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Become a true professional (View Comments)
Jones Mathew
Posted On Saturday, July 03, 2010 at 01:03:05 PM
A professional is one who is formally trained in a trade or skill or competence and demands remuneration for services rendered
A professional is one who is formally trained in a trade or skill or competence and demands remuneration for services rendered. A professional belongs to a ‘profession’, where members are guided by a code of conduct and often there is an apex controlling body/institution which determines who gets ‘in’ and who stays ‘out’.
So is everybody who is formally qualified, commanding remuneration, a ‘Professional’? Of course not! Often we look at a colleague, superior or subordinate and remark, “He is truly a professional”. What then is it that separates the Professional (I always refer to the true Professional with a capital ‘P’ out of deference and respect for a person who stands out from the rest and is a rare breed indeed) from the non-professional?
Professionalism is more than just studying to get a job; having landed a job, it is more than merely acquiring a chain of promotions and plum postings; seeking ever-increasing increments; aiming for a life of material fulfilment before finally being ejected out of the ‘working population’ category.
“It is nothing short of a religion,” as Subroto Bagchi, Vice-Chairman & Co-founder MindTree so aptly puts it.
One of the fundamental requirements of becoming a Professional is the ability to work ‘un-bossed’, requiring little or no supervision. This is a challenge for many employees. Sometimes the boss is a control freak. At other times, one genuinely looks forward to having a boss around to ‘direct’. But a true Professional is one who is a self-motivated, self-driven person who doesn’t really need someone to give him/her feedback for consistent improvement.
Most importantly, a Professional is ethical. The most important prerequisite to being a Professional is integrity. It is saddening to see employees misuse/misappropriate company resources for their personal use. Integrity translates into fairness, probity and adherence to rules. “Give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser’s”. Owning up to one’s mistakes instead of foisting it on to a hapless subordinate is integrity. Not fudging the sales travelling bills is integrity. Standing up for what is right is integrity. If only the full time directors of Satyam had the integrity to stand up to Ramalingam Raju’s insatiable lust for ill gotten spoils, they could have been called Professionals. On the contrary, being partners at one of the world’s four most respected auditing agencies, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), did not help them to qualify as Professionals. It was only because they had no integrity.
In fact, the true test of a Professional comes when temptation is upon him and he does not deviate. Integrity needs lots of courage. Most employees have lost the courage and conviction to be honest. Whether it is towards assigned work, or deadlines, or quality of delivery, or going the extra mile, or maintaining probity in expense accounts, in every aspect most employees seek shortcuts. The thing about being a Professional is to be wary of shortcuts. More often than not, shortcuts lead to dead ends. The ‘convenient’ way is often the wrong way.
Finally Professionalism is about choices. All of us have choices at work, as in life. Do we choose to spend more time gossiping around the coffee machine, chatting with friends on social networking sites, talking to parents on company expense and on company time; or doing an honest day’s work and justifying our salary?
It is deeply personal. It is non-negotiable. It is a boundary-setting.
Job knowledge, skills enhancement and target achievement are essential to be a great worker. But the keystone is INTEGRITY. Cultivate it, nurture it, protect it and you will be a true Professional.
The author is Associate Professor (Marketing), IILM Institute for Higher Education, Gurgaon
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