Top leaders are seeking answers. International executive coach, confidant to the captains of industry, and catalyst for change Graham Alexander's approach is to ask the right questions to help leaders find the right answers.

In Tales from the Top, Alexander demonstrates how honest answers to effective questions propel leaders to break down barriers preventing them from operating at their highest levels of capability. After receiving his coaching, leaders:

* Typically report a time savings of 20%-40% and estimate the improvement in * their businesses has reflected 10 to 100 times the cost of the teaching.

* Feel less overwhelmed and more in control.

* Become laser-sharp about priorities and more focused at work and at home.

Over the course of his 25-year coaching career, Alexander has identified the 10 most common issues top-level executives face, including: Purpose in Life, Self-Awareness, Focus, and Personal Effectiveness. Each chapter deals with one of these issues as well as examples and conclusions at which other CEOs arrived, Key Principles, a Leadership Observation, and a Million-Dollar Question.

Though Alexander's "ten crucial questions" aren't revolutionary-"What's life all about for you?" "Would you do anything differently if you knew you had only a year to live?" "Are you running your business or is it running you?"-he makes the usual threadbare management clichés ("Treat your customers like royalty") say something new by avoiding the hyperbolic vigor common to American business writing, instead employing a dry style that can verge dangerously close to sarcasm: "Many business leaders find focusing on what is truly important difficult, because doing is so much easier than thinking." Alexander also pinpoints the major drivers of business dysfunctionality: fear, frenetic busyness, arrogance and ignorance. His solutions are quite sensible: write down the one thing that scares you most about your current situation; do three things a day that only you can do really well to uniquely help the business; don't guess what your customer wants. Though the advice sounds practical enough, the real-world results Alexander has achieved aren't quantified in this book, and the CEOs Alexander has coached aren't named. Still, Alexander has written the rare palatable guide to executive coaching.

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