The Ask. How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for Any Purpose

Discover fundamental principles of high-stakes change and organizational transformation The «primes» are universal and unavoidable patterns of group behavior that emerge whenever people attempt to transform systems or collaborate to solve complex problems. Every change agent has felt their effect, but few can recognize, anticipate, and manage them. Unacknowledged, the primes can put any leadership agenda at risk. Once mastered, the primes become a force that drives intended outcomes. The Primes is a field manual for anyone ready to step up to serious challenges, predict and manage inevitable problems, create a brighter future, and produce extraordinary results. An essential guide for 21st century problem solvers and change agents, The Primes unveils 46 universal secrets of how to: Tackle complex problems successfully and deliver extraordinary results on time Forge lasting consensus among competing interests and keep teams focused and productive Recognize and eliminate the most destructive forces in an organization Establish cultures of integrity The Primes gives leaders the edge they need to succeed. Once the primes are revealed, you'll see them everywhere!

Asking is more than a skill—it's a lifestyle The Ask is your personal manual for building the best, most fulfilling personal and professional life possible. Crafting the perfect ask can fund your new business, support your favorite charity, and get more quality time with your significant other—but it can do so much more than that. It can change your life. In learning how to ask for what you really want and deserve, you lose your fear of rejection and judgement. You create the greatest sense of self-worth that no one can give you, you give it to yourself when you ask. The critical moment is when you turn your skills inward and make the hardest asks, the ones you ask yourself. This book is designed to make you an Exceptional Asker, and in the process, give you the confidence and skills you need to achieve all your goals and realize your dreams. You'll learn how to prepare, what words to use, what to avoid, and how to follow up, and you'll purge the natural hesitancy that has been holding you back for so long. Asking is about empowerment. It shows the world that what you want matters. It defines who you are, where you're going, and who will be by your side. This book provides over 175 sample asks, with clear actionable steps to help you claim your space in relationships, at work, and in the world. Rewrite your own rulebook and find empowerment in asking Learn the simple five steps to craft the perfect ask Discover the secret of the ask – it's two sentences and a question Remove your Money Blockers and turn a bad ask into a win Conquer the hardest asks you'll ever make—the ones you ask yourself Mastering the art of the ask reconfigures your approach to life, and changes the way you tackle challenges and goals. The Ask gives you the skills—and the mindset—you need to accomplish anything you can dream.

Smart Questions offers an entirely new framework for creating solutions. Drawn from the authors' many years of research and field experience, the Smart Questions Approach reveals how the leading creators of solutions in almost every profession and walk of life—including business, government, education, and even in families—think and approach their assignments. The author’s holistic thinking approach shows how to use three “foundation” questions—focusing on uniqueness, purposeful information, and systems—which must be explored for every problem. These three questions, an essential starting point for exploring problems, in turn lead to other key questions that will ultimately create effective solutions.

Learn how to identify the bottom of your local real estate market and understand when to buy by using the tools and tips in Forecasting for Real Estate Wealth: Strategies for Outperforming Any Housing Market. Take advantage of the great deals created by falling real estate prices and discover the four questions every real estate investor must ask before buying, selling, or holding any property. With this guide, you can forecast the value of any property in 1 or 5 years, predict which investment property will give you maximum return, and secure low-cost financing.

The go-to resource for business leaders who must succeed no matter what the circumstances The world is rapidly changing and unpredictable, necessitating leaders who adjust quickly to changing priorities and unfamiliar terrain. This book offers a blueprint for developing leaders who can handle surprising challenges, from mergers to global relocation, and who thrive in turbulent times by being open to new concepts, passionate about progress, and resourceful with the tools available. Features three key traits of adaptable leaders: Driven by progress, Sensationally curious, Vastly resourceful Reveals how to work across corporate cultures and leverage relationships to overcome challenges Shows how to bypass the traditional leadership role and take necessary risks to move forward Written for the business leader who can land in any environment, under any set of conditions, and find a way to fit in and succeed.

Change is a constant, and leaders must do more than keep up—they must innovate and accelerate to succeed. Yet people are often unnerved by change. As a leader during a time of transformation, you may stand up before teams that are indifferent, or even hostile, and need to convince them that change is necessary and urgent. More than money, time, or resources, the ability to lead these people determines your ultimate success or failure. What does it take to be an effective change leader and increase the odds of success? Stacking the Deck offers a proven, practical approach for inspiring meaningful, lasting change across an organization. Stacking the Deck presents a nine-step course of action leaders can follow from the first realization that change is needed through all the steps of implementation, including assembling the right team of close advisors and getting the word out to the wider group. Based on Dave Pottruck's experiences leading change as CEO of Charles Schwab and later as chairman of CorpU and HighTower Advisors, these steps provide a guide to ensure that your change initiative and your team have the best possible shot at success. In addition, established business leaders who have led extraordinary change initiatives demonstrate the steps in action. These executives include eBay CEO John Donahoe, Wells Fargo former CEO Dick Kovacevich, Starbucks chief executive officer Howard Schultz, San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer, JetBlue CEO Dave Barger, Asurion CEO Steve Ellis, Pinkberry CEO Ron Graves, and Intel's President Renee James, among others. Leading an organization through major change—whether it's the introduction of a new product, an expansion to a new territory, or a difficult downsizing—is not for the faint of heart. While success is never guaranteed, the right leadership, process, and team make all the difference. For all leaders facing major change in their organizations, Stacking the Deck is an indispensable resource for putting the odds in your favor.

