This interview originally appeared on What Would Dad Say
Ed. Note (GL Hoffman): Gary Cohen is a friend of mine here in Minnesota. He is a proven entrepreneur, one of the companies he started went from two employees to over 2,000. Seriously. He is a thoughtful, interesting guy to say the least. As he was developing his business, he discovered how important being a leader was instead of just being a manager. That started him off on a lifetime of learning about leadership. His study of leadership took him on an interesting nearly three year journey that culminated with the publication of his new book JUST ASK LEADERSHIP.
I am not a book reviewer. But I did find the story of how a business leader developed even more leadership skills himself to be fascinating. But not nearly as fascinating as the story of how a guy with a learning disability applied his entrepreneural skills to publishing a book. I don’t think many business writers approach their writings with such determination. I hope you like this Q and A format. Warning: it is long. You should buy the book.
Here is the interview with Gary Cohen, author of JUST ASK LEADERSHIP.
Gary, what caused you to write this book? Was there something you just had to say? What was the inspiration?
What is it? I don’t know, really. What is it that continued to bother me? It was not the desire to write a book. It was not about creating a business. I had just left one and was on a sabbatical. I was enjoying the downtime – although my mind was a bit restless. It was this nagging sense of something unsaid on the subject of leadership. This is a subject that is well documented , has many scholarly opinions and many practitioners working to develop models to make it easier to comprehend for the next generation of leaders. Still, the entire subject has always fascinated me and the more I studied, and learned from others, the more I felt a longer lasting commitment to it.
What was it that you wanted to contribute that, frankly, has not been covered in so many ways by so many different authors?
I had taken part in many leadership programs from Outward Bound, OPM at Harvard Business School, Covey Leadership Institute, Disney Leadership Institute, and lastly as a Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. I have learned so much through these programs about being a better leader and yet something kept gnawing at me. It was a missing a piece. How did these things connect with me and how I went about my day as a leader?
Interesting. We all have left these programs, all excited and motivated but fail to see how we can change our own life in a productive way.
Exactly. How do we apply these lessons? If I had an cultural anthropologist follow me and mark down all of my behaviors during my business day, they would have seen me asking a lot of questions. The questions start off with a sense of not knowing then moving to a sense of knowing, and then finally back to where it began to realizing how little I actually knew. Asking questions is where I spent my day – and yet even with all the wisdom from all of these programs the one missing obvious piece was that leadership starts with a question and then continues.
Very few people get to study leadership to the degree you have, and then to find something missing about the subject, that is unique. How would you describe the missing element?
My working hypothesis for this future study was simply: “All leaders use questions as a strategy to lead others.”
But you didn’t stop there, did you? You kept at it.
I knew it was not my style to do a quantitative study of leadership. I will leave that to my academic colleagues and those I have partnered up with since writing the book. The one thing people say about me is that I know a lot of people (I just really love people). So I began networking to identify leaders and then increased my efforts to find exceptional leaders.
It is one thing to get a meeting, I think many leaders of organizations are more accessible than is typically believed, but what did you do to get the information out of them that you needed?
Before I began I drew up a list of questions that I thought would explore the practice of using questions. I looked at them as drop in points to keep the conversation dynamic. If something caught my attention in the conversation I would go deeper into that topic area further until I was satisfied that I understood the point well enough to communicate it to the reader. I tape recorded every interview so that I could have transcripts made along the way. If I got some new insight I would test it out on future leaders to see if they had similar experiences. I was looking for those pieces that would bring this all together. Some coherent model that others could expedite their leadership from if I could distill it with the help of these exceptional leaders.
So you didn’t just read the questions?
Oh no, what I did not do is read each question verbatim with the leader and wait for the answer to compare the answer among them. Because I did not know what I was looking for I was truly exploring with each leader.
Was it difficult to get in to see them? The list of leaders you interviewed is made up of the nation’s top leaders.
I asked for an hour and a half to interview them on the subject of the book. I did this first by email explaining what I was doing and how I thought they could be helpful. I gave them a list of names of people I had already spoken to and the ones that I intended to. The level of openness, candor and willingness to help was a pleasant surprise. Of the many people I asked, I was turned down by only three and had over one hundred interviews in all.
After you started the interviews, did your basic hypothesis change at all?
While I conducted interviews I noticed I would have to modify the original thought. It is exceptional leaders not all leaders that understand the power of asking questions. And the mission I was taking on was moving people from telling to asking and if I did there could be a ground swell of change in organizations.
Exceptional leaders ask questions, is that the quick summary? It has to be deeper than that?
Yes, I think so. I can recall walking down Main Street in Aspen talking with Josh Ramo, who happened to be the youngest editor ever in the history of Time Magazine. I was sharing with him my disappointment in what has been written about leadership. We had been selected along with 18 other young leaders to meet at the Aspen Institute for a week each summer over three years to discuss our leadership and develop our skills to a deeper and richer level. It was to help us all moving from success to significance. In his casual reporter like fashion he started to draw my thinking out further.
Was this the real ah-ha moment for you, in terms of writing a book? It sounds like you have had the practical side of leadership, where you grew a company from nothing to something quickly, coupled with all these professional courses, seminars and relationships, but it took one moment to bring it all together?
Maybe. I remember discussing with Josh how all these books have either an academic tone so far removed from leadership I don’t find them helpful. Or they are so much about the person writing them it is difficult to find your own leadership style in reading them. Most of the accounts are so historic in nature they identify the speeches or the writings but not the questions that lead the leadership at the time. I couldn’t imagine President Kennedy in the oval office telling everyone what to do during the Bay of Pigs. My image is that of a thoughtful leader asking other well informed people what they think should be done? What has been done? What are we going to do about this situation? But how would that look to see our President asking questions rather than sounding like John Wayne? I told Josh that leadership to me was more up close and personal, it is not about telling people what to do, it is about asking people what should we do. I spend 80 percent of my time asking questions. When I asked Josh if he did the same thing, he said “That seems right but I have never considered it before.”
