Customer Reviews

Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions

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In my 20+ years in managment, I've read many of the best sellers, including some excellent ones. I'd put "The Fifth Discipline", "Good to Great", "In Search of Excellence", "First Break all the Rules" and almost anything by Jack Welch near the top. I've also read most of Deming, Juran, Crosby, Sherkenbach, and Victor Vroom. You probably recognize Deming, Juran and Crosby. Sherkenbach, also a TQM guru, led Ford Motors' quality program. Vroom wrote "Work and Motivation" back in the 60's -- it is THE seminal work on employee motivation and is still available. If you haven't read it and you have any interest in the subject, you need to.

Of all of these works, only "First Break All The Rules" is as readable as "Just Ask Leadership". A couple of hours of light reading gets you some memorable and practical advice. I was responsible for strategic planning for an 800 employee, $300 million/year organization so I think I know that subject as well as anyone. Chapter 1 of "Just Ask" is as good a guide to strategic planning as I've ever read.

I read Bock's review and I understand his criticism about the loose structure. Unlike many of the best sellers mentioned above, "Just Ask" doesn't boil all of managmement down to a neat half dozen bromides ("stick to the knitting" "loose-tight management" etc). This is not a dispargement of the best sellers. I like those books and I have often found those bromides helpful, despite their triteness. But, "Just Ask" is ultimately about just one thing -- How would your management practices be changed if you started all of your problem solving with a series of questions? You could spend three hours contemplating that question or you could read "Just Ask". I think you'll find reading "Just Ask" to be a much better use of your time.

Yes, "Just Ask" is, ultimately, a one trick pony. But, it's a good trick. One well worth learning -- and one that "Just Ask" teaches well.

Unfortunately, so many of us grew up in a command and control environment. Our parents told us what to do. The same thing with school, the teachers told us what to do. Our first employment probably continued the same pattern. So by the time we had risen to any sort of managerial position we were totally indoctrinated in the habit of trying to lead by telling rather than asking.

And we have been done a real disservice.

"Would you rather be asked for your input or told what to do?" According to a survey conducted by the author, 95% of leaders preferred to be asked questions rather than told what to do. But "these same leaders give instructions 58% of the time rather than ask."

"If you want to lead and motivate others, questions are the answer. If we tell our coworkers how to do their jobs, we are essentially limiting their options and stifling their initiative. We're not leading." But, as you will learn from this book, all questions are not created equal. The right question can empower, inspire and challenge. The wrong question - a gotcha you question - enhance the status of the asker but demoralize and create distrust among those being asked.

This book is all about teaching you the right questions to ask and the correct way to ask them. The book is a series of questions in five separate categories. 1) How to improve the vision of the organization 2)How to ensure accountability 3) How to build unity and cooperation 4) How to create better decisions and 5) How to motivate to action. In each chapter there are a series of questions and discussion about those questions.

The questions should not be taken as a strict guide. The entire book is designed to change the mindset from command and control to leadership through asking the right questions in the correct manner.

The book is filled with stories that illustrate the point. The book is short and very easy to read, the discussion centered around each question is short and to the point.

The forward was written by Harry Beckwith. If you like his work, you will love this book. The style and approach of Beckwith is very similar to Cohen's.

While the book is intended for business, the concepts work equally well in education, family and personal relationships. People would much rather be asked than told.

You will need to study the book and internalize the ideas. Changing the mindset to an "ask instead of tell" will take time. But it will be well worth it. Your effectiveness will improve. "When leaders use more questions than commands, the organization's culture flourishes."

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to be more effective in dealing with others.

This is one of those books that at one level seems to state the obvious. Look beyond it and you will find that it is jam packed with nuggets of useful information and practical advice. It is extremely well written and is one of those rare books, that once I had started I could not put down.

Who could have thought that so much common sense could be packed into just 5 chapters. The book is not at all theoretical and instead is rooted very firmly on the practical, can do side of life. Anyone who follows along with the book and ask the questions posed of themselves can't help but see and make big improvements in their business life.

