More Great Questions!: Reflections On Career Navigation, Professional Courage, and Project Management Wisdom

By Bill Smillie

This book is a distillation of Bill’s insights gained throughout his career in management consulting and executive coaching. It includes nuggets of wisdom that will be valuable to anyone who considers themselves to be a professional. About the Author: Bill Smillie is a former Executive with IBM’s Learning and Knowledge function within its Global Business Services, where he led the professional development programs for all consulting Partners and staff worldwide. He also provided thought leadership in project management best practices and delivery excellence, based on his perspectives gained from over 30 years of international programme and project management. Bill currently provides a wide range of management consulting and facilitation services, including career and life coaching for executives and professionals, through his company, Tamarac Consulting LLC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781483478722

Book preview

Smillie

Copyright © 2018 Bill Smillie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7873-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-7872-2 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 12/28/2017

Acknowledgements

I heard someone say once, with regard to the profession of consulting, that everything we know that is of any value we learned from a client. The real point being we learn while serving clients, and so we owe them a debt of gratitude.

I have also learned a huge amount from my colleagues and my IBM Cornerstone participants with whom I have had the pleasure to work. They are far too numerous to mention individually, but they have changed my thinking, and that is a gift to be treasured.

And most significantly, I am deeply grateful to my wife Linda, who let me go off and play and learn in the name of working and supporting my family. Throughout my career, when she or my children were asked what it was that I do, they never knew quite what to say. I guess they could have said that I was out there with clients and colleagues learning how to ask great questions.

Preface To More Great Questions!

It has been more than half a decade since the first Great Question! publication came into print. It therefore seemed an appropriate time to compile this update to reflect my more recent musings and learning. Much of this newer content is the result of my participation in designing and delivering IBM’s remarkably effective Cornerstone program, which accelerates senior consultants to the executive level. This work has not only been extraordinarily fulfilling, it has stimulated my thinking about the three main themes of this sequel – Career Navigation, Professional Courage, and Project Management Wisdom.

Some of this material is repeated from the original publication, in order to create what I consider to be a more coherent view of the topic. All of the ideas reflect my ongoing efforts to make sense and see the bigger picture as I navigated through my professional life. My hope is that I will make some contribution to your thinking as well.

Finding the Right Questions

The philosopher Kierkegaard said, Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

This concept certainly applies to our professional lives. How many times have you heard: If I only knew then what I know now? It’s taken me decades of pursuing a career for me to be