want to do work that challenges me. I want to do work where I grow. I want to do work where I make a difference. And I think the best leaders understand this.

And they put people to work and they do it in ways that like deeply, fully utilizes people's intelligence and work becomes not exhausting, but a little bit exhausting, but totally exhilarating. I want to understand how, what leaders can do to change. But first I'd like to ask, can leaders of any age,

age and demographic? Can they actually change? Can I internalize these things in my early in my career, late in my career, or there's no return? I have seen leaders across the spectrum of skills and ages make profound change, but it's only when they really, really want to change.

Boy, I know a lot of people who wish their leaders would make changes, but you can't make somebody else change. You can only change yourself. And yeah, there are certain periods where that's easier to do. The current research I'm doing is I'm looking at where we get imprinted as leaders and how do our skills and our narratives get built and at what point do we learn

how to lead and sometimes those things get cemented in. One of the conclusions to this would be, I think organizations should be pretty mindful about who they have lead young, very impressionable people in the workforce. Why is that? Because that's where we're watching what success looks like. That's where we're full of self-doubt. We have high hopes, but in some ways low skills.

an ounce of good leadership goes a really long way and a little bit of damage can have lasting impact for someone. I've seen leaders who have deep programming as diminishers, meaning like their early role models were diminishers. Their workplace examples were all diminishers. They grew up very much as diminishers.

I've seen leaders make profound changes, like hard-fought, hard-won changes. And I've watched those changes be rejected by the people they lead. Like a diminisher, like really aspiring to be a multiplier, sort of turned multiplier. And people look at that and go, I don't know about that. You think it's inauthentic or...

The diminishing impact they've had on them has been so deep and so lasting that they're in some ways not willing to see that person differently. I've seen leaders who their organizations couldn't really see them as a better leader, and they've had to leave that organization and go start fresh somewhere else. Makes sense.

like the witness protection program, I guess, for leaders. Like, we're going to cover your diminishing past and give you a chance to start anew as a leader. I feel like sometimes as a leader, I reflect some of the bad traits of leadership that I've seen, others that I've identified as bad traits, where maybe someone early in my career

did things that when in the moment I was like, I can't work for this person because they're doing X. And then later on, I don't know if it's subconsciously or consciously, but realizing I'm doing some of the same things. Is that because...

I'm learning those things and I don't have another well to draw from in terms of proper leadership or good leadership? Or is that just part of the deal where you're not only hurting these people today, but you're potentially hurting the people that they lead down the road because they're going to just copy the bad leadership traits that you have? Well, I mean, we are most impressionable when we are desperate, you know,

Even when we're at the bottom of a learning curve, when we don't know how to do something. And so we're porous. Our minds are open. And so we watch. And those, like our early habits, become lifelong habits unless there's a reason for us to see the limitations in those and try something new.

And, you know, we're very susceptible to advice. I remember when I first became a manager, and this was at Oracle, the rapidly growing company. I'm very young. I'm probably 24 and a half years old. And I've been put in charge of, to me, what seemed like very much an adult job. And I was still a child. And my boss said to me, Liz, as the manager of the group, your job is to do everything that is new, important, and hard.

and let your team do everything else. And it sounded like such good advice. And I took it. And so I'm doing all the important stuff, all the hard stuff, and I'm delegating all the easy, the routine, all that quotidian work is going to other people. Well, guess who looks like a hero? Me. But like,

I'm wondering, you know, like it's dark out and no, everyone else has gone home but me. And my to-do list is getting longer. And you're upset because people aren't helping. They're not chipping in the way you expect them to. I was upset. I'm like, why aren't people doing their jobs? Why is this all falling to me? And I'm like, wow, that was the worst leadership advice. But I didn't know any better. And so I did it and I realized, oh no, like my job as a leader is to give people interesting, challenging advice.

hard work and keep it there. How would you define an impact player? Well, an impact player is someone who's making an extraordinary impact in their work or perhaps in their life. And they're delivering value above and beyond what the people around them are doing. But let me give you my favorite definition of impact player. I had a chance to ask Nick Saban,

who coached Alabama. - Greatest college coach ever. - Greatest college coach ever. And I asked him, "Nick, what's an impact player?" And I love his response. He said, "Well, good players make plays. "Great players make plays consistently. "Like you can count on them." He said, "But the impact players on a team "are the ones who not only are making great plays, "but they're making the whole team better."

And I think that's really what the impact player of the workplace is. There's someone who's not only doing great work and adding tremendous value and making a difference, like they make a difference inside the organization. People

aspire higher because of them. They reach further because of them. They become heroes on the team, not because they're the ones taking all the shots, but because people win around them. They're setting up other people for success as well as their own success. Do you see a common mindset

from impact player to impact player? Yes, I've been a few years studying this. And really what I was studying was what's the difference between the ordinary contributor and the impact player? Now, it wasn't the difference between a low performer. What I was trying to understand is like, what's the difference between like solid and really high impact? You know, what's the nuance where some people are delivering value extraordinarily greater than others? And

If I had to boil it down to one thing, well, we found five big differences, but the common theme really is how they handle uncertainty.

and ambiguity. Because what we found is the ordinary contributor, when we asked managers to describe an ordinary contributor on their team versus an impact player, they described these ordinary contributors as people who were brilliant, did their jobs well, who were great followers, people who are willing leaders, they took responsibility, they were focused, and they carried their weight on teams. And I'm thinking,

Well, that sounds pretty good. I mean, that sounds like an ideal team member or someone you would want to hire. And what I began to see is that the ordinary contributor was absolutely stellar in ordinary times. But once things got messy and ambiguous and the situation isn't clear, in many ways, once you're in a situation where there's no playbook, that's where the impact players really shine.

