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Engineering Your Future: The Non-Technical Side of the Professional Practice of Engineering and Other Technical Fields, ASCE Press, Reston, VA, 2000
While teaching a management course to senior engineering students at Valparaiso University, I gradually developed material that was eventually published as Engineering Your Future, my first personal and professional development book. It is now in its Second Edition and a third edition is being considered.
This book supplements the technically-oriented education of engineers and other technical professionals. It focuses on non-technical or so called “soft side” competencies necessary for career security and for releasing the leader within you. Examples of the wide range of non-technical topics included in the book are: goal setting, use of the active voice in writing, seeking speaking opportunities, gender-neutral communication, mentoring and coaching, requests for qualifications and proposals, qualifications-based selection, income statements and balance sheets, project planning and management, meeting planning, use of a precedence diagram, reengineering, design, consulting, decision economics, law, and ethics. More specifically, that book’s chapters are: |
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- Introduction
- Management of Self
- Communicating To Make Things Happen
- Management of Relationships With Others
- Project Management
- Total Quality Management
- Design
- Decision Economics
- The Organizations of Organizations
- Business Accounting Methods
- Legal Framework
- Ethics
- Role and Selections of Consultants
- Marketing Technical Services
- The Future and You
As an engineer in today’s consulting world, you are expected not only to be a technical expert but also possess business savvy…This is where Engineering Your Future will help you. It fills in the blanks from your engineering classes…For the young engineer, nothing can replace actual work experience, but why not be prepared? Give yourself a head start. Read Engineering Your Future. When your boss starts talking about a 3.0 multiplier, you will be glad you did.
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Reviewed in Leadership and Management in Engineering – ASCE, June 2001.
A must read for all students currently majoring in civil engineering as well as young technical professionals…[with] so many helpful tips and practical nuggets, even the experienced practitioner will benefit from reading this book.
- Dr. Jeffrey S. Russell, P.E., Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI commenting on Engineering Your Future.
Walesh covers all of the pertinent career-planning topics including self-management, communications, relationships with others, ethics, and leadership.
- Ed Bergeron, P.E., President of H. E. Bergeron Engineers and author of A Pocket Guide to Business for Engineers and Surveyors.
In addition to being used, as designed, by practitioners in the public and private sectors, Engineering Your Future has also been adopted, as intended, by many colleges and universities for use as a text or reference book. Examples of these institutions are Calvin College and the following universities: Alabama, Arizona, California Polytechnic State - St. Luis Obispo, California State – Fresno, Carnegie Mellon, Colorado State, Drexel, Idaho, Memphis, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Haven, Pittsburgh, Seattle Pacific, Tennessee, and Utah.
To learn more and purchase, click here!
Flying Solo: How to Start an Individual Practitioner Consulting Business, Hannah Publishing, Valparaiso, IN 2000
Are you an engineer or other technical professional who is “on the fence” regarding going out on your own? Flying Solo will help you make a “go” or “no go” decision. If it’s a “go,” this book will explain, in a pragmatic comprehensive manner, how to get started. This book is also relevant to the entrepreneur who has recently gone into a sole proprietor consulting business in that the book’s practical ideas and information will help save or accelerate the business. Flying Solo will help you, as an independent consultant, enjoy your work, increase autonomy and income, and prepare for comfortable “on your terms” retirement. Examples of topics discussed in this book are the demise of job security, qualifications-based selection, a marketing model, project planning and management, billable time, and errors and omissions. The chapters in this book are: |
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- Introduction
- Telltale Signs: Some Reasons to Consider “Going Out On Your Own”
- Roles and Selection of Consultants
- Success Factors
- Assessing Your Assets
- Logistics of Getting Started
- Marketing: Sleazy Activity or Mutually-Beneficial Process?
- Tips on Being Successful With a New Client
- Project Management
- Business and Personal Accounting: Keeping Financial Score
- Liability and How to Minimize It
- What if You Fail?
…this is a useful introduction for technologists who think they may want to be independent consults.
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Reviewed in Consulting to Management, June, 2001.
Book Cost : $39.95 (which includes postage and handling)
If you would like to purchase the book, please contact me.