That was the point when you decided to write the book?
It was at that moment I knew a book was in my future. Who ever thought that a kid with a learning difference as severe as mine would grow up to be so impassioned by a subject that he would suffer for two years to get these thoughts down on paper.
Some people would have not started given your learning deficiencies, did you have to get some help?
For the longest time I tried to do it the way others do with a ghost writer but after two tries I gave it up. My friend Bill McLaughlin who is CEO of Select Comfort invited me to his cabin to visit one afternoon. When I shared with him my dilemma he said, “Gary you need to write this yourself.” I went on and on about my learning challenges and he kept yes, asking me more questions that only lead me to one answer. I had to write this book myself in my voice. Thanks to Harry Beckwith, one of the best selling business book writers of our time, best known for Selling the Invisible, I was hooked up with his first editor Eric Vrooman. Eric has this great ability to take my writing and make it sound like the voice in my head or the word from my mouth.
How did you determine who would be interviewed?
This was not an academic pursuit where I picked the top performing companies or organization from around the country. This was a pursuit of a personal kind from an entrepreneur not an academic. It was simpler–who did I know that could lead me to very successful leaders who were well respected by their peers and employees. I formally interviewed over 50 highly effective leaders from around the country. I say formally because a dear friend of mine Marcy Syms told me how she was asked for an interview for a book on leadership and she agreed. They sent her a form and asked her to send it back. After the edits she could not recognize her opinion as her own. I have also heard professors giving speeches when they say, “When we interviewed xyz leader for the book.” That to me is code for the professor did not do the interviews him/her self. By doing all these interviews myself, the reader of JUST ASK can go along with me, on my personal journey of discovery.
How long were the interviews?
The shortest interview was an hour in length and the longest was with Mike Harper former CEO of ConAgra who was just so generous with his time and his wisdom. We spent 4 enlightening hours together that have been invaluable to me.
Who else were noteworthy subjects?
General Jack Chain a four-star Army General, Ken Stinson who runs one of the world’s largest construction companies.. In Minneapolis, Gary Stern, the President of the Federal Reserve, and Mary Brainerd, one of the most innovative leaders in Health Care today. There are so many. I met and interviewed several people from the Aspen Institute including Walter Issacson, former head of CNN and author of “Benjamin Franklin” and “Einstein,” Tom Pritzker, CEO and Chairman of the Hyatt Corporation, Arne Duncan ,Chief Education Officer for Chicago, and Lester Crown, who I am proud to call my mentor. I attended the Harvard OPM program for entrepreneurs and again have had the chance to become friends with some amazing leaders, Marcy Syms, Tom Oreck, Henry Chidgey, Glenn Rothman and many more. Each of these friends have been so helpful and supportive to me on my quest for learning and understanding how leaders use questions to manifest the characteristics of leadership that we hear about in our popular trade publications and books on leadership. One of the funniest interviews for me was J. Peterman – not the one from Seinfeld but the real one.
Was it that simple to get meetings with these people? There must be more to it?
You get out your rolodex or look through Inc Magazine, Fortune, Forbes and you say “OK let’s start networking.” I have been accused of being one of the world’s best networkers – I love people and I love to understand them and help them. It is no wonder I have chosen Executive Coaching as my Second Career. I love connecting people to others. In this case I reversed that desire and asked people to connect me with who they know that were either great leaders or well known leaders. The well known part became more important only after I decided this was about the book. Sadly our country is caught up in the desire to extol the virtues of the famous. If I selected names only that way all I would have here is another book on leadership for featuring the same old leaders.” This time I thought it was worth sharing what I learned with the rest of the world. This began as a selfish journey of discovery and ended up a journey of passion to share what I have learned with the larger world – moving from success to significance.
Tell us about the process. What happened after each interview?
After each interview I often got totally excited by some new discovery and could not wait to write an entry for the book. My fingers could not keep up with my mind when I get this excited. Some of the thoughts did not come out clear but clear enough for me to make sense. People who spend time with me say what they like about how I retell situations is that I don’t go on and on about the details. I move to the point quickly.
That sounds like you broke the rules of good storytelling.
Exactly, I am sure it has a lot to do with my impatience. When someone is telling me a story and they go on and on about the chronology of events I get totally impatient, “just get to the point,” I am thinking.. It may also be that I have a pretty attuned predictive skill so I am finishing the story in my head before they get to the end. I can’t say that is true for my writing. It does not seem to carry my voice that I use when I speak and I must say that I prefer the one I hear verses the one I read.
Did you do all of the writing yourself?
At first, I thought I needed a ghost writer, someone who could take my words and clean them up a bit. The first one I found was very good but found that his availability and mine did not line up so I moved on. The next idea I had was to hire a PHD student to work with who was a terrific writer and she really understood the material. This again was a failed attempt. Then I reached out to a couple others and began getting frustrated between my lack of ability or at least my lack of confidence in myself to put words to screen or to find a solution to finding a ghost writer.
Tell us about the editing process.
Instead of finding a ghostwriter I decided to find an editor. Harry Beckwith suggested Eric Vrooman, who edited his first book. Eric and I decided this would be a good working relationship and it was then I could really envision something great happening. He had the ability to match my written word with my speaking voice. And his affirmation and support of what I provided him to work with kept inspiring me to write. We would push each other to move the book along. It was a three-year journey. We didn’t know where we were going but trusted in the journey to carry us to exactly what we needed to put the many pieces together. In the end it was amazing what we had accomplished. Or so we thought.
In this process of editing, did you arrive at any new solutions because of your executive experience as opposed to being a professional author?