And where the ordinary contributor way of working tends to fall short. So it's how they handle uncertainty. And in short, what we found is that the impact players move towards uncertainty and kind of take charge of it and master it while others are like, gee, I'm going to wait for the storm to clear.

I'm going to wait for there to be more clarity in this situation. I'm going to wait for someone to direct me in this situation. The impact players are taking charge while other people are waiting for direction. Are they waiting for direction because they're wired that way or because of how leadership has...

set the pieces on the game board for them? I think it is both. Like there is a certain part of this impact player mentality that some people just seem to have in abundance. And there's probably three or four, a cluster of three or four characteristics that really come together. A strong internal locus of control, as the psychologists would call it. A heightened sense of agency. Both of those meaning like,

I'm in charge of what happens to me and around me rather than I'm a victim of what other people are doing to me. Sometimes our early life experiences put us down one path or the other. You know, a healthy disregard for hierarchy is one of them, like a sense of informality and a comfort with unknowns and uncertainty. We find that impact players tend to have these in abundance, but sometimes

I think a lot of this difference is how organizations are set up and how leaders set the table for people to work. Because if you are saying, well, okay, I want you to stay in your lane, do your job, like don't look sideways, just, you know, do your thing. Don't invite yourself into conversations. Like you're going to keep people stuck in this contributor mode.

Whereas other leaders are like, you know what? Look around. If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Like, don't wait for me to tell you what needs to be done. Like, if you see a problem, solve the problem. What you're describing is very much like the most critical people you need at the early stage of a startup. The first 10 people, you know, everyone is a

mega firefighter and they just, there's things burning everywhere and there's no time to direct anyone. It's just, you know what you need to do. You've got a hose, you've got water, go make it happen, go put out that fire. And I think too, what you're describing is there's almost this level of creativity with impact players that they kind of

not only are they putting out a fire, but they're figuring out, okay, how can I turn this into a good situation? How can I turn this into something meaningful? How can I be creative here?

feeling the autonomy and also the, I don't know if it's an abundance of confidence, but feeling like they have a path that they can go in and really make a difference. And they're not going to get in trouble and maybe they'll make mistakes. Maybe they won't. But ultimately, or maybe it's just confidence in themselves that they've done it over and over again that, hey, I'm going to go in here. I'm going to make this a better place. I'm going to make this a better thing just because I'm working on it. And

I'm not so worried about what's going to happen to me if I mess up. It's a willingness to dive in. And the image I always get, because these impact players are seeing uncertainty as an opportunity rather than a threat. Yeah.

And they may initially start by seeing it as a threat. And, you know, the evolutionary biologists would tell us it's really helpful to look at uncertainty as a threat. You know, and that's like the amygdala, the limbic part of our brain that's like, okay, is this going to kill me? Is this going to kill my company? Is, you know, am I going to lose my job? Like the way our brains work, it's a serial process. We first tend to look at things as a threat. But if we can avoid the panic and the freak out and stay with something long enough, then we can start to

Let our higher level brain look at, okay, how might this be an opportunity for us to add value? How might this be an opportunity for us to demonstrate leadership? How might this...

very, like, unfortunate obstacle actually be a chance for us to rethink what we're doing and improve our process or leapfrog status quo. We just have to be willing to stay with it longer and we have to be willing to move toward it rather than stay on the sidelines. And, Derek, the image I always get is standing in the surf.

We right now are not too far from the beach, the West Coast. And I think we've all like had that experience where you're standing in the surf. Maybe you're playing in the waves, you know, maybe body surfing, maybe bobbing up and down. And a wave come that feels a little bit too big. Like something that you're not so sure about. And I'll tell you my reaction. I'm a native Californian. I spent some time at the coast. My reaction.

My natural reaction is to get out of there. And it's like to back away or to turn and run. My son, who's a surfer, he's like, Mom, you never turn your back on the ocean. You know, because inevitably when I do, I get taken down by the wave, tossed, tumbled, like you eat sand, you know, you start choking on the water, you get yourself back up.

just in time for like the next wave to hit. And I know people who work permanently in this mode of like holding back, like just and tossed and tumbled by waves of change and disruption. And they're always just barely getting themselves together just for the next wave to hit. Do people understand if they're an impact player?

or if they're a contributor? - I think people are on a spectrum of self-awareness. And I think people with really heightened levels of self-awareness probably can see where they're having a lot of impact and where they aren't. In the study that we did, there was a group we looked at, we called them the under contributors. And these were people who were smart,

hardworking and talented who are contributing far below their potential. So these are people that look like amazing hires. And you're like, they should be killing it right now. They should be amazing. But yet they were woefully underperforming relative to their capability. And they...

