What hidden skill links successful people in all walks of life? What helps them make informed decisions, inspire creativity, and forge stronger connections? The answer is surprisingly simple: They know how to ask the right questions at the right time.

Questions help us break down barriers, pinpoint solutions, and explore new ways of doing things. Yet most of us assert more than we ask. We talk more than we listen. Imagine how much more effective we would be if we flipped the equation.

Ask More puts questions at the center of every conversation. Author Frank Sesno, an Emmy Award–winning journalist, has spent decades questioning global leaders and everyday people alike. He draws on his formidable interviewing skills to break down the art of inquiry into eleven categories of questions, each designed for a different purpose.

Ask More recounts dozens of stories of people who have used questions to discover and excel. Whether you’re trying to manage a project, solve a problem, or confront an adversary, these stories are inspiring. They show how to ask, what to listen for, and how to link your questions to your goals.

• Colin Powell shows how strategic questions can define a mission and forecast success—or failure.

• Turnaround expert Steve Miller uses diagnostic questions to get to the heart of a company’s problems.

• NPR’s Terry Gross digs deeper with empathy questions.

• Journalist Anderson Cooper uses confrontational questions to hold people accountable.

• Creative questions led a couple of techie dreamers to imagine Uber and a young mayor to challenge history.

• The Osborne Group uses mission questions to help nonprofits fundraise more successfully.

• Dr. Anthony Fauci posed methodical scientific questions to help crack the HIV/AIDS mystery.

• And many more.

In an age of instant answers, fly-by facts, and relentless clickbait, Sesno makes a passionate appeal to observe carefully, listen intently, and ask more. He reveals a process of inquiry that can change your life, and might even change the world.

Frank Sesno is a former CNN anchor, White House correspondent, and Washington bureau chief, and is now director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University. He has interviewed leaders from around the world, including five US presidents, and is the creator of Planet Forward, an innovative storytelling platform seeking solutions to some of the world’s toughest challenges.

Advance Praise for Ask More

“Ask More is an essential guide to asking questions in a way that can better achieve your goals. Through engaging stories and remarkable people, this illuminating book will show you how you can use questions not only to learn, but to challenge, inspire, innovate and excel.” — Anderson Cooper, CNN Anchor

“Frank Sesno asks all the right questions and shows their power. The message: Don’t avoid the question marks; just learn how to use them. I use questions as a weapon. But Frank is wiser; he uses questions to improve our lives.”— Jorge Ramos, television journalist and anchor, Univision

“Frank Sesno is a master interviewer. In Ask More he reveals his secrets to an engaged life. Read this book: It will help you liven every conversation, navigate through complexity, slice through evasion, turn strangers into friends, and chart your course through major life decisions. This book is not only about asking questions. It is also about living a rich life.” — Barbara Bradley Hagerty, bestselling author of Life Reimagined

“Ask More illustrates how we are well served by the questions we ask, from our daily lives to giant discovery. The book pushes us to ask more of ourselves at a time of increasing complexity and polarization. Frank Sesno compellingly explains that if we asked more and asserted less, we might find common ground and solve some of our greatest challenges. Everyone who cares about our future should read this engaging and inspiring book. Not just about questions, it’s a guide to a way of think-ing that can help us act strategically, compassionately and creatively.” — James Douglas, former Vermont Governor

“Do we want to be right? Or do we want to understand? (Spoiler alert from this remarkable read: The latter increases the odds of the former.) I wish I’d had this book before I started a company, made an investment, traveled the world, raised kids. In the complex journeys that are today, we gravitate to quick and simple answers. But never has it been more important to take the time to ask the right questions. Ask More is our journey’s road map.”— Christopher M. Schroeder, venture investor and author of Startup Rising