Here is an example: I met the CEO of Content Connection. They were launching a new product with Holly McAllister called Author Bound. Content connection was in the business of working for publishers to validate the projects that they were working on via research. Think of it as a continuing focus group except only for content. David and I hit it off and they agreed to use me as a case study for this new product. This was the most amazing process to put a book through prior to publishing or even before selling to a publisher. In fact he has done this work for six authors to date and everyone one has gotten a book deal with a major publisher. They took me through their entire ACCESS model which allowed us to understand the viability of the book and where the book would need to change to increase its appeal to the market we were targeting. ACCESS stands for Audience, Concept, Competition, Execution, Sales Viability and Social Networks.
That sounds pretty rigorous. I imagine most authors would not want the feedback at this early stage?
You are right…talk about putting me through the paces. It is a very extensive process that significantly changed the final version. The first deep dive into the material had to do with what readers would want from a book like this. Normally this would be done before the book was written – not after it had been written. We put it out to the market and asked them what they wanted based on the concept? What would they name this book? What did they think about the chapter’s names and the content we were proposing. Who did they think the book was written for?
How much of the book did you change? Was JUST ASK LEADERSHIP the working title?
Based on this research we changed the original name from Ask, Don’t Tell to Just Ask. Just Ask is not what I thought the title should be – my favorite was Ask, Don’t Tell. The participants described the issues they had with the chapters. Based on their feedback we took an entire chapter out of the book and we changed every chapter’s title, including some of the content. We became more focused on our market and found a great deal of interest in the educational market because there were some professors in the focus group, for example.
How much did this effort match with a normal focus group?
Very similar, we tested the book against two comparable best selling books. QBQ (Question Behind the Question) and True North. In the focus group participants read a chapter of each book and then were asked their preference based upon what they read without knowing the name of the book. Additionally, we use copy from the cover of each book and had them compare their interest in the topic based on the text.. In the first focus group we beat both books and in the second QBQ came out slightly ahead. This was before we incorporated the many changes and alterations that were suggested in both the first and second process of ACCESS.
This sounds helpful but a little scarey to a first time writer?
I’d say unnerving. They sent each chapter to a group of participants that were business leaders and professors of Business. In this research they asked the participants to grade each chapter A, B, C, D or F based on six categories such as voice of the author, usefulness of content, readability, usefulness of examples and quality of examples. Fifty people were part of the sample and this was a tough group including a President of a University, Professors of MBA Programs, CEOs of multinational organizations, some great business authors, and many more. Each group of ten would review a chapter and grade it and give very specific criticism and suggestions on how to improve the book. The book received a grade of 3.6 out of 4 before we made any improvements. And boy, did we make improvements. We cut out some of the entries, pulled some examples and strengthened the writing. Areas of confusion were straightened out. One person gave us an F which prompted me to call him. He said that is why he gave the F he want to get my attention so that we did not pass up on his comments.
Did you worry that your original inspiration would become diluted with so many cooks spoiling the broth as it were?
Some might worry that this type of editing would bring the book to the reader’s point of view and lose the author’s voice. We did not find this.. David Brake, Holly McAllister, Eric Vrooman and I would debate what we learned and if we agreed or disagreed with the comment. Many we did agree with and made the changes. The whole notion of this process was so important given the topic of the book , which is to ask. It really took a great deal of courage to be graded by your reader and yet in order to produce the best possible book it would be impossible to do this without such a set of tools.
This sounds like a very complete and thoughtful process. Were there any missteps or things you tried that didn’t work?
Based upon what I thought it would take to get a book deal and get it published, I decided to use a small PR firm in Steamboat, CO, called Fryer and Associates. Sharri Fryer specializes in promoting Executive Coaches, HR professionals and consultants. It was a perfect fit and she delivered big time – within that year I was in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Business Week, HR.com, ASTD T&D Magazine to mention only a few.
The only issue was my timing was off by about two years. So what turned out to be not so helpful in building momentum for the book was very helpful in building a credible platform for my business. It had to help build my credibility for later efforts.
So now you were ready to find a publisher?
First, if you are publishing a business book and you are from Minneapolis, the first name on the agent list is Jonathan Lazear. After signing with him, I noticed Jonathan was really quite involved with many projects and he and I agreed that he could not maximize the opportunity for me. He and Eric spoke and we decided that John Larson would be a great Literary Agent for us. Both of these men have represented many best selling titles in their career. While this was all happening David Brake from the Content Connection was insistent that I join he and Holly McAllister at the Annual BEA (Major Book Expo) in LA. He wanted me to personally meet all the major publishers and he was going to make these introductions. Could I ask for any more help? I think not. By the end of the two days I had met with the folks at Wiley, McGraw Hill, Penguin and a number of others. It was pretty clear that several of them had a keen interest in the book.
That seems easy. Was it?
I thought It could not happen this easily. At this point I was even wondering if I needed an agent. And then I decided as a first time author, I really knew nothing of the process so I should have one representing me. I am glad I did because of the protections around what rights I keep vs. the publisher. Although we had some more interest from Harvard Press it was clear it was going to be the relationship with McGraw Hill that we wanted to pursue most aggressively. Even though the time was not opportune to sell a book to a publisher between the down economy, the presidential race , many said we love the book but come and see us after the election and the swarm of economy crashing books are out. They were buying both sides of the election depending on who one – they could not be without their book on the historic moment.
Did you look at self-publishing especially after all the work you had done personally?
This has become quite an alternative for authors today – the quality of the product is truly competitive. In fact if one has a big platform to promote the book from, they will likely make more money doing it themselves. On the other hand, I wanted to be vetted by the pros – the people who read thousands of books and choose only forty to publish. I wanted the branding of an established publishing house to lift the credibility of the book. I wanted the reach of McGraw Hill has through its vast distribution system. I wanted the experience of people who knew what they were doing and do it every day – and get great satisfaction to build another success story. I was told that the speaker bureaus would find an author from a major publishing house way more credible to book for speaking engagements. And so I had made my choice. To date I am very happy with the choice.
Were you satisfied with the negotiation process?
