As one would expect, it’s a great, spot-on, quick read.  Jerry offers many, time-tested examples of how to go about the process of asking someone for a major gift.  There are some gems here.

However, the gem that sparkles most is the one he offers on page 11 about the relative unimportance of asking for a gift:

“(w)hat I’ve discovered in all my years of fundraising is that it almost doesn’t matter how you ask. . . What’s important is that you ask.  Just do it.  There’s no such thing as an incorrect ask.  Maybe it could’ve been done more effectively, more strategically and perhaps more deftly.  But the important thing is that you ask.  That’s what really counts.”

Jerry is, of course, talking about asking for a major gift, but I would broaden the scope of his recommendation.  Namely and simply put:  Asking in all aspects of your life will benefit you.

Here is what I mean:

• If you are a leader, ask those in your care how they would make the Monday morning meeting more effective.  Ask privately, not in a group setting.  And listen to the responses.  Make needed changes and give appropriate credit.
• If you are spouse or a partner, ask him or her how you could be more helpful around the house (ok, my wife reads my blog, so, yes, I need to do this more often!).  Listen, learn, and adjust.
• If you are an advancement officer, ask a donor what she thought about the way in which your institution thanked her for her last gift.  Listen, learn, and repeat.

You get the picture.  There are an infinite amount of opportunities for us to ask every day.  When we involve others (which is what asking does), at least two good things happen.  First, we get very helpful feedback.  Second, the person we asked feels important because we cared enough to ask their opinion.

And, as Jerry Panas said,  it doesn’t matter so much how we ask, but that we regularly do.

• “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”
  – A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
• “$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft.”
  – IBM, 1982
• “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”
  – Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
• “I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face not Gary Cooper.”
  – Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind.”
• “But what … is it good for?”
  – Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968,commenting on the microchip.
• “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
  – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

You may have read many of these previously.  Each of these predictions, laughable now, share a fatal flaw:  the speaker evidenced a complete lack of imagination.  There was no lack of intelligence (in fact many of these folks were some of the smartest people on the planet).  There was no lack of passion.  There was no lack of energy to implement.  There was a fundamental lack of imagination.  Read the quotes again and think about the imagination needed to  create the product or concept versus the lack of imagination displayed by the speaker of the quote.

I’m convinced that when our organizations fail to reach their “Far Edge of Promise,” they do so, more often than not, because of a failure of imagination.  This failure comes in a variety of forms and at all levels of the organization, including the Board, the top management team, and the staff.

There is an easy, but at times a seemingly provocative way to encourage more imagination:  pose well-framed questions.  Especially the simplest of all questions, “why?”  ”Why?” causes us to stop and think about something from a different perspective.  It causes us to use our imagination.  ”Why are we doing it that way?  What about this way – it just might be better?”

So, here’s the real question:  As a leader of your organization, do you encourage, even incentivize, those around you to simply ask “why?”