They weren't operating as if they were an impact player, but weren't. And often they were people who were just in pursuit of their own

So like following their passions, doing what they cared about. But in many ways, they were running the wrong direction. Whereas like the team is all running this way. And like someone hands them the baton and they go this way. Or they're off scoring an own goal. Like, you know, the kid, like when you're watching youth soccer, who's like got the ball and they're super excited. And they're like, this is my moment. And they go tearing down the field. And they're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

They shoot and then they can't figure out why no one's celebrating them. And everyone's like, "Ugh!"

And that's what we saw a lot of people who were really smart, hardworking. And they're like, I must be one of these impact players because I'm working so hard and I care so much. But they were in pursuit of their own agenda. And they don't even know that they're running the wrong direction, you're saying. I had some great feedback, coaching, a brick to the head, a slap to the face, whatever you want to call it early on in my career.

And I started my career maybe like a lot of people, maybe like a lot of younger people today, like passionate about what I wanted to do. Yeah. And I, for whatever reason, I have no idea why, I wanted to teach leadership, which was ridiculous because I hadn't really very little experience as a leader. So, yeah.

I was so glad. Well, you had an MBA. I knew nothing. In fact, I tried to get a job working for like the preeminent management training company. And the president was like, he's like, Liz, you seem great. But if you want to teach leadership, why don't you actually go get some experience managing? Get into the field. Yeah. And I'm like, gee, he doesn't really understand me. He doesn't understand my skills.

gifts and whatever. So I take a job, I take up my backup job and this is at Oracle. And I don't really want to go work at Oracle. I want to go teach leadership, not build software, you know? So anyway, I take this job at Oracle and I'm there, I don't know, about a year. I've done a good job. There's a reorganization. I'm like now trying to find a new job inside the company. And I'm interviewing for this group that does training. It's like,

It's like a centralized group that does training. They run boot camps for all the new hires. And the company is gobbling up technical talent. Top grads out of the top schools.

And I go and interview with this group. And I know they run these technical boot camps, but I'm thinking, okay, the company's growing really fast. A lot of these technologists are getting thrown into management. They're wreaking havoc on people. Like maybe their charter will expand to include management training. So I go and interview for this job.

I answer their questions. I'm interviewing with the VP, a man named Bob. And we get to that kind of the part of the interview where I maybe get to ask him some questions or share some thoughts. And I said, you know, Bob, it seems to me like there's a lot of young managers that don't really know what they're doing. And like Oracle needs a management bootcamp. And I would, I would love to help build that. So like I'm offering my capability. Yeah. You're trailblazing. You're

You're trying to be an impact player. Yes, yes. And I think this is going to have a lot of impact for the company. And it's a problem that everyone can see. It's like, it's not just in my mind. And Bob, I'll never forget his response. He said, like, yes, that is a problem. And like, Liz, we think you're great. We'd love to have you on the team. But your boss, she has a different problem. She's got to find a way to get 2,000 new college graduates

you know, programmers and such, engineers, up to speed in Oracle technology. And what would be great is if you could help her solve that problem. And I know they need instructors in this boot camp, technologists. I have an MBA. Like, I come out of business school. And this is not a job I'm qualified for. It's not a job I want. Like, I want to teach leadership. And he wants me to teach programming to a bunch of nerds.

And it's not a job I want, but I'm realizing like in this moment, it's actually the job that's needed. And what he was, essentially what he was saying to me very politely, he was saying like, hey, Liz, look around, look around you and make yourself useful. And like he was saying, it's like, figure out what the strategy is here. We're a technology company. Figure out what's on the critical path.

And he was saying, new hires, up to speed in Oracle Stack. That's what's on the critical path. It's not the job I wanted, but I decided I would make that my job. And so I went and spent, oh, the next year or so teaching programming to a bunch of hotshot programmers. I had the time of my life doing this, but it was this thing that reoriented me towards, you know what, rather than being so concerned about what I care about, what I want to do,

figure out the job that's needed and go do that job. And it's funny what happened after that, because I kept being given bigger responsibilities, mission critical things, things that involved the technology, because I understood the technology. And I found that it didn't subordinate me like, okay, no one ever cares about what's important to me. I'm just working for the man, so to speak.

I actually found that I got a lot of influence and a lot of power and, you know, blank checks like, hey, what do you think we should do? And by focusing my energy on the real agenda of the organization, I got to help set that agenda and shape that agenda. And it was actually a path, I think, by being willing to serve where I was needed and to follow well,

actually put me on the path to leading and leading impactfully. By getting on the ship, by going all in, it ended up leading you right down the path that you wanted to go. And to this whole, it was the beginning of this whole career and insight that, you know, where you have taught millions of people about how to be great leaders and probably tens of millions of people about how to be great employees. And it is interesting how

You know, Steve Jobs famously talked about these sort of dots connecting backwards. But I think we see that sometimes with as a leader, you see people being reluctant. I don't want to do that job. I don't I don't that's not really my thing. And I think it's hard for a leader. It's hard for me to try to convince them or to help them understand that this this is going to lead to probably exactly where you want to go. But.