As a first time author there is almost no leverage you have especially when you consider that every day there are over 3,000 new titles put out for sale. If you are lucky enough to get a bidding war going – you may create some leverage. That was not the case for us. We accepted their bid and worked with them on the terms. Why not negotiate more – the wisdom came from a friend who asked the question I ask all my clients, “What is your goal?” If the goal is not to maximize dollars on an upfront payment but to make fees on speaking, training, coaching then accept whatever the terms are because any delay will be lost opportunity to earning those fees.” It was sound advice and I chose to follow it.
Were there any last minute surprises?
I just assumed that because we did all this research on the title and vetted 13 different choices, some suggested by some of the best copy writers in the world, that the publisher would just go along with the title: Just Ask – Greatness Happens When You Ask. And because this was never an issue raised at our discussion when signing the contract, I simply thought that the title was the title. And yet I knew from speaking with many authors it is never that easy. They said the title would not work, and yet all the PR folks and research said we found the best title. The title was changed to a suggestion I had when I thought that this was a fight (started feeling like one) that I was going to lose. The title for a while became Engaging Leaders. This was really concerning to me given that when writing the book we thought of one thing – how do we get leaders to move from Telling to Asking. At a certain point I was more concerned about discouraging the team that I had worked so hard to get on board. So I set aside the difference and moved on in pretty good spirits. You know,my attitude was that McGraw Hill was publishing my book, how cool is that.
This must have been a pretty spirited discussion after hearing your title in your own head for months, years even?
I was in New York for a board meeting and I booked a lunch with my editor Mary Glenn. I’m thinking how fun is this going to some really cool tradition New York restaurant with my editor. The emotional feeling of this was total filling inside. I decided I would not bring up the issue of the title. And at one point Mary asked, why were you so set on the name. I explained to her those years ago I was trained by a professional speaker trainer Bob Boylan who has a book, What is your point? The message is clear when you speak you have to have a single point of view one message regardless of the number of stories that you want your audience to remember. This is because they are only going to remember one thing – either you decide or let them decide. So when I wrote this book that point of view is that exceptional leaders ask questions most of the time so how can I convince the reader that they can become exceptional too if they began asking more questions. So that is how Just Ask Leadership came to be.
So, the launch was scheduled for late summer, 2009. What else did you do to get ready for a successful launch?
The PR firm I worked with in Steamboat did not specialize in Business to Business books. I knew there were firms out there that did just this. So like everything else along the way I started asking people who knew and by the end of my search, I had narrowed the search from approximately 25 firms to 5 firms. Of the five firms I narrowed to three and of the three the one who seemed to work the hardest for the business. What I found interesting is that I employed our PEAK Leadership model in making a choice. I know I ask questions most comfortably from perspective and Action. This search required me to be much more disciplined and employ many more evaluative questions in selecting the best firm. Jane Wesman PR firm now represents the book and me.
Is this normal for an author to have his own PR firm and not the publisher?
It is a good idea to get a PR firm on board about 90 days a head of the book launch. The reason for this was only revealed to me once I was late in choosing a firm. There are about ten major business publications that require a long lead-time because of how they schedule and plan their stories in the magazines. If you miss the date you may miss the opportunity to be presented in these publications. What I did not understand about McGraw Hill is that unlike many of the other publishers they do not provide galleys. I never understood the importance of galleys until I understood how they are used. These are early publications of the books that can be sent to these magazines, editors, and journalists to give them a pre-release of the book. I am certain, and still guessing that McGraw Hill decided for what they gain in efficiency and cost savings in not having them that the early release is not that much to offset the costs. Jane was the only one who got this of all the firms I spoke to and she executed her plan perfectly, she simply asked McGraw Hill to custom copy 10 books to send out early. Having the right people on your team is a relief.
Are you planning any road trips or author parties?
I was really looking forward to doing book signings and the like. But the wisdom of the crowd was that it is both a waste of time and resources. I have chosen to host some book launch parties in Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, and Scottsdale. And while I am in those towns we plan on booking media and public speeches to maximize the travel costs.
Aren’t the economics of this effort hard to justify?
Yes, when you consider you could purchase the books and just send them to two or three times the number of people for the cost. The flaw in this thinking is two fold. Authors of Business Books rarely make money on the book. The reward is to their own business. The more established the book the more it benefits the business. Having events allows you to meet with many more people and create in-person connections around the topic of the book. It is a more powerful way to spread the word – if the word is worth spreading. Secondly, I am very reluctant to give the book away. The cost is not the issue for me it is all about the commitment that the buyer makes when deciding to spend money to purchase the book. In that transaction the purchaser is starting their process of committing to read the book. I found when I was President of my business and when authors would send me books unsolicited I rarely read them. I am a person that purchases at least three books per month on average. I love to read. Additionally if a friend gave me a book with an endorsement – it would be rare that I would not read that book. In fact they often went to the front of my reading list – which is a stack of about 20 books either in my bedroom or in the office – now more often on my Kindle. Because of this experience I find that I promote the book based upon the idea that it has to be sent by a friend with a strong relationship or it needs to be bought.
So tell us about the speech planning?
This whole idea just sort of took off. It became a product to build that would perform well in the market place. And finally it became an idea worth spreading. And the word was going to cost a great deal of money to launch – so where was the payback if not in the book? The number one payback on books comes from speaking engagements. The first ones I booked on the topic of Just Ask was with SHERM Association, then a leadership breakfast, and from there I began getting paid from many large international organizations. The fees were good and it has been a great deal of fun spreading the idea. It seems to be universal I have had several audiences with totally international make-up and each audience was welcoming of the idea of Just Ask Leadership.
Interesting dilemma, giving a speech on Just ask when the medium, a speech is all about telling. How did you solve this issue?
