Free Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman, Greg McKeown

campfire. But each role is carefully cast to draw upon the unique talents of every person on the team.
    Marguerite then makes it clear to each person why she has been selected for that role. She not only notices their talent; she labels it for them. One camp leader said, “She tells me the talent she sees in me and why it matters. She tells me why girls’ camp will be better because of me and my work.” But Marguerite doesn’t stop there. She lets everyone else know, too. It is typical for her to introduce someone to the group by saying, “This is Jennifer. She’s a creative genius, and we are so fortunate to have her leading our art program.”
    With her cast of talent assembled, Marguerite then goes to the back of the room, takes control of the spotlight, and begins shining it on others. She is effusive with praise, but it is never empty. Her praise of others’ work is specific, and it is public. The other leaders at camp can see the direct link between their work and the success of the camp. A camp leader said, “She not only tells you that you are doing a great job, but she tells you why it matters to these girls. I know my work is appreciated.”
    Marguerite finds other people’s genius and then shines a spotlight on it for everyone to see their talent in action. What is the result? A character-building, life-changing experience for seventy-five young women, but also a deeply rewarding, growing experience for the fifty-nine leaders who serve along with Marguerite.
    IV. Remove the Blockers
    Talent Magnets are attracters and growers of talent and intelligence. Leaders who serve as Multipliers provide both the space and the resources to yield this growth. But Talent Magnets go beyond just giving people resources. They remove the impediments, which quite often means removing the people who are blocking and impeding the growthof others. In almost every organization there are people who overrun others, consuming the resources needed to fuel the growth of people around them. Like weeds in a garden bed, they choke the development of the intelligence around them.
    Get Rid of Prima Donnas
    Bloom Energy, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, had developed a fuel cell system that produces clean, reliable, and affordable energy. As venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers’s first green-tech venture, Bloom Energy has become a leader in their industry. Leading Bloom Energy is K.R. Sridhar, renowned aerospace and environmental scientist and an energy thought leader.
    When K.R. Sridhar started Bloom Energy, he began with what he calls “gene pool engineering.” K.R. explains, “ A players attract other A players. Their smarts and passion make other smart, passionate people want to work here. So your first fifty employees are the most important, and hardest.” When Bloom Energy needed to hire their first fifty employees, there was no established green-tech industry at the time. So K.R. broke down each technology they would require to build their energy generators and identified the leading company in this technology. He then researched and found the person inside each company that the company would least want to lose. He reached out to these people, explained the bold challenge Bloom Energy was undertaking, and recruited them to join the company. He engineered a gene pool of elite technical talent who were the best in their respective fields. He now had the talent he needed, and the work of building a team that would deliver an integrated energy technology began. He established one rule: No prima donnas—leave your ego at the door and work as a team.
    Within this elite team, one technologist was particularly indispensable. Stefan, an outstanding scientist, was the world expert in the technology that was the lynchpin in their solution. As the team worked, it became clear that Stefan couldn’t collaborate and had become entrenched in his position about the technical direction the company should