Book Summary- The Professional by Subroto Bagchi

The Professional

By

Subroto Bagchi

(Portfolio/Penguin, New Delhi, 2009, 217 pages)

The world is increasingly getting professional.  But, the author states that the term, “Professional”, is not merely a means of “earning a livelihood, just another way to get ahead in life, build and seek further material comfort to eventually enjoy retired life”, but actually “nothing short of a religion”, while, the capacity to serve was “a blessing of life”.

The author comes up with universally acceptable ideas and practices which make up a true professional.

The author systematically traces the origin of the word, “Profession”, from the Latin Professio, meaning taking an oath. He adds that a professional develops by non-linear progression and that her development was a “lifelong learning curve”.

The Book is divided into seven parts, with the first three parts dealing with foundations and the rest dealing with the superstructure.

1)   Part I deals with Integrity, the keystone of the arch of professionalism.

2)   Part II deals with self-awareness, the thin line that differentiates competence from professionalism.

3)   Part III identifies the qualities that make a person qualify as a “Professional”.

4)   Part IV is meant for middle management, and helps them cope with volume.  The author stresses the role of values and vision in helping the professional deal with increasing volume.

5)   Part V is a guide to the senior and top management, and lays down the qualities by which they can cope with their personal and professional lives.

6)   Part VI deals with five concepts of professionalism in the new world.

7)   Part VII indicates what it takes to be a ‘professional’s professional’.

Each part is dotted with popular anecdotes which once bordered on the sensational. 

Part-I Integrity:

The author choses the brilliant example of Mahadeva, a person who was entrusted with the disposal of unclaimed dead bodies at a hospital.This selfless serviceearned him the felicitation of the Chief Minister of Karnataka and enormous goodwill, by which local petrol pumps don’t charge him for fuelling his hearse.  The professional qualities in him were the ability to work unsupervised and the ability to certify the completion of their work.  The person who needs supervision is no professional, according to the author.

The author goes on to define that integrity precedes professional competence, in terms of simple issues which one may ignore as trivial -- a young surgeon not knowing the difference between medical practice & malpractice, a software engineer discussing a client’s project with persons not authorized, a journalist seeking special accommodation from the system, a CEO appointing a spouse as contractor, Boss/Police exploitingthe vulnerability of the people seeking their help etc.  Such people, who lack integrity, were “a danger to society”.  So, the professionally qualified person must practice the explicit and implicit code of conduct, to be called a professional.

The personal nature of integrity was stressed by the examples of a government officer not utilizing his official vehicle as a “mode of conveyance to work”, and a well-paid private sector employee making personal international calls from the office telephone.  The author elaborates on integrity in the professional context.

·        We follow the rules.

·        Where rules do not exist, we use fair judgement.

·        When in doubt, we do not go ahead and do what suits us; we seek counsel.

·        Finally, faced with a dilemma, we ask ourselves: Can my act stand public scrutiny without causing embarrassment to me and my family?

Indians have a poor understanding of integrity because

·        Indian students don’t work while studying in school or college, to appreciate difference between company time and one’s own time, money in pocket and money for company and ideas like servicing a paying customer and appropriate workplace behaviour.

·        Professional ethics is not a part of technical curriculum.

·        Workplaces don’t demonstrate ethical behaviour, leaving a grey area. Very few companies place a premium on ethical behaviour.

Failure of venerable institutions also discounts professionalism.  Personal example goes a long way in reinforcing ethical behaviour.

Organizations need to have processes to deal with breach of code of conduct – reporting, investigating procedures, the speed at which it is dealt, deciding on firing the best employee if need be and dealing with residual toxicity of such events including ‘hangman’s remorse’ of investigating authorities.

Part II- Self-awareness:     

The self-awareness of Arthur Ashe is extolled when he took on AIDS with equanimity.  Self - awareness comes from being rooted, when success will not burden the individual.  The myth about self should be exploded.  Inauthentic and insincere people will not go far.  One should learn the art of being comfortable with one’s own inadequateness seeking help is not a sign of weakness. It helps expand inner capacity.  Keeping out of false comparisons is another trait of the professional.  Having a clear purpose, a sense of fulfilment, being self-observant help prevent people from falling into such a trap.

