Ask

Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs In Leadership and Life

By: Jeff Wetzler, Amy Edmondson

Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann

Globally recognized expert on learning and leadership, Jeff Wetzler offers a hands-on, surprisingly effective way to find out what others really think, know, and feel. Ask leads to smarter decisions, more creative solutions, and deeper relationships.

Too often, we don’t find out what’s truly on others’ hearts and minds because we don’t know how to ask the right questions in the right ways. Co-founder of Transcend and former international business consultant and Teach for America executive Jeff Wetzler wants to show you how to fix that. In Ask, he brings you a powerful method called The Ask Approach™, based on a simple premise: that tapping into what other people truly think, know, and feel is a game-changing superpower.

In Section I, Wetzler reveals the most common things that people think and feel but often keep to themselves, as well as the key reasons why they choose to withhold information that could be valuable to you and your organization.

Section II delves into the five steps of the Ask Approach, each answering an essential question:

1. Choose Curiosity: How can you awaken your curiosity to make new discoveries and unexpected connections?
2. Make it Safe: How do you make it easier for people to tell you hard things?
3. Pose Quality Questions: What questions will best tap into the wisdom of anyone you ask?
4. Listen to Learn: How can you hear what someone is really trying to tell you?
5. Reflect & Reconnect: How do you turn talk into action?

Section III helps you make asking an everyday superpower–not only for yourself, but also for your team and organization, as well as for the next generation and society at large.

The skills and messages of Ask could not be more timely. In a fast-changing world where AI is supplanting an increasing range of skills, the ability to learn from and connect with other people is one of the most important, fulfilling, and uniquely human capabilities to master.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Jeff Wetzler (P)2024 Hachette Go

Critic reviews

"In Ask, Jeff Wetzler goes deep on the first step in the Radical Candor order of operations: solicit candor. The book provides an invaluable, highly actionable method for drawing out the real thoughts, feelings, and experiences of those around you. If you want to build relationships and organizations rooted in honesty and openness -- improving learning, innovation, and results in the process -- this book is required reading. Ask gets to the heart of what it takes to invite the full humanity of those around you."—Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor and Radical Respect.

“I am delighted to provide a few opening thoughts for this remarkable new book about the challenge of learning what we most need to know from the people around us….In this readable, compassionate, intelligent and useful book, Jeff Wetzler teaches us how to do just that… And learning how to ask others what they truly think, know, and feel has never been more important.” [Excerpted from Foreword]—Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School Professor & author of The Fearless Organization & Right Kind of Wrong

"Jeff has worked alongside some of the foremost experts on group dynamics, including Chris Argyris, David Kantor, and Diana Smith. He has not only applied the insights he gained from these thought leaders in his own leadership across multiple organizations but also integrated them to develop his own distinctive point of view. This book does a masterful job of bridging theory and practice, offering invaluable guidance to any leader who seeks to build a culture of curiosity, creativity, and continuous learning. "—Sameer B Srivastava, Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Thought provoking examples and relevance

This book takes a widely relevant approach to curiosity but offers lots of interesting examples to keep the reader engaged.