The struggle with speaking on a subject dealing with questions is that such a significant paradox appears. I am going to TELL you why you should ASK Questions. That did not go over well with my need to be consistent. So I hooked up with Turning Technologies, which offers a solution to the dilemma. Using their technology I can ask the audience questions and have them respond. The results go up on the PowerPoint instantly. And then we can talk about those responses with the respondent. Because of them – people just can’t go to sleep – it is a way of having total engagement with your audience.
How can people get in touch with you?
Probably the easiest way is through my website, CO2 Partners.
Thanks Gary, and good luck with the book.
Gary, what caused you to write this book? Was there something you just had to say? What was the inspiration?
What is it? I don’t know, really. What is it that continued to bother me? It was not the desire to write a book. It was not about creating a business. I had just left one and was on a sabbatical. I was enjoying the downtime – although my mind was a bit restless. It was this nagging sense of something unsaid on the subject of leadership. This is a subject that is well documented , has many scholarly opinions and many practitioners working to develop models to make it easier to comprehend for the next generation of leaders. Still, the entire subject has always fascinated me and the more I studied, and learned from others, the more I felt a longer lasting commitment to it.
What was it that you wanted to contribute that, frankly, has not been covered in so many ways by so many different authors?
I had taken part in many leadership programs from Outward Bound, OPM at Harvard Business School, Covey Leadership Institute, Disney Leadership Institute, and lastly as a Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. I have learned so much through these programs about being a better leader and yet something kept gnawing at me. It was a missing a piece. How did these things connect with me and how I went about my day as a leader?
Interesting. We all have left these programs, all excited and motivated but fail to see how we can change our own life in a productive way.
Exactly. How do we apply these lessons? If I had an cultural anthropologist follow me and mark down all of my behaviors during my business day, they would have seen me asking a lot of questions. The questions start off with a sense of not knowing then moving to a sense of knowing, and then finally back to where it began to realizing how little I actually knew. Asking questions is where I spent my day – and yet even with all the wisdom from all of these programs the one missing obvious piece was that leadership starts with a question and then continues.
Very few people get to study leadership to the degree you have, and then to find something missing about the subject, that is unique. How would you describe the missing element?
My working hypothesis for this future study was simply: “All leaders use questions as a strategy to lead others.”
But you didn’t stop there, did you? You kept at it.
I knew it was not my style to do a quantitative study of leadership. I will leave that to my academic colleagues and those I have partnered up with since writing the book. The one thing people say about me is that I know a lot of people ( I just really love people). So I began networking to identify leaders and then increased my efforts to find exceptional leaders.
It is one thing to get a meeting, I think many leaders of organizations are more accessible than is typically believed, but what did you do to get the information out of them that you needed?
Before I began I drew up a list of questions that I thought would explore the practice of using questions. I looked at them as drop in points to keep the conversation dynamic. If something caught my attention in the conversation I would go deeper into that topic area further until I was satisfied that I understood the point well enough to communicate it to the reader. I tape recorded every interview so that I could have transcripts made along the way. If I got some new insight I would test it out on future leaders to see if they had similar experiences. I was looking for those pieces that would bring this all together. Some coherent model that others could expedite their leadership from if I could distill it with the help of these exceptional leaders.
So you didn’t just read the questions?
Oh no, what I did not do is read each question verbatim with the leader and wait for the answer to compare the answer among them. Because I did not know what I was looking for I was truly exploring with each leader.
Was it difficult to get in to see them? The list of leaders you interviewed is made up of the nation’s top leaders.
I asked for an hour and a half to interview them on the subject of the book. I did this first by email explaining what I was doing and how I thought they could be helpful. I gave them a list of names of people I had already spoken to and the ones that I intended to. The level of openness, candor and willingness to help was a pleasant surprise. Of the many people I asked, I was turned down by only three and had over one hundred interviews in all.
After you started the interviews, did your basic hypothesis change at all?
While I conducted interviews I noticed I would have to modify the original thought. It is exceptional leaders not all leaders that understand the power of asking questions. And the mission I was taking on was moving people from telling to asking and if I did there could be a ground swell of change in organizations.
Exceptional leaders ask questions, is that the quick summary? It has to be deeper than that?
Yes, I think so. I can recall walking down Main Street in Aspen talking with Josh Ramo, who happened to be the youngest editor ever in the history of Time Magazine. I was sharing with him my disappointment in what has been written about leadership. We had been selected along with 18 other young leaders to meet at the Aspen Institute for a week each summer over three years to discuss our leadership and develop our skills to a deeper and richer level. It was to help us all moving from success to significance. In his casual reporter like fashion he started to draw my thinking out further.
Was this the real ah-ha moment for you, in terms of writing a book? It sounds like you have had the practical side of leadership, where you grew a company from nothing to something quickly, coupled with all these professional courses, seminars and relationships, but it took one moment to bring it all together?
Maybe. I remember discussing with Josh how all these books have either an academic tone so far removed from leadership I don’t find them helpful. Or they are so much about the person writing them it is difficult to find your own leadership style in reading them. Most of the accounts are so historic in nature they identify the speeches or the writings but not the questions that lead the leadership at the time. I couldn’t imagine President Kennedy in the oval office telling everyone what to do during the Bay of Pigs. My image is that of a thoughtful leader asking other well informed people what they think should be done? What has been done? What are we going to do about this situation? But how would that look to see our President asking questions rather than sounding like John Wayne? I told Josh that leadership to me was more up close and personal, it is not about telling people what to do, it is about asking people what should we do. I spend 80 percent of my time asking questions. When I asked Josh if he did the same thing, he said “That seems right but I have never considered it before.”
That was the point when you decided to write the book?
It was at that moment I knew a book was in my future. Who ever thought that a kid with a learning difference as severe as mine would grow up to be so impassioned by a subject that he would suffer for two years to get these thoughts down on paper.
Some people would have not started given your learning deficiencies, did you have to get some help?
