As they say, to get the right answer you need to ask the right question. A wayward, incorrect question can only give you the wrong answer. Asking the right question makes all the difference, according to Frank Sesno. In Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change, the author shows you how asking the correct question and correctly framing the question can help you solve difficult problems, generate great new ideas, and even help you build relationships.
Frank Sesno is an Emmy Award-winning journalist with more than thirty years of experience reporting from around the world.He has interviewed heads of state including five U.S. Presidents and many other influential figures in Business and Arts . Sesno currently serves as Director of The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, where he leads nearly two dozen world-class faculty and teaches The Art of the Interview in addition to classes on journalism ethics, documentary, and sustainability reporting.
Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change
Author: Frank Sesno
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: AMACOM (January 10, 2017)
ISBN-10: 0814436714, 978-0814436714
Ask More Book Review
We ask questions every day, and we are asked every day too. But the out come of our dialogue is not always what we want it to be. In Ask More, the author points out how your goals change the questions that you should ask. He makes you realize how your questions more or less shape the answers you get. We ask questions when appliances do not work, we ask questions when people don’t show up for work, and we ask questions when we believe that the other person is not being truthful or not giving the entire truth. However, the success of these different lines of questioning depends upon the type of questions you ask.
In series of chapters, Frank Sesno picks each type of questioning tactic and shows you how to approach a specific situation. The type of questions you ask when you want to troubleshoot are different than the types of questions you should ask when you are trying to make new friends or getting to know people in a new place.
For example, diagnostic questions used by doctors, consultants, and tech support are intended to narrow down to the problem area. They start at the periphery and eliminate possibilities until they come down to one or two, before acting.
Ask More shows you how these different approaches are used with real-world examples. The story like format of these examples makes it easy to understand and fun to read. The author also covers how you can ask more important and long-range questions. Strategic questions that will shape your business or your investment decisions.
Ask More ends with a Question Guide where the author shares some typical questions. However, the book is not a prescriptive handbook. The author doesn’t give you specific questions – like the ones you should ask on your first date! The book is more of a framework that a reference manual that you can carry around. The book will give you the skills you need to frame the correct questions in the right context.