I'm talking with my co-founders at Return Path about the stage of maturity of our company, I like to say that we're an "promising but awkward teenager" - we're not yet a fully mature company but we're not a startup anymore.
One of the most interesting problems we face in this "in between" state is how do we grow the group of managers and "managers-of-managers" that are going to be the key to growing our business. In reviewing "Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter". I see a lot of techniques that could be very useful when applied to our team.
I'd summarize the key beliefs of "Multipliers" as follows:
- If I can find someone's genius, I can put them to work
- There are smart people everywhere who will figure difficult challenges out and get even smarter in the process
- Therefore, your job as a leader: extend challenges to your team and give them the space to fulfill their responsibilities
- With enough minds we can figure tough business challenges out.
As I think of the formative experiences of my business life, they have almost universally come when I was given a clear challenge and given the space to acheive the challenge. The seven years I spent in management consulting and starting a couple of businesses have given me a lot of challenging projects that called me to do things that even I wasn't sure I could do -but ended up doing.
It's worth a read.
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