But we need to establish some trust here. We need to establish that we're here to help each other and how that relationship is going to work with this problem that exists right, this huge fire that exists right in front of us today.

When we've established that and we have that, the whole world could potentially open up to you inside the organization. Yeah, I have a colleague and she wanted, her name is Lauren, and she wanted to put the ideas of impact players to the test. She had been part of the research and she was going with someone on one of these like doctors without borders kinds of trips. So it's a group of doctors and nurses that go down and they were doing, I think, like eye surgeries,

She has no clinical skills. She like knows nothing. And when she tells me she's going to go on this trip, I'm like, what are you going to do? You're not going to be operating on people. And I said, actually, I know you and I have a feeling by the end of the week, you're probably going to be like, I don't know. In the room where it happens. You're going to be in the room where it happens. So she decided to put these ideas to the test and it really started. And I think everyone knew she wasn't...

wasn't qualified to be doing any of this work. And she started with like, okay, who's got a job I can do? And like, give me the worst job possible.

And she found herself like cleaning out gunky instruments, like, you know, the stuff that's left over after surgery. And like, and she's like, I can wash those things. And then she's like, what can I do here? And she just kept looking for choke points. And she's like, how can I be of help? And every time, this is what I love about this. Every time one of the doctors or nurses gave her a job to do, she responded with, thank you for giving me that work.

And then soon, you know, she's like organized the supplies. She's doing blood draws. And, you know, I think by the end, she was definitely in the room where it was happening and making this extraordinary impact. And by the end of the week, as it's time to like pack up camp and everyone going on the way, like she was the boss of this. Okay, count our tools, instruments, who's got this, who's got that. And she's just running the show. That's awesome.

But it was just saying, like, how can I be of service? And I think it's one of the things that we see with impact players is they're not just great at navigating uncertainty. They are there to serve. But by being willing to point their talent, intelligence, energy toward the job that really needs to be done, like, they...

they become leaders, they become influencers in those organizations. Can these skills be taught to people or do I just need to hire very, very slowly and make sure everyone I hire is already an impact player and just fit that impact player into my organization? Yes, the skills can be taught, but some of them are a little bit harder to learn than others. So my guidance to a leader trying to...

My guidance would be stack the deck. Start by stacking the deck. You know, hire people who are known impact players. Hire people who have heightened sense, like these are the four that are the hardest to teach, a heightened sense of agency, a heightened internal locus of control, a healthy disregard for hierarchy, and a comfort with agency.

Someone who can sit in the presence of unknowns and not lose it. Like, hmm, we don't have answers to that yet. Someone who's got some patience and tolerance for ambiguity. Try to stack the deck with as many people as that is possible. And then coach everyone else. And create an environment that is an equilibrium between safety and stretch, which is great.

Kind of in a nutshell, what I find the best leaders tend to do is they bring together these two conditions coexist around them. How do I do that? Safety is about feeling valued, being trusted. We don't tend to trust our leaders unless our leaders trust us. Feeling like you're unique.

intelligence is appreciated. So it's those kinds of things that make it safe for people to contribute. The impact player way of working is, it's a courageous way of working. It's not about working harder. It's about working more courageously, saying, I'll do that. Like, okay, I don't really want to teach programming, but you know what? I could learn how to do that. I'm willing to go do that. So people need safety. But

They also need stretch because without stretch, we just hunker down, do our jobs, nothing more, stay in our swim lane, stay in our comfort zone. So it's like if you want people to be at their best, you've got to create enough safety for them to be willing to try, but enough discomfort and challenge that people are constantly stretched. And it's usually in these two conditions that

that people do their best work. I know leaders who are like masters of safety, but they never stretch you. Yeah. And they actually are sort of diminishing. And then I know lots of leaders who are masters of challenge, but they haven't really- Feels unsafe to work for. They're unsafe to work for. They haven't created the platform for someone to stand on to then go attempt that challenge. As I was speaking with

friends about interviewing you and getting ideas. And I spoke with a close friend who's studied your work for a long time. And she said, one of the things that Liz has done that I most admire is how successful she's been in very male dominated industries. And

She relayed this experience that she had just this past week where she was in a room with six leaders, all of which were men and her. And I wonder what advice you would have for someone that's trying to be an impact player in difficult spaces. How can you stretch? How can you move politically in those organizations that

maybe don't have a lot of people that look like you? I'll speak to my own experience and maybe extrapolate a little bit from that is I think there's something incredibly powerful in someone who's just comfortable being themselves. And I think because I got thrown into leadership when I was young, I didn't have a lot of time to like,

think about like what persona I wanted as a leader. And like, I just, like, I was just trying to do a job. And years after I kind of got put into these leadership roles and some pretty, you know, senior roles, Oracle's president, a man named Ray, he said something to me one day. He says, Liz, let me tell you why I like working with you. And I'm like, oh, do tell. Let me get my, let me get a pen so I can take some notes. But he said, he said, I like working with you because you're just you.