The professional concentrates on the job at hand and is willing to correct herself.

Being able to express a negative emotion for the right reason and to the right degree at the right time is not a thing many can do.  And a professional does it.  A true professional welcomes feedback in a raw and unaggregated form.  360⁰ feedback is usually operated in a discounted version.  Not falling for false attractions is another trait of a professional.  A professional does some things for herself to show “she is the boss” and because these are basic tenets.  These help her maintain her touch with reality.  Moreover, doing these “menial tasks” would have a calming effect on the individual.

Being proactive wins relationships both in life and business.  It smacks of self-confidence and the absence of the fear of commitment.  It doesn’t worry of the extra work created on account of itself, the latent consequences.  A proactive person thinks on behalf of others, and will be able to troubleshoot before it knocks at the door.  The proactive professional could well be proactive in personal life as well.  The Professional has the natural leadership to take charge in a crisis, which is a reflection of her internal power. Sheis courteous and generous, when she is powerful and at the top.

The professional always gets the big picture and doesn’t sweat on small stuff. 

Part III- Professional Qualities:

The professional manages her time well and is productive and satisfied.  Self-discipline is the key to it.  Keeping oneself healthy is a trait only the professional has. Eating and sleeping well, equipping oneself for a future slowdown of the body through yoga and meditation are also traits of a professional.

The professional engages by disengagement, by learning something new or by focussing on larger things.  She says no to work to which she cannot add value. The young professional should learn not to do things of one’s dislike and chores outside of work.

The Professional doesn’t whine at workplace troubles but takes on them head on- either changes job or takes on expanded role.  She also takes a long view of time, engaging with people, ideates, irons out differences and negotiates with one another.  She doesn’t just network with people, rather connects with them, adds value to the community and derives value from it.  It is not the low principle of trading favours.  She takes each assignment seriously and never rest on their laurels.

A Professional finds some good use for the white space – time spent commuting or journeys or in wait.  She also creates reusable value – using the same thing for multiple purposes and thereby expand her day – but at the same time, she ensures it is not ‘cut and paste’ and doesn’t infringe on intellectual property.  Reuse of work adds value to the organization.

The professional seeks to increase her touch – time – the time that adds value to the work that she does.  This will call for reducing time spent on coffee breaks, meetings of no consequence, etc., which can be redirected to rejuvenating the body, mind and soul.  The best of the professionals get briefed, seek help, use commute time effectively and periodically take a mental shut down.

The professional looks for value alignment while considering change of job, which may not actually be outside of the organisation.  She makes reference checks and tries to blend in and build value before seeking recognition; she also doesn’t poach on the last employer, because it is unprofessional to build one’s future at the cost of the previous organization.  She leaves with good will so that she has an opening to return as an employee, customer, supplier or a mutual reference.

Part IV- Managing Volume (for middle management):

A Professional has a vision-future backward, which guides the individual into energetic action. Dr. V of Aravind Eye care, re-educated himself as an ophthalmologist, when rheumatoid arthritis prevented him from continuing as a gynaecologist.  The subsequent McDonaldization of eye case is history now.

A person, who could be a child of someone’s vision, can become a professional by dreaming and acting and adding value to others. The vision community, an executed reality, is the worth of the vision.  The size of the adversary determines the size of the professional’s success.

A professional chooses to put values on a high pedestal even if the society around her doesn’t do so; she makes a commitment to commitment in every aspect of life and is well-prepared for the task at hand, asks pertinent questions similar to the Root cause Analysis of five ‘whys’ as well as intuitive questions, listens intently (with eyes and ears) and thereby wins empathy and engagement, has humanistic tinge to whatever she does and is transparent in admitting to her limitations.

The author then develops on professional failures- the Abilene paradox ( a management story in which a group of people agree to a course of action contrary to their individual choice) of Satyam.  A true professional would have shown the responsibility of dissent.