A practical handbook for making management great again Managing for Happiness offers a complete set of practices for more effective management that makes work fun. Work and fun are not polar opposites; they're two sides of the same coin, and making the workplace a pleasant place to be keeps employees motivated and keeps customers coming back for more. It's not about gimmicks or 'perks' that disrupt productivity; it's about finding the passion that drives your business, and making it contagious. This book provides tools, games, and practices that put joy into work, with practical, real-world guidance for empowering workers and delighting customers. These aren't break time exploits or downtime amusements—they're real solutions for common management problems. Define roles and responsibilities, create meaningful team metrics, and replace performance appraisals with something more useful. An organization's culture rests on the back of management, and this book shows you how to create change for the better. Somewhere along the line, people collectively started thinking that work is work and fun is something you do on the weekends. This book shows you how to transform your organization into a place with enthusiastic Monday mornings. Redefine job titles and career paths Motivate workers and measure team performance Change your organization's culture Make management—and work—fun again Modern organizations expect everyone to be servant leaders and systems thinkers, but nobody explains how. To survive in the 21st century, companies need to dig past the obvious and find what works. What keeps top talent? What inspires customer loyalty? The answer is great management, which inspires great employees, who then provide a great customer experience. Managing for Happiness is a practical handbook for achieving organizational greatness.

Popular leadership blogger gives the low-down on standing up for yourself In Pushback, top leadership consultant Selena Rezvani argues that self-advocacy is critical to success. Yet women initiate negotiations four times less often than men, resulting in getting less of what they want—promotion opportunities, plum assignments, and higher pay. This book shines a light on the real rules of holding your own and pushing back for what is rightfully yours. Drawing on interviews with high-level leaders, Rezvani offers readers in the first half of their career the unedited truth about how women have asked their way to the top and triumphed—and how you can too. Includes interviews with top business leaders such as Marie Chandoha, CEO of Charles Schwab Investment Management; Cindi Bigelow, President of Bigelow Tea Company; Fizzah Jafri, COO at Morgan Stanley; Rosemary Turner, President at UPS; and Irene Chang Britt, Chief Strategy Officer at Campbell's Soup Offers a reliable and methodic approach to negotiating and navigating tough conversations Highlights compelling facts and research from the world of psychology and leadership Insightful and accessible, Pushback is a timely resource for savvy women who want to leverage their skills, promote themselves effectively, and fast track their careers.

You can still find plenty of good deals in a failing real estate market by applying the advice in The Peebles Path to Real Estate Wealth: How to Make Money in Any Market. Multimillionaire teal estate mogul R. Donahue Peebles makes it possible for you to always win in real estate, provided you have the right knowledge and exercise good judgment in the deals you make. Start with small investments and work up to bigger, more profitable properties; before you know it, you’ll be a smart investor earning large profits!

Many leaders are unaware of the amazing power of questions. Our conversations may be full of requests and demands, but all too often we are not asking for honest and informative answers, and we don’t know how to listen effectively to responses. When leaders start encouraging questions from their teams, however, they begin to see amazing results. Knowing the right questions to ask—and the right way to listen—will give any leader the skills to perform well in any situation, effectively communicate a vision to the team, and achieve lasting success across the organization. Thoroughly revised and updated, Leading with Questions will help you encourage participation and teamwork, foster outside-the-box thinking, empower others, build relationships with customers, solve problems, and more. Michael Marquardt reveals how to determine which questions will lead to solutions to even the most challenging issues. He outlines specific techniques of active listening and follow-up, and helps you understand how questions can improve the way you work with individuals, teams, and organizations. This new edition of Leading with Questions draws on interviews with thirty leaders, including eight whose stories are new to this edition. These interviews tell stories from a range of countries, including Singapore, Guyana, Korea, and Switzerland, and feature case studies from prominent firms such as DuPont, Alcoa, Novartis, and Cargill. A new chapter on problem-solving will help you apply questions to your toughest situations as a leader, and a new “Questions for Reflection” section at the end of each chapter will help you bring Marquardt’s message into all of your work as a leader. Now more than ever, Leading with Questions is the definitive guide for becoming a stronger leader by identifying—and asking—the right questions.