Here is an excerpt from an article written by Liz Wiseman for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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Where do you turn for the resources you need to fuel growth? Do you hire new talent, or ask for more from your existing employees?

In growing companies, the temptation to fuel growth by hiring new talent is almost irresistible. The hiring path is especially compelling for hot growth companies; they are inherently attractive employers and can afford new resources. But before calling the recruiter, perhaps you should consider how completely you are using the resources already inside of your organization. You probably know how productively your company is using your physical assets, but do you know how deeply you are using the intelligence and capability of your people

Let’s look at example from the heart of high-growth Silicon Valley. At Salesforce.com, Rajani Ramanathan is the chief operating officer across the products and technology division. As might be expected of a savvy engineering leader, Rajani began measuring how deeply her managers were tapping into the intelligence and capability of their teams. She then challenged her management team to raise this metric by 10%, with hopes to grow the business while also growing the people on her team. One year later, they re-measured and discovered that the subset of her management team that participated in the study collectively raised their score from 70% to 78%. Their eight-point gain is the rough equivalent of a headcount increase of 25 people.

Most companies are adept at bringing in smart, talented people but few companies put as much discipline into understanding how fully they are using the talent they’ve acquired. Many managers are so focused on their own ideas and capability that they shut down intelligence around them. I call these leaders “diminishers.” Yet other leaders seem to amplify the intelligence around them. These leaders are “multipliers.”

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Liz Wiseman is president of The Wiseman Group, a management research and development center in Silicon Valley and author of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. To read my review of Multipliers, please click here.

You can connect with her on Twitter at @LizWiseman. To check out more blog posts by Liz Wiseman, please click here.