And he said sometimes women, like, feel like they have to be tougher than the men, meaner than the men, like, out men the men, and, like, put on the power suit and, like, over-rotate that direction. And then he said, and then I think there's some that, like, maybe rely on feminine charm.

And I'm like, "Why are you telling me I have no feminine charm?" He's like, "Breakderms red." Like, "No, I'm not saying that necessarily." He said, "But you're just you." And I think this is one of these places where it could be helpful to move beyond labels and identity politics and like, this is, you know, a cut at gender or race or this. Like, I think those things are really important to understand in the aggregate and understand where people come from and understand some of the challenges

But when it comes to navigating a situation, I think it's sometimes helpful to let go of some of that and just say, okay, who am I and what can I bring to bear? And rather than see myself as a woman in a room full of men, I'm like, I'm just one of many voices here. And it's one of the things that I am so grateful for.

Having landed at Oracle, it was a fairly male-dominated environment, but I got lucky in that I landed in a place where the men that I worked with, I can't think of a single time I felt treated differently because I was a woman. I just felt like I was treated like myself. And I'm incredibly grateful.

to the men that I worked with who kind of just welcomed me in. Do you think you actually weren't treated differently or do you think that because of what you were focused on and where you're going that you didn't let any of that get in the way that you didn't even see it? You know, I can probably point to some behavioral things like people said. I mean, definitely there's been things that people have said that might have, that I could have taken offensively.

But there's something I think I learned as a child that has helped me navigate these spaces is that I think early on I learned I had a pretty rough father, not an abusive father, but just someone who was like, oh, he said the wrong thing, was kind of perpetually grumpy. He wasn't a particularly like nurturing and like warm kind of father. And

I remember as a kid, like being able to separate out what he said from what I think he meant to say. And like, oh yeah, like my dad is rough and critical about this. Like I remember being in college and I was like buying my first car and it was actually, um,

My college, one of my roommates was staying with us at the house and she was upstairs and she was overhearing this conversation I was having with my dad because I was going to buy a car. And he's like, oh, you're going to screw that up and make a bad decision and don't do that and this and this and this. And then we worked it all out and we kind of got to a decision. And I remember my roommate from college was like.

is that how your dad normally talks to you? And she was in shock. I mean, she knew me as like a straight-A student who just kind of had it together and various things. I'm like, oh no, that's always how he talks. And she's like, like, that's what you grew up with? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's overhearing one single conversation. And this is her perspective. Yeah. But I'm like, no, that's actually normal. And I'm like, but that's, like, let me, let me,

interpret dad speak to you. Like, that's my dad saying, I want you to make a good decision. And I'm concerned that if you don't think about this, you might make a bad decision. And I don't want you to experience some of the disappointments I've had in my life. I'm like, that's what he meant. Yeah.

And she's like, oh, that's not what I took from that. And I think that was part of my upbringing is I developed this interpretive lens. Now, some might call it a detachment from reality. Yeah.

Or what was the famous Steve Jobs term? A reality distortion field. There might be some of that in it. But for me, I've learned early in life how to separate people's behavior from the intent behind their behavior. And maybe to hold myself in a strong position regardless of whether or not I was invited in or not. You've said that

One part about being in this place at Oracle where you were for, I think, about 17 years and had opportunity after opportunity to thrive. But one of the things you said is when you said your bosses had this problem that they needed solved, you didn't say, I was the best person to solve it. Oh, I was not the best person to solve it. The word you used was, I was...

the most willing person to solve it, or I was willing to solve it. And I think I see that a lot where people are just sort of unwilling to do some of these things that maybe it's menial work. Maybe it's way beneath what your skill set is, but

I think leaders, they want to see humility in people being willing to really to do anything. And we see this in early stage companies all the time. We hear founders sort of proudly say, look, I take out the trash, I vacuum the floor. I'm willing to do those things. And then

sort of structuring the values of the company, hopefully in a way that attracts these kinds of people. Now we have to do the things inside the company that we're saying on the website that we're doing and, you know, fall short a lot with, with, you know, not living the values wholeheartedly at times, but, you know, trying to

sort of organize or engineer an organization with sort of values-driven organizations that says, hey, these are the kinds of people, we want impact players to come into this company. We want them to be able to run free and we want them to be able to not be smothered and we want them to be able to be entrepreneurial, however you want to frame that. And we want them to be willing to do

the things that they probably aren't signing up for this job to do. And it's just incredible to see how that unlocked. It was, it's like a, like a video game. Like you unlock this other level because you were just sort of open to kind of going with the flow and,

diving into the wave and letting these, you know, sort of trusting in the process that other good things are going to follow and keep saying yes, keep saying yes, keep going all in. You know, it's just seeing you talk about it and sort of studying your work. You see this repeated again and again and again with people. It's like, just say yes, just

be willing to do something. - Yeah, I think it is a willingness and I don't know that it was just me. I remember one of my early experiences at Oracle. I'm brand new and I get put in charge of this like consulting training program. So I've got this group of like 60 consultants that I'm trying to usher through this training program so they can get up to speed and go out and be billable.