For the longest time I tried to do it the way others do with a ghost writer but after two tries I gave it up. My friend Bill McLaughlin who is CEO of Select Comfort invited me to his cabin to visit one afternoon. When I shared with him my dilemma he said, “Gary you need to write this yourself.” I went on and on about my learning challenges and he kept yes, asking me more questions that only lead me to one answer. I had to write this book myself in my voice. Thanks to Harry Beckwith, one of the best selling business book writers of our time, best known for Selling the Invisible, I was hooked up with his first editor Eric Vrooman. Eric has this great ability to take my writing and make it sound like the voice in my head or the word from my mouth.
How did you determine who would be interviewed?
This was not an academic pursuit where I picked the top performing companies or organization from around the country. This was a pursuit of a personal kind from an entrepreneur not an academic. It was simpler–who did I know that could lead me to very successful leaders who were well respected by their peers and employees. I formally interviewed over 50 highly effective leaders from around the country. I say formally because a dear friend of mine Marcy Syms told me how she was asked for an interview for a book on leadership and she agreed. They sent her a form and asked her to send it back. After the edits she could not recognize her opinion as her own. I have also heard professors giving speeches when they say, “When we interviewed xyz leader for the book.” That to me is code for the professor did not do the interviews him/her self. By doing all these interviews myself, the reader of JUST ASK can go along with me, on my personal journey of discovery.
How long were the interviews?
The shortest interview was an hour in length and the longest was with Mike Harper former CEO of ConAgra who was just so generous with his time and his wisdom. We spent 4 enlightening hours together that have been invaluable to me.
Who else were noteworthy subjects?
General Jack Chain a four-star Army General, Ken Stinson who runs one of the world’s largest construction companies.. In Minneapoliis, Gary Stern, the President of the Federal Reserve, and Mary Brainerd, one of the most innovative leaders in Health Care today. There are so many. I met and interviewed several people from the Aspen Institute including Walter Issacson, former head of CNN and author of “Benjamin Franklin” and “Einstein,” Tom Pritzker, CEO and Chairman of the Hyatt Corporation, Arne Duncan ,Chief Education Officer for Chicago, and Lester Crown, who I am proud to call my mentor. I attended the Harvard OPM program for entrepreneurs and again have had the chance to become friends with some amazing leaders, Marcy Syms, Tom Oreck, Henry Chidgey, Glenn Rothman and many more. Each of these friends have been so helpful and supportive to me on my quest for learning and understanding how leaders use questions to manifest the characteristics of leadership that we hear about in our popular trade publications and books on leadership. One of the funniest interviews for me was J. Peterman – not the one from Seinfeld but the real one.
Was it that simple to get meetings with these people? There must be more to it?
You get out your rolodex or look through Inc Magazine, Fortune, Forbes and you say “OK let’s start networking.” I have been accused of being one of the world’s best networkers – I love people and I love to understand them and help them. It is no wonder I have chosen Executive Coaching as my Second Career. I love connecting people to others. In this case I reversed that desire and asked people to connect me with who they know that were either great leaders or well known leaders. The well known part became more important only after I decided this was about the book. Sadly our country is caught up in the desire to extol the virtues of the famous. If I selected names only that way all I would have here is another book on leadership for featuring the same old leaders.” This time I thought it was worth sharing what I learned with the rest of the world. This began as a selfish journey of discovery and ended up a journey of passion to share what I have learned with the larger world – moving from success to significance.
Tell us about the process. What happened after each interview?
After each interview I often got totally excited by some new discovery and could not wait to write an entry for the book. My fingers could not keep up with my mind when I get this excited. Some of the thoughts did not come out clear but clear enough for me to make sense. People who spend time with me say what they like about how I retell situations is that I don’t go on and on about the details. I move to the point quickly.
That sounds like you broke the rules of good storytelling.
Exactly, I am sure it has a lot to do with my impatience. When someone is telling me a story and they go on and on about the chronology of events I get totally impatient, “just get to the point,” I am thinking.. It may also be that I have a pretty attuned predictive skill so I am finishing the story in my head before they get to the end. I can’t say that is true for my writing. It does not seem to carry my voice that I use when I speak and I must say that I prefer the one I hear verses the one I read.
Did you do all of the writing yourself?
At first, I thought I needed a ghost writer, someone who could take my words and clean them up a bit. The first one I found was very good but found that his availability and mine did not line up so I moved on. The next idea I had was to hire a PHD student to work with who was a terrific writer and she really understood the material. This again was a failed attempt. Then I reached out to a couple others and began getting frustrated between my lack of ability or at least my lack of confidence in myself to put words to screen or to find a solution to finding a ghost writer.
Tell us about the editing process.
Instead of finding a ghostwriter I decided to find an editor. Harry Beckwith suggested Eric Vrooman, who edited his first book. Eric and I decided this would be a good working relationship and it was then I could really envision something great happening. He had the ability to match my written word with my speaking voice. And his affirmation and support of what I provided him to work with kept inspiring me to write. We would push each other to move the book along. It was a three-year journey. We didn’t know where we were going but trusted in the journey to carry us to exactly what we needed to put the many pieces together. In the end it was amazing what we had accomplished. Or so we thought.
In this process of editing, did you arrive at any new solutions because of your executive experience as opposed to being a professional author?
Here is an example: I met the CEO of Content Connection. They were launching a new product with Holly McAllister called Author Bound. Content connection was in the business of working for publishers to validate the projects that they were working on via research. Think of it as a continuing focus group except only for content. David and I hit it off and they agreed to use me as a case study for this new product. This was the most amazing process to put a book through prior to publishing or even before selling to a publisher. In fact he has done this work for six authors to date and everyone one has gotten a book deal with a major publisher. The took me through there entire ACCESS model which allowed us to understand the viability of the book and where the book would need to change to increase its appeal to the market we were targeting. ACCESS stands for Audience, Concept, Competition, Execution, Sales Viability and Social Networks.
