Hero Making with Paul Magnus

Paul Magnus:
Initially, for the first 15 years into the 21st century, we were still focused pretty much on the leader being the hero. But what’s happening right now in the literature is that the leader is to become a hero-maker, which means that we as leaders in a Christian environment, we’re actually doing our very best to shift to a multiply and multiplier orientation.

Mathieu Yuill:
Hey, and welcome to the Leading with Nice podcast, where you’ll find tools and learning to help you and your team reach their full potential. I’m your host, Mathieu Yuill. Welcome here.

Mathieu Yuill:
Today, I speak with Dr. Paul Magnus. He is a professor of leadership and management at Briercrest Seminary in Saskatchewan, Canada. He has been teaching leadership and management in some form or another for 50 years. These last 11, exclusively at the graduate level. Today, he’s going to share with us the trends he has seen in leadership development and why we are in the middle of a shift unlike any we’ve seen this past half century. I’m referring to leadership multiplication. Not the kind of multiplication you learn in school that goes with addition and subtraction, but how we multiply ourselves as leaders to rapidly grow leadership influence, effectiveness, and time. Dr. Magnus is a skilled orienter and a wise teacher, so you won’t hear much from me today, but let me set it up for you.

Mathieu Yuill:
When Dr. Magnus joined Briercrest, he taught theological subjects in general studies and more.

Paul Magnus:
I was eased into teaching leadership because I was always thrust into leadership roles, and I had determined that I would read a book a week. I had made a self-directed commitment of various kinds for lifelong development, and one of my commitments in that was… One of the action procedural pieces was that I read a book every week, and I would focus on what I was teaching in particular and anything that would lend itself towards strengthening that. So when I was moved into leadership teaching, among other subjects, I shifted my reading toward leadership. And over time I was assigned almost exclusively to teaching leadership, particularly at the graduate level, because we had developed a summer graduate program and I had initiated a leadership program within it. So it took a good deal of my energy. But I was also vice-president for numerous years in varying vice-presidential roles and then president. And that spanned over almost 30 years vice president, president.

Paul Magnus:
During that time, I would teach a minimum of four courses a year and virtually all of them were in the graduate program because that program was taught in a modular fashion. I could take a week and teach and then be on the road and travel and do what was expected to lead the institution. And then eventually, the shift was for me to retire from the president’s office. What I did then is I did some transitional leadership in a couple of contexts and always continued the reading pursuit because I was trying to lead in other zones and then was invited to come back to Briercrest to give exclusive attention to the continuing development of the MA in leadership and management that Briercrest was offering. So I’ve been teaching leadership and management now for just over almost 11 years. I will be completing the 11th year of doing nothing but teaching leadership and management for the institution.

Paul Magnus:
So when I first started teaching leadership, actually leadership was not a common word, management was. The word management was the large word, and leadership was a subset of one of five topics under leadership. So the books, until about 1995, you didn’t find any books titled leadership. About 1995, as we started thinking about 21st century, the language began to change to some leadership. When we entered the 20th century, the word management became a less than positive word. So now, instead of thinking of leadership and management, we thought of leadership against management. That’s what the literature was doing. But I continued to teach that there’s an interlinking of leadership and management. If you don’t have management to actually lead through, you end up without good execution.

Paul Magnus:
So having watched the trends in the literature and having watched the trends out in the field, and watching what’s needed, watching what the environment is asking me to do coaching and facilitation on, I would suggest that what’s happened is we have moved from strictly management-focused control leadership. That’s what it was all about. The best manager ended up having the best control for the best results that they were controlling for. So the whole journey was focused on you planned, you organized, you led, whatever it was you did, you did it so that you would control for good results within limited use of resource. All control focused.

Mathieu Yuill:
This was your grandfather’s definition of leadership, but the tides are changing. And if you’ve been paying attention over the past 20 years, you’ve seen a shift.

Paul Magnus:
When we entered the 21st century, the shift was to actually move much more to the soft skills of leadership, not just the hard skills of planning and… Actually, planning was always a key concern, strategic planning, training of other leaders and so on. But here’s where it has been leaning, increasingly, the focus of leadership has been on leveling the playing field so that the leader finds ways of gathering insight, coaching the best thinking from those they lead. Coaching initially was a theme that was highly emphasized. Then we moved to another step in the process where we talked about actually thinking about how we could move through telling, and selling, coaching, and delegating.

Mathieu Yuill:
This probably sound familiar to you if you’ve read books like Marilee Adams, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, or High Output Management by the late Andy Grove, who was the CEO of Intel. But as Dr. Magnus is about to share, there’s a new trend that has a potential to change the way we lead.