And we're holding our boot camp down at the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood Shores. Well, right next to where we're running this class is a shareholder meeting. It's like an investor meeting. And Larry Ellison is there speaking with the investors. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Well, Larry's right next door. And I've got this group of 60 new consultants. Like, I bet they'd love to hear from Larry. So I just wait for that meeting to go over. And I just go over and wait for Larry. I'm like, Larry, hi. I'm Liz. I'm new, you know, new here. Would you come down and just like have a chat with, I've got these 60 consultants. I'm sure they would love to meet you. Come on down. And Larry's response was, okay.

You know, and it wasn't on his plan, and it could have been beneath him. At that point, Oracle's already a public company, a very successful company. But I'm just like, hey, come on, I got a little job for you, Larry. He was willing to do it. And you were willing to ask. That's very brave.

It didn't seem brave. I'm like, well, I would think Larry would want these 60 new consultants to have a little interaction with him. Sure. And so I think it's a willingness to ask. I think it's also a willingness to say yes to things before you know how to do them. I realized there was a theme through my career and the name I've given to it is the naive yes. And it's, I really advocate that people like embrace the naive yes. And it's not say yes to everything.

That will dilute your impact and make you crazy and burn out. But it's saying yes to things before your brain kicks in and tells you, you don't know how to do that. You've never done it before. You're not qualified. There are people better than you who could do this. Everything I've done, there's someone who could have done that better than me.

There's actually other authors I've asked to write books for me. My latest one is like, you probably know Adam Grant and his work. I'm like, Adam, like, I've got this idea. I have a feeling like you would do this better than me. And like his response is like, Liz, suck it up. You do this. You're going to be great at this. And it's saying yes instantly before you talk yourself out of it. And every

Everything hard I've ever done in my whole life has not been a matter of motivation or willpower. It's just that I said yes. And essentially, you sign a contract. Like, yeah, I'll do that. I can solve that problem. I'll teach programming to a bunch of hot chat programmers from MIT. And I have an MBA and like actually got a C in my Fortran programming class in college.

No, and you just, you figure things out, but you figure things out fast when you have no choice but to figure them out fast. So like say yes, then figure it out. - This leads perfectly into the next question I have, which is as a fellow person with four children, your children are a little bit older than mine. So I'm coming into the phase that you've just gone out of. - That I survived is what you wanted to say. - You survived. What advice do you have for me? - You know, there's a poem

it's a chapter in a book and it's by a Lebanese poet, Khalil Gibran, I think is his name. And if I got that right. And in this poem, he said, like your children don't come, they're not of you, they come through you. It's always struck with me that like, I felt like I was at my best as a parent when I saw that, like these children are not me.

They are not the fulfillment of my hopes and ambitions. They are not mini-me's. Like we may share some genetics, but like I am a steward and a caretaker and they come through me, but they don't, aren't of me. And that has usually helped me get into a place where I can sit back and let my children own their own successes and

and not claim them as my own and also not claim their failures as my own. It's hard as a parent when you watch your children make bad decisions and suffer and it's easy to say, "Wow, that's a reflection on me. I failed. I didn't do something right." And when I can see like each one of my children is like their own little package, they come with their own little talents, strengths, weaknesses.

And your job is just to let them be them. So it's like an identity thing. In some ways, it's not. I think we're at our best as parents when our identity isn't wrapped up in our children. And it's not making a case for like we should neglect our children, but I think a little healthy distance produces the happiest, healthiest kids. And I don't know, maybe when

I think we do our best job as a parent when we're not super ambitious for our children. What's the right level of ambition for your kids? It's like to help them realize what they want, like help them realize their ambitions rather than to place...

ambitions on them. Now, obviously, as a parent, you have to place certain ambitions, which is like you have to show up to school dressed. Expectations. Yeah. But like, I remember one day, you know, our son came down and we were getting ready to go to church. And he's like, Mom, I'm not accessorizing today, you know, and it's like socks and belts and this. And I was like, Oh, no, like, I want him to look presentable. Like, that's

Like, that's not necessary. Like, he doesn't need to be accessorized. Like, that doesn't need to be important. And I think maybe if there's a principle that I've learned is...

is how to detach love from achievement. Like I remember once my daughter came home from school and she was like in fifth grade, but she had won like the eighth, the middle school math contest. She had gotten the highest score. And I remember she was so happy. And I was like, I'm so proud of you. And then I remembered like,

Actually, that's not particularly healthy. Like, you know, you don't want to withdraw love when your children screw up, but you don't want to also show an increase in love when they do something well. And I remember changing my language from I'm proud of you to I'm happy for you.