That sounds pretty rigorous. I imagine most authors would not want the feedback at this early stage?
You are right…talk about putting me through the paces. It is a very extensive process that significantly changed the final version. The first deep dive into the material had to do with what readers would want from a book like this. Normally this would be done before the book was written – not after it had been written. We put it out to the market and asked them what they wanted based on the concept? What would they name this book? What did they think about the chapter’s names and the content we were proposing. Who did they think the book was written for?
How much of the book did you change? Was JUST ASK LEADERSHIP the working title?
Based on this research we changed the original name from Ask, Don’t Tell to Just Ask. Just Ask is not what I thought the title should be – my favorite was Ask, Don’t Tell. The participants described the issues they had with the chapters. Based on their feedback we took an entire chapter out of the book and we changed every chapter’s title, including some of the content. We became more focused on our market and found a great deal of interest in the educational market because there were some professors in the focus group, for example.
How much did this effort match with a normal focus group?
Very similar, we tested the book against two comparable best selling books. QBQ (Question Behind the Question) and True North. In the focus group participants read a chapter of each book and then were asked their preference based upon what they read without knowing the name of the book. Additionally, we use copy from the cover of each book and had them compare their interest in the topic based on the text.. In the first focus group we beat both books and in the second QBQ came out slightly ahead. This was before we incorporated the many changes and alterations that were suggested in both the first and second process of ACCESS.
This sounds helpful but a little scarey to a first time writer?
I’d say unnerving. They sent each chapter to a group of participants that were business leaders and professors of Business. In this research they asked the participants to grade each chapter A, B, C, D or F based on six categories such as voice of the author, usefulness of content, readability, usefulness of examples and quality of examples. Fifty people were part of the sample and this was a tough group including a President of a University, Professors of MBA Programs, CEOs of multinational organizations, some great business authors, and many more. Each group of ten would review a chapter and grade it and give very specific criticism and suggestions on how to improve the book. The book received a grade of 3.6 out of 4 before we made any improvements. And boy, did we make improvements. We cut out some of the entries, pulled some examples and strengthened the writing. Areas of confusion were straightened out. One person gave us an F which prompted me to call him. He said that is why he gave the F he want to get my attention so that we did not pass up on his comments.
Did you worry that your original inspiration would become diluted with so many cooks spoiling the broth as it were?
Some might worry that this type of editing would bring the book to the reader’s point of view and lose the author’s voice. We did not find this.. David Brake, Holly McAllister, Eric Vrooman and I would debate what we learned and if we agreed or disagreed with the comment. Many we did agree with and made the changes. The whole notion of this process was so important given the topic of the book , which is to ask. It really took a great deal of courage to be graded by your reader and yet in order to produce the best possible book it would be impossible to do this without such a set of tools.
This sounds like a very complete and thoughtful process. Were there any missteps or things you tried that didn’t work?
Based upon what I thought it would take to get a book deal and get it published, I decided to use a small PR firm in Steamboat, CO, called Fryer and Associates. Sharri Fryer specializes in promoting Executive Coaches, HR professionals and consultants. It was a perfect fit and she delivered big time – within that year I was in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, Business Week, HR.com, ASTD T&D Magazine to mention only a few.
The only issue was my timing was off by about two years. So what turned out to be not so helpful in building momentum for the book was very helpful in building a credible platform for my business. It had to help build my credibility for later efforts.
So now you were ready to find a publisher?
First, if you are publishing a business book and you are from Minneapolis, the first name on the agent list is Jonathan Lazear. After signing with him, I noticed Jonathan was really quite involved with many projects and he and I agreed that he could not maximize the opportunity for me. He and Eric spoke and we decided that John Larson would be a great Literary Agent for us. Both of these men have represented many best selling titles in their career. While this was all happening David Brake from the Content Connection was insistent that I join he and Holly McAllister at the Annual BEA (Major Book Expo) in LA. He wanted me to personally meet all the major publishers and he was going to make these introductions. Could I ask for any more help? I think not. By the end of the two days I had met with the folks at Wiley, McGraw Hill, Penguin and a number of others. It was pretty clear that several of them had a keen interest in the book.
That seems easy. Was it?
I thought It could not happen this easily. At this point I was even wondering if I needed an agent. And then I decided as a first time author, I really knew nothing of the process so I should have one representing me. I am glad I did because of the protections around what rights I keep vs. the publisher. Although we had some more interest from Harvard Press it was clear it was going to be the relationship with McGraw Hill that we wanted to pursue most aggressively. Even though the time was not opportune to sell a book to a publisher between the down economy, the presidential race , many said we love the book but come and see us after the election and the swarm of economy crashing books are out. They were buying both sides of the election depending on who one – they could not be without their book on the historic moment.
Did you look at self-publishing especially after all the work you had done personally?
This has become quite an alternative for authors today – the quality of the product is truly competitive. In fact if one has a big platform to promote the book from, they will likely make more money doing it themselves. On the other hand, I wanted to be vetted by the pros – the people who read thousands of books and choose only forty to publish. I wanted the branding of an established publishing house to lift the credibility of the book. I wanted the reach of McGraw Hill has through its vast distribution system. I wanted the experience of people who knew what they were doing and do it every day – and get great satisfaction to build another success story. I was told that the speaker bureaus would find an author from a major publishing house way more credible to book for speaking engagements. And so I had made my choice. To date I am very happy with the choice.
Were you satisfied with the negotiation process?
As a first time author there is almost no leverage you have especially when you consider that every day there are over 3,000 new titles put out for sale. If you are lucky enough to get a bidding war going – you may create some leverage. That was not the case for us. We accepted their bid and worked with them on the terms. Why not negotiate more – the wisdom came from a friend who asked the question I ask all my clients, “What is your goal?” If the goal is not to maximize dollars on an upfront payment but to make fees on speaking, training, coaching then accept whatever the terms are because any delay will be lost opportunity to earning those fees.” It was sound advice and I choose to follow it.