Paul Magnus:
Initially, for the first 15 years into the 21st century, we were still focused pretty much on the leader being the hero. But what’s happening right now in the literature is that the leader is to become a hero-maker, which means that we, as leaders, we’re actually doing our very best to shift to a multiply and multiplier orientation. So I would say what’s happening right now in the literature and what’s happening in the expectation for those of us who are trying to help grow leadership, capacity, competency, and for that matter, confidence, we’re being invited to address the word, multiply.

Mathieu Yuill:
So, how do we do it?

Paul Magnus:
Now, it starts by a mindset change where we are determined to multiply levels of engagement. And to multiply levels of engagement, we need to actually change up all our processes. So now our processes shift to inviting people to engage, not only in giving us insight, but in co-creating the path that they will live out in execution and in co-creating the execution. So we’re multipliers now. We’re multiplying down. We’re multiplying people. But more than that, we start by multiplying engagement.

Paul Magnus:
Let me contrast multiply with diminish. So when you diminish something, whether intentional or accidental… In fact, those who haven’t shifted toward a multiply orientation, technically, at this stage, are being defined as accidental diminishers. Why? Because they’re still aligning the resources for them to distribute as leaders. They’re still aligning everything for the leader to disperse. The leader sets the direction. The leader casts the vision. The leader, in essence, also is careful that they protect their space. They horde leadership itself. They horde influence. So, what is to happen in this multiply? We shift to using processes of coaching people to grow their confidence, but we also use processes like appreciative inquiry, processes that are designed to be inclusive, processes that are designed to actually inspire and inquire, bring illumination through those so that we, together, co-create a different future.

Mathieu Yuill:
I’m going to interrupt because Dr. Magnus mentioned a process that I think is at the heart of what multiplication is, appreciative inquiry.

Mathieu Yuill:
For decades, typically organizations approached strategic planning, budgeting, and the like through a SWOT process. You know this, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Often, it was a process reserved for only the most senior positions in an organization. And when the process came to a conclusion, the results were handed down throughout the organization. Appreciative inquiry is a process that seeks to involve as many people as possible to draw on their individual strengths, to increase the value of those strengths for the organization and to see that the organization is at its best. I’m an advocate for appreciative inquiry, and all of my consulting work is based on it.

Paul Magnus:
So as a leader of the 21st century, now that we’re reaching near 2020, I said the first 15 years, we were still working with the leader as the hero.

Paul Magnus:
Now, how do we make heroes? Well, we need to multiply. We need to multiply. Initially, we need to multiply our influence by giving them influence, but we do that carefully and thoughtfully. So we need to think about how we multiply their influence and reduce hours. So we need to move from this hoarding of influence to giving it away, to giving it to them, but we need to enable them to take it. If we don’t, we overwhelm them with it.

Paul Magnus:
So here’s my sense, as I’m doing the reading right now, we can’t just add heroes one at a time. We need to figure out how we multiply our influence by growing multiples of leaders, who might actually surpass us. We very intentionally now need to seek to multiply our influence so that we can multiply their influence.

Paul Magnus:
Now, we assume that influence is inelastic. Actually, it’s elastic. The more influence I give to people, the more they give back to me, and we’re just multiplying influence. But here’s what I’ve observed, if we do this strategically and we multiply circles of talent, as opposed to individuals of talent, we’re multiplying. If it’s individuals, we’re adding. That’s the idea of multiply. So Liz Wiseman, in her unbelievably helpful book called Multiply, said the multiplier effect is 1.97. So in other words, when we use the multiplier effect, wherever we apply it, it’s almost times two. So here’s how I think of this. We need to think of multiplying circles of talent, who will then take that talent and multiply their circles. And consequently, where we end up with is we’re multiplying people who will multiply talent and ultimately, we have a multiplier effect.

Mathieu Yuill:
You’re probably wondering now, how do I learn to multiply? So I asked this question, so what does it look like though… Okay, so I am a senior leader in an organization, and this idea is new to me. Typically, I have been taught and learned to keep the walls up. How do I transition well? What are some things I need to start thinking about and doing to transition well?

Paul Magnus:
So leaders are recognizing that they can’t keep up to the pace of the growth. The quantity of people they have to deal with, the quality of leadership in their environment isn’t up for that. So what I think we need to begin to do is we need to increase the quantity of multipliers, multiplying leaders, who have been helped grow the qualities of multiplication.

Mathieu Yuill:
This is a real mind shift, or a mindset shift, paradigm shift, because typically the senior team gets together in a room, comes up with all the ideas, and then from the mount, passes it on down. And you’re suggesting that they need to involve, maybe not at the final decision stage, but they need to involve them in that process. Yes?

Paul Magnus:
You’re right on. So here’s the thing, when my mindset changes from, “I’m the leader here, I’m setting the direction, I’m setting the targets, maybe I’ll coach them once I’ve done those two.” I’m still pretty much in focus. I’m really still guarding. I’m still protecting my turf rather than giving it away to multiply it. I multiply it. But the multiplier mindset is, I think, where it starts.