Like that must have felt good. You know, I've made a lot of mistakes as a parent, just like I've made a lot of mistakes as a leader. I've done, you know, some things right. But I think the one thing that I've done really well is I think my kids feel loved unconditionally, meaning they're not loved less unconditionally.

when they've done something wrong, but they're not loved more when they've done something right either. It's just, you're just loved for who you are. It's beautiful. That's some of the best advice I've ever heard. Um, and I absolutely make some of the mistakes that you've just identified. I think it's, it's really helpful for me. I hadn't really identified it super well until you described it. I used to play a game with my kids at bedtime and, um,

We would make up all these naughty things that they could do. My boys loved this game. And we would think of like the naughtiest thing. And I remember like the iPhone had just come out. And I remember I said to him, because, you know, this is part of that like I love you game. I love you this much. I love you to the moon and back. And I would be like, you know, if you took my new iPhone and you dropped it in the toilet and it like wrecked it, like I would still love you.

you would? You wouldn't be mad? Oh, I'd be kind of mad, but I would still love you. And then we would play this game of like, how naughty, like what's the worst thing that they could do? And I would still love them. And then I thought, you know, it's one thing to not withdraw love on the downside, but I think there's a tendency and maybe a sickness in our society where we increase love on the upside. And then I kind of turned the game. I'm like, you know,

"You could be like an NBA superstar, "and I wouldn't love you anymore. "I wouldn't love you any more than I already do right now." "Well, what do you mean, Mom? "That's a pretty awesome thing." I'm like, "I would be happy for you, "and I would be proud that you had done that, "but it wouldn't make me love you any more "than I already do, 'cause I love you "even if you're not an NBA superstar. "Like, you could be the first person to go to Mars. "You could be an astronaut that went to Mars, "and it wouldn't make me love you anymore."

Outside of family, who's the person you most admire? Oh, well, I think the person I most admire in the world is kind of family in that it's my husband's grandmother, Ernestine Wiseman. And

When she died, I kind of told like the grandkids, I'm like, oh, this is going to be, this is going to be ugly at her funeral. This is going to be a brawl. Like, I'm going to be surprised if this funeral descends into like a fist fight. I said, because everyone, every one of the grandkids shows up thinking they were her favorite. And I'm like, this is going to be the day that we find out that we weren't really her favorite.

And they kind of opened up the mic after like the formal thing. And a bunch of the grandkids got up and they were kind of like... I'm the chosen one. I'm the chosen one. I was Ernestine's favorite. And I was like, no, I was her favorite. I wasn't even her grandchild. I was...

to one of her grandchildren and I felt like I was the most special person in the world to her. And when I, you know, we would get together and she'd be like, Les, how's work? What are you working on? I'd be like, well, you know, I just went, I was on this trip, went to Barcelona. Barcelona! That's amazing! Tell me about Barcelona. I'm at Oracle. You're at Oracle? She was fascinated by this and she, she,

She was an editor in a newspaper, and she was a working woman way before that was a norm. And I think she had developed this interest in other people. And she was just always interested in

in other people and in a world where it's pretty easy for us to all be interested in ourselves and where it's easy, you know, for me to get like obsessed with my work. I think about Ernestine and how just delighted she was in everyone else's success and how everyone,

adored her. Everyone thought they were her favorite legitimately. Like how could she be as interested in any of you people as she was in me? It's not possible. What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Well, I'm proud to have a family that likes to be together, that my kids choose to spend time with each other. It's one of the things I'm actually practicing is like when my kids are all having fun together, like how to stay out of that and let them just be close to each other. I'm proud of that. I'm probably proud of the impact that the book Multipliers has had. When I wrote the book,

I just had this idea. I had a bug. I had a question that needed to be answered. And after the book came out, somebody said, wow, it must have felt good to make such an important contribution to your field. And I thought, oh, that's not why I wrote the book. I just had a question that needed to be answered. And I thought I would share the answer with people. Does your team ever pull you in a one-on-one and like, hey, you know, I...

You wrote about this here. No one ever quotes me like, you know, like page, like on page 37, it says, but people have pretty high expectations. I'm sure. And yeah, people let me know when I'm not doing a good job. And, you know, here's my saving grace is, and I think it's a saving grace for all leaders. It's like, if you want to be a good leader, there's sort of a shortcut to doing this. And that is,

talk so openly about your accidental diminished tendencies that everyone knows it. Everyone knows you know it and they call you on it. So like when I'm, when the idea fountain's about to go off and I call up someone say, hey, I think we should do this piece of research and we should like do this and I think we should write an article on this and study this and I'm buzzed up about it. They're like, okay, Liz, did you want us to stop this other work that we're doing? And, and,

and go work on that? Or are you just having one of your little idea parties right now? Yeah. Or you've created the space that allows them to speak up and say when you're getting off track or not showing the perfect leadership qualities. Yeah. It's really hard. It's really hard to create that space as a leader to do that. So that's really cool. But it's easy. It's to just have it out in the open. And I feel like

If you let people tease you about your weaknesses, and like if you know them and you laugh at yourself and let other people laugh at you, like people will fix your weaknesses for you. You don't have to do a lot of the work yourself. What's your best advice for accomplishing hard things? I take my cue on this from the work of Jim Collins, who is one of my favorite researchers and authors. You know, his word good to great and great by choice. And yeah.

I love his concept of confront the brutal facts. And, you know, I'm all for the naivety, saying yes to hard things and then figuring it out. But it's not a delusional yes. It's like, OK, what did I what have I gotten myself into? How bad is it? And really acknowledge that.

