Book Review: Just Ask Leadership
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I have to confess that any book with the word "always" in the title flips my skepticism switch. That's not the least of the problems in Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions by Gary B. Cohen. But, despite those problems, this still might be a book that will deliver value for you.
Let's do the good parts first. Gary B. Cohen is has had a successful business career. People who have had successful business careers tend to write two kinds of books.
Some of them tell the story of their greatest triumphs. Others share a collection of insights. This book is a collection of insights.
In addition to the questions promised in the title, Cohen shares the insights of other CEOs he has known. Those observations are well-chosen and add to the value of the book.
So do all the questions. But the questions are a mixed bag. There are questions you should ask others and questions you should ask yourself and rhetorical questions all mixed together.
If you buy this book to dip into from time to time and read a quote, snippet or a question or two, you will probably enjoy it. Otherwise, the lack of coherent structure, the general sloppiness of reasoning and the fact that the book never makes good on the promise of the subtitle may leave you muttering and unhappy.
The book seems very random. In the section on Improving Vision we get the following sequence of questions. "How can we outrun the competition?" then "Why is it my job to explore the unexplored?" and then "How would I feel if this issue made the front page of the newspaper?"
All of those are worthwhile questions. But I'm not sure they belong in anything like that sequence and I wonder if they even fit in a section titled "Improve Vision."
There is a lot of sloppiness in the manuscript itself. The way we learn about General Jack Chain is a good example.
The first time we meet him he's described as staff officer in Pentagon. We're not told anything else about him. Normally when you mention a person for the first time, you give a brief description. But you have to wait until page 151 to find out that General Chain was an Air Force officer
We're told that he "made commander" and his job changed from answering questions to asking them. Commander is a rank in the US Navy. Presumably the author meant to say that when Chain went from a staff position to a commanding officer's position he started asking questions instead of answering them. That kind of sloppiness makes you notice the way the book is written instead of the point being made.
References to "research" are equally sloppy. At one point we're told that Cohen interviewed "almost one hundred highly effective leaders." Why not an exact number? By phone or mail or email? And how did he define "effective?"
In another place in the book, we're told that "95 percent of leaders prefer to be asked questions, rather than told what to do." No source is cited. The same research (I think, since the statement is right below) indicates that those same leaders "give instructions 58 percent of the time."
Cohen conducts an internet survey of "3,000 employees" and asks if they look to their supervisors for work-related advice. When only 11 percent do, he concludes that "The bottom line is that supervisors can't be trusted." Either there was more to the survey than he's telling or this is an outrageous conclusion from the response.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing for me was that the book never makes good on the promises made on the cover and in the publicity. The title says that you will learn "why great managers always ask the right questions." I never found that "why" anywhere. And there is the promise to teach you how to ask the right questions. I never found that either.
Bottom line: If you're looking for lists of questions you can ask yourself and others in a business context, you'll find that here. If you like dipping into books where there are the comments and observations of successful people, that's here, too.
But if you're trying to find out why great managers always ask the right questions or how to ask the right questions in the right way, you'll have to figure that out on your own. Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions won't be much help.
Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.
Categories: Book Review, Leadership
Tags: Book Review Leadership
Wally,
Thank you for taking time to review Just Ask Leadership. I would like to answer some of your criticisms of the book. The part that seems to get in your way of taking in the book is the subtitle. I have no issue with that. We did volumes of research with an independent company - Content Connections who ran many title options to a group of business book readers and the title that was most attractive was "Just Ask." Sadly when one sells a book to a major publishing house one looses control of the naming of the book even when hundreds of people are telling you what they want to see. The point of the book was singular in purpose and I still believe even after reading your review that it was accomplished. JUST ASK. Leaders today can not be getting down in the weeds in the detail - they need to get over the fact that they do not know everything and start asking. Additionally they really need to learn how to develop trust for their co-workers. At this inflection point in history when there is a flood of information, complexity and uncertainty it is hard to imagine a better way to build resilience as a leader and as an organization than by JUST ASKing. As for the research it was all done by either independent services or done by me with audiences I speak to using audience response technology. I do not claim to be an academic - I was searching for an answer to a question I had - this was not about ego, or building a business - it was why is it that this entire topic of Just Asking is not being taught in our business training programs and yet it is used often by some of the nations most successful leaders unconsciously competently. As for the organization of the book - again we came to the conclusion that unless we organized it in the way people think about leadership it would not sell - People buy books based on the cover, the inside flap, table of contents, and the first couple of pages. At the end of the day the book needs to sell or else it will go the way of all the other books before it that are trashed. We ran two focus groups with this book against two other best selling books prior to editing and we beat 3 out 4 of them. We had fifty readers in five groups of ten read a complete chapter and grade it on a 4 point scale. We received the best score that any book the firm had done previously 3.6 (and this is all they do). The book was rated baste on authenticity of the authors voice, the relevance of examples, among others. I did get one "F" and that was because a professor really wanted to make a point and see if I would call him - you bet I did.
As for the interviews - what fun for me - this was a journey that I took - I spent the time with many of these leaders face to face, some by phone and those closest to me over a meal. I know the type of books your referring to they do mail surveys and call them interviews. Not this book, I would not miss the opportunity to meet this amazing group of leaders. I spent hours with them.
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First, please accept some extravagant thank-yous for taking the time to add your thorough and thoughtful comments to my review of your book. It's rare and I, and the blog readers appreciate it because it makes the review a better tool for them to decide whether to buy and read your book.
I understand what you say about what happens when you go with a major publishing house. I've had that experience myself. It's a reason why many of the clients I do ghostwriting and research for choose to control the publishing themselves. And I appreciate the illumination you've added on the book background.
It doesn't change my judgment of the book. I think there are lots of good questions in it and lots of comments from other experienced folks besides yourself, but I don't think the book does a good job of telling a reader why or how to ask the questions.
What is different now is this. Before your response, you were a faceless author of a book that I gave a three-star review to in a world where the average Amazon review is north of 4.6.
After the review I have an idea of who you are as a person, businessman, and author. It's a good picture. Thanks for taking the time to add to the review. Good luck with the book.
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Books of whatever kind should be absorbed with total openess of the mind. It does not matter if the author is celebrated or not; we have to read between the words and try to understand to viewpoint of the author: never our viewpoint because if we do, we become judgmental.
I know it is imperative the truthfulness of the fact stated but we must remember that we are not perfect. Readers should also remember that they are dissecting the ideas of other NOT just absorbing them.
We can learn for a good book as well as badly written books. In case of the later, we need to learnfrom what it lacks and not of the perceived shortcomings of the author.
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