Paul Magnus:
So my multiplying mindset needs to move from I’m the hero to I’m going to multiply heroes. Then when I need to do is I need to determine what multiplies, what has to multiply. So number one, talent has to multiply. The quality of their readiness needs to multiply. But the multiplier effect is not limited to multiplying quantity. It includes multiplying quantity because quantity breeds quality. But then when you take that other circle and you want to multiply their talent, because they’re best at multiplying, you multiply the hero-making force, starting with a chosen circle, then getting that circle to move out to multiply others.

Paul Magnus:
So, how do you multiply talent? Well, I think Liz Wiseman had such helpful advice. She actually suggested five multipliers.

Mathieu Yuill:
I’m going to interject here and list Liz Wiseman’s five disciplines of multipliers. They are, one, be a talent magnet. Attract and optimize talent. Two, be a liberator. Constrict yourself to free others to do their best thinking. Three, be a challenger. Extend and challenge others. Four, be a debate maker. Encourage the debate of decision opposed to saying, this is how it’s going to be. Five, be an investor. Invest in others to instil accountability.

Mathieu Yuill:
Dr. Magnus says in actual practical terms, it starts with a mindset change, and then it means we start actually giving-

Paul Magnus:
… permission, or giving space and permission, and help, and a design strategy to grow and multiply them. So one of the keys is that we start with a multiplier mindset. Secondly, we develop a multiplier sequence process, a process that’s a little like a sequenced leadership training journey. Then we’re going to talk about multiplying time.

Paul Magnus:
How do you multiply time so you have time to do the multiplication? Well, that one’s so profoundly helpful. Most people haven’t ever thought about it. Well, you multiply time differently than managing it. In managing time, you’re always wrestling with two continuums of importance. One continuum of importance is how important it is. The other is how urgent it is. What we thought managing time was all simply trying to plot how we manage for importance and urgency, somehow. But actually the multiplier effect, with time management, is something that has been offered to us in a unique way in another book, powerfully important book by Rory Vaden. In it, he says, we actually multiply time by having a fifth concern and an arrow that we could run right through our other four quadrants, taking us to a higher level. And here’s what the arrow says, significance.

Paul Magnus:
Now, how do you define significance according to Rory Vaden? According to Rory Vaden, what you have to do is you have to determine how long the benefit lasts for your time investment. So now when you think of that, if you grow talented people who can out lead you, how long does it last? Well, it lasts after you’re already in your grave. But it also lasts so that they continue leading and you can delegate to them to lead well beyond where you could go because you now have multiplied a force, a group of people. You’ve multiplied the numbers of people who will multiply and expand that. So you’re investing in less, but you’ve turned out all those multipliers because you had the time.

Paul Magnus:
The book goes on to say, you need to procrastinate on purpose. Well, why? So that you have time to do this last dimension, which is what lasts longer. It’s multiply. It’s the multiplier effect. You do that by giving yourself permission to delegate, and giving yourself permission to automate, and giving yourself permission to do a number of other things, including procrastinating. See, a lot of stuff that you do, someone else should be doing. They could be better at it than you are. But it’s going to take something else. If we’re going to do that, then we really need to move much more from a single-leader mindset and multiply it by forming leadership teams who will co-lead to co-multiply.

Paul Magnus:
Here’s why that’s so important, because you see, I’ve concluded that the more self-aware we are… And the literature is full of self-awareness. It’s not self-importance. It’s self-awareness, self-awareness that makes you recognize what you bring no matter where you are so you can self lead so you can lead others, but so you can also understand others.

Paul Magnus:
Now, the key there though, actually is when you know what you bring, you also know what you don’t bring. That’s where team comes in. You need to have a circle of people who actually fill the talent bucket so it’s a talent bucket that’s full. And from that full reservoir, the talent that we grow is richer because what we don’t have, someone else on our team does. But it also demonstrates the concept of multiply. So we can model multiply.

Paul Magnus:
I could run on indefinitely and give you more areas of multiplication, but let me simply say, from my standpoint, the first three keys, one, we need to redefine leadership to change our mindset even about what leadership effectiveness is. And then we need to actually use that, keep publishing it, using it, using the language of that definition so that the mindset drives itself right through our cultures. And then we will start moving with actually multiplying numbers, multiplying talent, multiplying heroes who will be hero-makers. And then we have hero-making teams, which means there’s more confidence. It’s richer talent that we’re multiplying.

Mathieu Yuill:
For people that aren’t familiar with words like co-create and co-lead, what would that mean?