And I think it's a really healthy thing for leaders to do is when their teams are doing hard things rather than say, hey, this is going to be great. Like, no, what we're doing is hard. This is going to be brutal. This is going to hurt. You know, we're going to make mistakes. We're going to struggle. And so really getting in touch with how bad it is really helps me. If you could implant one idea to everyone in the world, what would it be?

Other than be nice to each other. That could be it. I said this not too long ago, like if I could take out a billboard, this is what I would put on the billboard. And it's based on what I found in this research around impact players and multipliers is I think we have a lot more power than we think we have.

And I see so many times people holding back. They're like, well, I'm not really in charge. So like, who am I to do that? I don't really have control over this issue. And we kind of put ourselves in these positions where we think because we're not at the top of the hierarchy or the top of the heap, we're not really in charge. And

What I've seen is that the best leaders, the most impactful contributors, they take charge even when they're not in charge. I think that's exactly what leaders want, actually. They want team members and employees to, they would love for them to recognize the power that they have and to use it. If when you die, you meet God,

What do you hope he says to you? Well, I'm a person of faith and I have always felt God's presence in my life. I've always felt sort of known and maybe even more like God knows me and I feel like I've had this relationship. And so I guess when I die and if I were to meet God, I hope it feels a little bit like a reunion. And I would hope that maybe there's like an attagirl.

Like at a girl, you know, and it's not like at a girl, like that was amazing. But I kind of like the way I imagine this rolling, you know, kind of happening is like, hey, you did a lot with what I gave you. You know, I've always said, like, I'm not the smartest person out there. I'm not the most qualified for anything I've ever done. But you know what?

Like, whatever IQ points the good Lord gave me, I put them to work. I'm definitely not the smartest, but man, I've done a lot with what I've had. That's a beautiful thought. I have to ask you the same question. What would you hope? Well, I'm the one asking the questions here, Liz. But we have more power in any given situation than we think we have. That's right.

Yeah, you know, I've been asking this question of a lot of people, so I've heard a lot of different answers. And I don't know that I have a great defined answer for myself yet, but I think I like the idea of that, yeah, that we're just shown a lot of love and that, yeah, that I did what I was supposed to do, that I learned what I was supposed to learn and that it's enough. And I hope my grandma's there too, so.

God's there, great. But I hope my grandma's there. And finally, how do you measure your life? You know, I've never really had goals. I'm not a goal-oriented person. And truth be told, like, I'm not sure I like hanging out with people who are too goal-oriented. Why is that? Well, because I always feel like I'm a victim of their goals. Like, you know, like, they've got something that they want to do. And like, you know, I'm going to be like roadkill along the way or that. Like, you know, I'm not a goal-oriented person.

there's this sometimes obsession about the goal. And I have not found a lot of utility in having goals. So I don't write annual goals. I don't write monthly goals. I have just never been very goal-oriented. So I have some very loose aspirations. They're very loose. And one day I kind of like wrote them down and they're embarrassingly simple. And there were three.

One, I hope that like when I die, I die a good person. Because sometimes as you get older, you get jaded and bitter and hurt. And like I think... What does it mean to be a good person? You know, I don't know that I know. Just instinctually feel like I'm a good person. Yeah, that like you don't do damage to...

you haven't caused harm. You know, you've done a lot more good than harm. But I hope to be a good person or to become a good person, like that you get gooder as you go through life.

I've wanted to raise a good family, like of good people. That was important to me. And then I wrote this down like years ago. I'm like, I just want to be useful. And there's a chapter in the Impact Players that's called Make Yourself Useful. And it kind of comes from that, which is, I don't know that I have ambitions about particular achievements and levels in the video game of life that I'm trying to achieve, but I do hope to have done something

some useful work. When Clay Christensen came out with his book, How Will You Measure His Life?, there was a really wonderful op-ed written in the New York Times that referenced it, and it was written by one of my favorite columnists, David Brooks. He had interviewed Clay, and he had read Clay's book, and he said, like,

having a strong like sense of purpose and like destiny and goals and knowing your purpose in life is one way to live. And Clay is an example of that. And someone who's had a tremendously positive impact is, but it's not the only way to go through life. And then he kind of laid out the case for a summoned life and the summoned self. And he said, in this way of living,

You don't maybe move forward with like a strong intent about here's what I want to accomplish and here's what I'm here to do. It's more like you move through life

with your eyes open, paying attention to needs around you, and you let the situation summon you. It's like Gandhi lived this way, like Mother Teresa lived this way. And I think that when I read it, it captured, I think, how I have measured my life. It's like, not like goals I want to tick off, but more like, I hope I have, like, encountered situations where I can be useful and that I have been useful.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Great to spend time with you. Give it. On next week's episode. I lost $35 million, which then was a lot of money. And I had to call my mother and say, Mom, I lost $35 million. And of course, being a Russian immigrant, English wasn't her first language and she was still translating in her head. So she took a pause and then said, where'd you put it?

I said, "No, I lost it. It's gone." And then she said, "Oh my God, the country we came from is gone." And then she thought about it and said, "And her name's blank. You can't even change it." I said, "No, the reason I'm calling you is the people who gave me the money just gave me another $12 million to do my next startup." And the Silicon Valley part of the story is I returned a billion dollars each to those two investors.