I particularly liked the case study examples and the easy to follow approach.

The depth of the book, as the title implies is how to ask questions and what questions to ask, some of the questions seem simple, but as the examples show, the results are amazing. Each chapter looks at a different aspect of leadership and provides a list of questions that you can ask to improve, it then provides details and insights into why the question is used and how to understand the implications of the answers.

I guess the best way to summarise the book for you is to say that having read it I bought 20 copies to give out to my friend and clients!

Just Ask Leadership is a practical field book of leadership in the modern world. In a time where leadership skills on display through the media are at an all time low in the corporate and governmental arena, this book offers an approach that will work in a wide variety of realms from academic and family areas to commercial and societal areas. By asking the right questions with the right motivation, we can create and foster an innovative and relaxed environment in which good decisions are made without the hard feelings and brain damage created by the common dictatorial methods that seem so prevalent today. If the executives at Countrywide, Bank of America and others had utilized this leadership approach, or if our national leadership had done so, the current economic crisis might have been avoided. On a smaller and more practical level, I've already been able to implement a question-asking approach in managing a small law firm that is resulting in cost savings and revenue enhancement in just a few short weeks. This book is well-written and employs the right amount of real world anecdotes to keep the pace lively, yet informative. All in all, this book is an excellent investment.

Typically, experienced leaders are not very good at explaining what they do or even how they lead people. In his book, Gary Cohen draws experiences and ideas out of some leaders that most of us NEVER get a chance to meet. His hypothesis --THAT exceptional leaders know how to ask questions...is spot on. Great leaders know this almost intutively...Gary shows us all EXACTLY what kind of questions work in different situations. I found it very useful and helpful. Most of all, practical.

I love how the very best concepts in life tend to be the simplest. I found Just Ask to be very thought provoking not only for the great insights into leadership it provides but for the many questions it posed for me as I reflected on situations it brought to mind in the past and present.

It was great to think all of this through as I read but even better that Gary gives so many great examples of how you can lead in the situations we all face with sample questions that drive the concept and actual usage home. It feels great to lead this way and even better to have a leaders that does. As I think back all of my most inspiring leaders used elements of Just Ask. I am already starting to apply it in my business and personal life, which is a great change for me and the reason I am taking time to write this review.

Although I do not agree with this book's subtitle that great managers "always" ask the right questions, I believe that asking the right questions is one of the most important and least appreciated skills needed to achieve desired results, whatever they may be. With assistance from Eric Vrooman, Gary Cohen has written a book in which he explains to his reader how and why asking "the right questions can empower, inspire, and challenge - both you and your coworkers. After all, open-ending questions engage the responder and the asker. They enable both to work together toward an uncertain and exciting end." That's true. Of course, formulating the right questions and knowing when to ask them presupposes that we know what the right questions are. And that presupposes that we know what we do not know and therefore need learn from the responses to those questions.

Cohen makes what I consider to be excessive use of questions to draw attention to his key points as well as to illustrate them. He organizes his material within five chapters. For each of which, he identifies a specific objective and then poses questions that hopefully will obtain the answers needed to achieve it.

1. Improve vision by gaining insights from all levels and in all areas of the enterprise. Questions to ask: What are my values? Are my values in alignment with the four core human drives (i.e. to acquire, bond, learn, and defend)? Are our values as strong as our profits? Is there a gap between our stated values and or operating values? What is our organization's culture? Are my coworkers aware of the importance of their work? How true are the stories we tell? Are job performance measures aligned with our organization's goals? How can we outrun the competition? Why is it my job to explore the unexplored? How would I feel if this issue made the front page of the newspaper? Am I decision maker or a goal achiever? Am I leading into the future or managing the present? What is my guiding question? Is our organization asking the right question? Who will be my successor? How do I hire someone who will excel in our organization's culture?

These 18 questions and Cohen's comments in response to them can be found on Pages 9-40. I found it somewhat of an ordeal to work my way through them.