Managing and Leading: 52 Lessons Learned for Engineers, ASCE Press, Reston, VA 2004
This “handbook” style book offers useful ideas on ways in which engineers and other technical professionals can more effectively approach the non-technical or “soft-side” aspects of working with colleagues, clients, customers, the public, and other stakeholders. Presented are 52 essays, each offering an idea or principle for professionals to improve their managing and leading knowledge and skills. Each essay is followed by pragmatic suggestions for ways to immediately apply and test the ideas and principles. Examples of managing and leading topics treated in this book are distinctions between managing and leading, goal setting and achieving, courage, asking and listening, speaking fear, presenting papers, kinesthetic learners, coaching, power of the subconscious mind, delegation, mentoring and coaching, team essentials, project planning and management, a marketing model, style, and effecting change. |
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This book might be a catalyst for releasing the leader within you. More specifically, the categories of lessons in this book are:
Personal Roles, Goals, and Development
Communication
Learning and Teaching
Improving Personal and Organizational Productivity
Meetings
Marketing
Building Mutually-Beneficial Employee-Employer Partnerships
The Broad View
All consultants to management—especially those just starting their careers—can nonetheless benefit from it. Given its title and publisher, the book appears to be directed at engineers, but everyone directly involved in business or consulting who is striving to advance within an organization will find that 90% of the lessons apply to them…the great majority [of lessons] reflect Walesh’s solid experience as a solo consultant, scholar, and academic.
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Reviewed in Consulting to Management, December, 2004.
If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to make yourself a more effective leader, both personally and professionally, here is a tool for you. Managing and Leading: 52 Lessons Learned for Engineers is a fun and easy-to-read compilation of vignettes, each illustrating a specific point or goal and followed by practical steps for applying the ideas presented…the book is written to engineers, yet applicable to anyone.
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May, 2004 review by AIArchitect, American Institute of Architects.
It offers the engineer a book with a wide range of ideas, insights, and suggestions on furthering his/her career—and increasing management and leadership skills. Any engineer who is advancing in management, or who wants to improve their chances of being a leader, would be a market for this book.
- Comments by Richard Weingardt, P.E. Hon.M.ASCE, CEO and Chairman, Richard Weingardt Consultants, Inc.
To learn more and to purchase, click here!
Managing and Leading: 44 Lessons Learned for Pharmacists, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Bethesda, MD, 2008 authored by Paul W. Bush and Stuart G. Walesh
This book supports my contention that basic managing and leading principles apply to various professions. That is, principles articulated for and tested by engineering students and practitioners as published in Managing and Leading: 52 Lessons Learned for Engineers were readily adapted to pharmacy students and practitioners.
This book offers useful ideas and tools for pharmacists, residents, and students to improve their managing and leading skills, and more effectively approach the non-technical or “soft-side” aspects of working with colleagues, administrators, vendors, clients, patients, and other stakeholders. Each of the 44 lessons in this book contains an essay that offers at least one idea or principle for honing management and leadership effectiveness. |
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Each essay is followed by practical suggestions for ways to apply the ideas using application tools and techniques such as action items, guidelines, do’s and don’ts, checklists, forms, and resource materials such as articles, books, e-newsletters, and websites.
Lessons are focused in the following categories: personal roles, goals and development; communication; learning and teaching; improving personal and organizational productivity; meetings and agendas; marketing models; building mutually-beneficial employee-employer partnerships; and a process for effecting change. A sampling of specific topics: goal setting, job security versus career security, effectiveness and efficiency, team essentials, project planning, meeting planning, a marketing model, behavioral interviewing, the visual learner, speaking fear, and the power of the subconscious mind. The categories of lessons in this book are:
Personal Roles, Goals, and Development
Communication
Learning and Teaching
Improving Personal and Organizational Productivity
Meetings
Marketing
The Broad View
…One of the book’s strong points is that the lessons are succinct and applicable to real-life situations and are tied in with other lessons…This book is extremely user-friendly and can be utilized in a wide variety of settings…interesting quotes throughout the text…This book is unique among other managerial references in that its focus is for professional pharmacists…This book stands out from other reference books because the focus is on effective pharmacy leadership, not on being a leader based on business experience, athletic prowess, or political affiliations…I would recommend it for individuals’ self-development collection, drug information libraries, and all practitioners searching for management insights.
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Review by Dr. Joseph E. Mazur, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC in The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, October 2008.
To learn more and purchase, click here!
Project Plans: Doing Projects Twice the Smart Way,
CreateSpace, Charleston, SC 2010
The wisdom in the advice "If you fail to plan you plan to fail" applies to your design, construction, or other projects in the private, government, academic, and/or volunteer sectors. This book describes 20 elements for you to choose from for possible inclusion in your next project plan. It also discusses the "dumb" and "smart" ways to do a project twice; offers advice on how to use project plans throughout a project's life; and suggests ways to embed project planning in the cultures of all types of organizations. Many self or group-study resources are included. If you follow the project planning advice in this book you will be much more likely to meet or exceed the schedule and deliverables expectations of those you serve while staying within budget and/or earning a larger profit. This 73 page print on demand (POD) book will help you, as project manager or as a member of a project team, achieve project success.
The price is $9.95. Click here to order. |
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