Were there any last minute surprises?
I just assumed that because we did all this research on the title and vetted 13 different choices, some suggested by some of the best copy writers in the world, that the publisher would just go along with the title: Just Ask – Greatness Happens When You Ask. And because this was never an issue raised at our discussion when signing the contract, I simply thought that the title was the title. And yet I knew from speaking with many authors it is never that easy. They said the title would not work, and yet all the PR folks and research said we found the best title. The title was changed to a suggestion I had when I thought that this was a fight (started feeling like one) that I was going to lose. The title for a while became Engaging Leaders. This was really concerning to me given that when writing the book we thought of one thing – how do we get leaders to move from Telling to Asking. At a certain point I was more concerned about discouraging the team that I had worked so hard to get on board. So I set aside the difference and moved on in pretty good spirits. You know,my attitude was that McGraw Hill was publishing my book, how cool is that.
This must have been a pretty spirited discussion after hearing your title in your own head for months, years even?
I was in New York for a board meeting and I booked a lunch with my editor Mary Glenn. I’m thinking how fun is this going to some really cool tradition New York restaurant with my editor. The emotional feeling of this was total filling inside. I decided I would not bring up the issue of the title. And at one point Mary asked, why were you so set on the name. I explained to her those years ago I was trained by a professional speaker trainer Bob Boylan who has a book, What is your point? The message is clear when you speak you have to have a single point of view one message regardless of the number of stories that you want your audience to remember. This is because they are only going to remember one thing – either you decide or let them decide. So when I wrote this book that point of view is that exceptional leaders ask questions most of the time so how can I convince the reader that they can become exceptional too if they began asking more questions. So that is how Just Ask Leadership came to be.
So, the launch was scheduled for late summer, 2009. What else did you do to get ready for a successful launch?
The PR firm I worked with in Steamboat did not specialize in Business to Business books. I knew there were firms out there that did just this. So like everything else along the way I started asking people who knew and by the end of my search, I had narrowed the search from approximately 25 firms to 5 firms. Of the five firms I narrowed to three and of the three the one who seemed to work the hardest for the business. What I found interesting is that I employed our PEAK Leadership model in making a choice. I know I ask questions most comfortably from perspective and Action. This search required me to be much more disciplined and employ many more evaluative questions in selecting the best firm. Jane Wesman PR firm now represents the book and me.
Is this normal for an author to have his own PR firm and not the publisher?
It is a good idea to get a PR firm on board about 90 days a head of the book launch. The reason for this was only revealed to me once I was late in choosing a firm. There are about ten major business publications that require a long lead-time because of how they schedule and plan their stories in the magazines. If you miss the date you may miss the opportunity to be presented in these publications. What I did not understand about McGraw Hill is that unlike many of the other publishers they do not provide galleys. I never understood the importance of galleys until I understood how they are used. These are early publications of the books that can be sent to these magazines, editors, and journalists to give them a pre-release of the book. I am certain, and still guessing that McGraw Hill decided for what they gain in efficiency and cost savings in not having them that the early release is not that much to offset the costs. Jane was the only one who got this of all the firms I spoke to and she executed her plan perfectly, she simply asked McGraw Hill to custom copy 10 books to send out early. Having the right people on your team is a relief.
Are you planning any road trips or author parties?
I was really looking forward to doing book signings and the like. But the wisdom of the crowd was that it is both a waste of time and resources. I have chosen to host some book launch parties in Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, and Scottsdale. And while I am in those towns we plan on booking media and public speeches to maximize the travel costs.
Aren’t the economics of this effort hard to justify?
Yes, when you consider you could purchase the books and just send them to two or three times the number of people for the cost. The flaw in this thinking is two fold. Authors of Business Books rarely make money on the book. The reward is to their own business. The more established the book the more it benefits the business. Having events allows you to meet with many more people and create in-person connections around the topic of the book. It is a more powerful way to spread the word – if the word is worth spreading. Secondly, I am very reluctant to give the book away. The cost is not the issue for me it is all about the commitment that the buyer makes when deciding to spend money to purchase the book. In that transaction the purchaser is starting their process of committing to read the book. I found when I was President of my business and when authors would send me books unsolicited I rarely read them. I am a person that purchases at least three books per month on average. I love to read. Additionally if a friend gave me a book with an endorsement – it would be rare that I would not read that book. In fact they often went to the front of my reading list – which is a stack of about 20 books either in my bedroom or in the office – now more often on my Kindle. Because of this experience I find that I promote the book based upon the idea that it has to be sent by a friend with a strong relationship or it needs to be bought.
So tell us about the speech planning?
This whole idea just sort of took off. It became a product to build that would perform well in the market place. And finally it became an idea worth spreading. And the word was going to cost a great deal of money to launch – so where was the payback if not in the book? The number one payback on books comes from speaking engagements. The first ones I booked on the topic of Just Ask was with SHERM Association, then a leadership breakfast, and from there I began getting paid from many large international organizations. The fees were good and it has been a great deal of fun spreading the idea. It seems to be universal I have had several audiences with totally international make-up and each audience was welcoming of the idea of Just Ask Leadership.
Interesting dilemma, giving a speech on Just ask when the medium, a speech is all about telling. How did you solve this issue?
The struggle with speaking on a subject dealing with questions is that such a significant paradox appears. I am going to TELL you why you should ASK Questions. That did not go over well with my need to be consistent. So I hooked up with Turning Technologies, which offers a solution to the dilemma. Using their technology I can ask the audience questions and have them respond. The results go up on the PowerPoint instantly. And then we can talk about those responses with the respondent. Because of them – people just can’t go to sleep – it is a way of having total engagement with your audience.
How can people get in touch with you?
Probably the easiest way is through my website, CO2 Partners.
Thanks Gary, and good luck with the book.