Paul Magnus:
Let me back up a little and use a couple of other words leading up to co-create. Normally, as a leader, I create the path I was expected to create and cast a lofty vision. I was expected to create the structure. I was expected to create. But to co-create means, I engage anyone in the circle of concern, anyone who’s concerned about what it is that I’m normally creating things for. I now say, “Okay, how can I use collaborative ways? How can I gain insight? How can I gain energy? How can I gain longings? How can I gain ream insights? How can I actually gain help in setting priorities?” I gain those.

Paul Magnus:
Once I have some comfort doing that, then I take a step further and I say, “Okay, now we’re going to use all of this to co-create a definition for leadership, to co-create by actually sitting in a circle, putting our ideas on the table, mapping them out and establishing them together.” So I plan, I co-create the vision. I get as much insight as I can, try to make sense of it, but I mean, is I get as much insight and input and feedback as I can.

Paul Magnus:
And then I’ll usually use a team of people, if the group is larger, I’ll use a team of people to actually assemble the best of what we heard, making sense of what came, into an actual vision statement, for instance, or a passion statement or… But we try to put it into words. And then I’ll come back and say, “Is this getting close?” Generally, if they’ve spoken into it along the way, they have very little to say when it comes to editing. So it’s theirs. They co-created it. And you can co-create with large numbers if you become strategic and you have circles working. Instead of just you and one small team, you’re going to have circles of teams working.

Paul Magnus:
So even when I’m teaching, I’m trying to shift the way I teach leadership to where I see the students in the room as a learning circle. And I normally have questions series, even on the PowerPoint, a series of questions, and get all the light I can toward definition, and when they’ve put it all out there, then I’ll even scroll through… Sometimes I let them write… We actually write the definition plan and get it done, and then I’ll come back the next time I’m back in the classroom and say, “Okay, now you edit this.”

Paul Magnus:
Another procedure that I’m using a lot is I have open questions. I let them speak in individually. Now I’m doing a lot more with having teams speak in, but they work for a while to actually come up with owned clarity. It has to be team and owned… So there’s a group that have actually worked hard to multiply the value of what’s stated. It just multiplies, but it’s already owned by those. So if I have 20 people in the room, I’ll have five teams of four, let’s say, and you get four or five teams that then bring something thought through. It’s powerful. Then we take that and we weld it together.

Paul Magnus:
The other thing that I quite often do is when they come up with something that they’ve poured into as learners, as fellow learners with me, then what I’ll do is I’ll scroll through a series of written definitions, and I say, “Oh, here’s another word we could put in. Here’s one maybe. But look, your definitions, your thoughts, your reflections, they could be published.” So what you’ve done with that, you’ve multiplied the learning, but you’ve multiplied the co-creation of something that people own.

Mathieu Yuill:
When they co-create it, it’s the difference between buy-in and ownership.

Paul Magnus:
Well, I know some of my students that have used buy-in for so long, especially if they’re business lead… Students in business leadership training, the word buy-in is still quite typical. I do not believe buy-in is one of the items in the toolkit for multiplying leadership. I think buy-in still has the multiplied numbers of people, still has the followers, so to speak, buying in to the leaders, to the hero. The hero. So that hero is making heroes who shape so they call own. They co-create so they can call own, co-deliver, co-love, co-long to perpetuate.

Mathieu Yuill:
As you can tell, Dr. Magnus is passionate about leadership learning and enabling, or equipping other leaders so they can multiply others.

Mathieu Yuill:
In March, 2019, I participated in a class with Dr. Magnus. It was special because it was his last on-campus class before he heads into retirement. At the end of the last class, Dr. Magnus shared what has motivated him all these years, educating students. I recorded this on my phone, so the audio isn’t the greatest, but listen now as he shares his heart.

Paul Magnus:
So as I bring this to a close, I will say, whether I teach it or not, isn’t important. That you live it and teach it is, because I believe in being a multiplier. There are multiples of people who actually will do and teach this and carry it a lot farther than my aging legs would ever likely have done in any case because there’s multiples of you. There are 16 of you. I would have to be foolish to think I have to still do this. After all, your brilliance has been demonstrated. You own them. You own the way. That’s been the goal, that it become yours. My only disappointment would be is if you feel you don’t yet own it. I’ve done my best to give it to you.

Mathieu Yuill:
Thank you for listening today. I want to extend a big thank you to Dr. Paul Magnus for sharing with me so I could in turn share with you.

Mathieu Yuill:
The Leading with Nice podcast is written and produced by me, Mathieu Yuill. Music by [Filmy Scope 00:34:11]. You can find this podcast on iTunes and Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Mathieu Yuill:
I’ll leave you with this quote from Liz Wiseman’s book, Multipliers, “Multipliers invoke each person’s unique intelligence and create an atmosphere of genius, innovation, productive effort, and collective intelligence. Perhaps these leaders understood that the person sitting at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is the genius maker, not the genius.”