2. Ensure accountability by increasing and improving team and organization-wide performance. Cohen suggests 12 questions to ask.

3. Build unity and cooperation by establishing and then sustaining a culture of trust. Cohen suggests 19 questions to ask.

4. Create better decisions by getting the right answers to the right questions. Cohen suggests a total of 25 questions to ask re context, clarity, and objectivity.

5. Motivate to action by asking for success. Cohen suggests 17 questions to ask.

There are no head-snapping revelations in this book, nor does Cohen make any such claim. My own opinion is that he poses too many questions, should have substantially reduced the number and posed only those that cut to the proverbial "bone," and then focused his comments on them. (On Page 16, he poses three that could well have served as the framework for Chapter 1: Who are we? What values do we possess? How do we want to behave?) In marketing, these are the questions that must be answered with meticulous care. The first two are easy, obviously, but the third....

Who are you?
What do you do?
Why should I care?

There are comparable questions for other key subjects such as sharing a compelling vision, personal as well as organizational accountability, mutual trust and respect, asking the right questions to get the right answers, and being results-driven to achieve success. It's not that Cohen asks the wrong questions. Rather, that he asks too many questions. He seems to ignore the reality that not all "right" questions seek information of equal importance. Moreover, some questions need to be answered before others are.

Readers are invited to take the free "Just Ask Leadership" assessment by following directions provided in the book. Those who wish to complete additional research on the issues that Cohen raises are book are urged to check out Guy Kawasaki's Reality Check, Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis' Judgment, Michael Marquardt's Leading with Questions, Dorothy Leeds's The 7 Powers of Questions, and Dorothy Strachan's Making Questions Work.

All good leaders understand the importance of aligning their team toward a shared vision/mission. We also know the power of motivating the team to stretch toward that future with intensity. Where many of us struggle, including me is how we maximize our effectiveness. We find ourselves working long hours because our team continues to count on us for direction. There are lots of reasons why we came to manage this way, but the bottom line is that we are in the habit of telling our team what they should do.

As you read through Just Ask Leadership you quickly come to the obvious conclusion that asking the right questions will help your team learn to answer their own questions, and give them more ownership of the results, which will help improve our effectiveness.

The real question is how do you change? Reading the examples and questions listed help, but the bottom line is that you have to commit to changing, and practice asking good questions. You also have to realize your leadership team has probably adopted a similar approach, so what questions can you ask to help them change as well?

Clearly I have some work to do, but it seems clear that releasing the power of my team through asking is the right model.

I have known and worked with Gary for more than two decades. I can personally attest to the fact that he was there, on the front-lines, for learning how to start and grow very successful businesses. He has the experience himself, and we were lucky enough to learn from an incredibly long list of phenomenal mentors, who gave us the benefits of their experiences - what worked and what didn't. The readers of this book can benefit greatly from the lessons Gary has, and that he is now able to pass on to others.

At its core, this book is a solid reminder that you will inevitably find more success if you can motivate others to want to do, what you want them to do. It will give you a simple, but effective, methodology for helping people to get to that point. This book reflects and reinforces the idea that the value of command-and-control management is waning; to be effective now, you should harness the power of influence.

Additionally, and even more importantly, it's a conceptual framework that should lead individuals and organizations to ask more questions... questions that should lead in new and even better directions. Following the precepts in this book will lay the foundation for an environment that encourages and enhances the development of new and improved ideas for what companies can do and how they can do things better.

This is a guide that doesn't just end with the simplistic approach of telling the reader, "just ask more questions!" It is a tool-set for helping to identify the RIGHT questions - so that you improve your chances to achieve the right results.

If you are looking for a book that will help you to be a more effective leader... for a book that goes beyond jovial anecdotes and gives you usable tips & techniques... a guide that does not suffer you to review a passing fad, then this book will be worth the read.

1. The questions are amazing.

2. The writing style is super readable.

3. You'll never lead the same way again.

Buy it, buy it, buy it. I read 5 books a week and this one ROCKS!