Part V- Managing Complexity (for top management):

Disasters bring the best out of the professionals as the latter lead from the front, take responsibility for their failures and take monumental decisions as well;moreover, they also know the balance between logic and intuition. 

The high level professional is aware of the eight intelligences – literary (better expression), musical (better listening) kinaesthetic (better anticipation), inter personal (better team player), intra-personal (self-awareness), spatial(better performance in new surrounding) naturalistic (safety) and spiritual (better anxiety management)- and harnesses them in the right proportion to deliver results.

The top management professional will do well to be aware of the three levels of knowledge-technical (dealing with SOPs etc.,), the experiential (understanding what the customer wants) and existential (‘creeping into the mind’).The existential thinking helps engage with people, problems, processes and opportunities through empathy, inclusion, 360⁰ thinking, out of the box solutions, etc., and finally in understanding the simplicity of things.

There are five minds of the future-of individual discipline/ skill (can take upto ten years to master one), of synthesis (the capacity to look at any issue/solution from a multi-disciplinary view point), of creativity (off beat solution), of respectfulness (to iron out differences), and of ethics (any decision should be in line with it).

Critical questioning brings to the fore, the interconnected nature of things and builds quality professionally and personally.

The higher professional draws an invisible line between personal and professional lives.  It helps to inform the organisation if a personal problem overwhelms the individual.  Professional organisation help a valuable individual tide over a stressful phase.

Part VI – New World Imperatives:

          The author observes the secondary position accorded to women, especially in India.  In the professional context, he bemoans the accommodative attitude towards a lady colleague rather than respect.  The tendency of the working men unintentionally to exclude the lady team member out of formal and informal discussions is out lined.  Professional discipline with reference to sexual harassment is stressed.  The playground rules, “Do not force someone to play, do not be mean, and do not pick on little kids”, as identified by Linda Howard are reiterated, to indicate restraint, non-vindictiveness and non-misuse of powers respectively.

While organizations have to give priority to gender sensitivity, the professional of the future has to take the initiative to observe, learn, cultivate and demonstrate such a virtue.  It is she who will know the thin line between consensus and harassment.  And this should be applicable to both men and women.

The professional of the future should also be sensitized by usages across cultures.  Two pertinent examples cited by the author are nodding (in the Indian context) and the phrase, ‘great job’ (in the American context).  The professional should watch out for problems created by cultural diversity when the service provider and client are separated by time & distance and further hassled by aggressive deadlines with unclear roles and responsibilities; she should then make the diversity work for the organization and not pull it down.

Governance, overtly compliance with the laws, but covertly self-regulation, will have to be paid heed to by the future professional in a variety of fields- speed money, disclosure about relationship with a future client/collaborator, respecting the discretion available, etc,. A culture of education and a spirit of full disclosure would help the professional address governance issues.  To sum up, the professional would never drink milk under a palm tree; and she must be the guide to self regulation so that the requirements across the countries are met.  She should further decide on the communication and practice of these requirements to address such issues.

While the professional must understand the concepts like copyright, patent and trademark, she should gear up to handle nuanced situations involving intellectual property infringements – like the software professional understanding ‘work for hire’, while working for an organisation, trade protection in case of certain open sources softwares, seeking prior permission/paying for/acknowledging copyrighted information on the web, etc.

Sustainability is also an issue the future professional has to handle, at least waste management pertaining to then organising sourcing of supplies, home design etc., will all have to address sustainability sooner or later. The professional will thereby understand that the dictum, “do well by doing good” will prove true for her.

Part VII – The Professional’s Professional:

The section deals with examples of what others consider “humble” professions, where their practitioners displayed a tremendous spirit of professionalism.  The examples are predominantly Japanese – a cab driver charging the client at normal fare despite a detour and a hotel porter refusing a tip.  Japan, as a country, gives a great example of professionalism since it blends with national pride, precedence to the group over the individual and spiritual identity.  To the Japanese, work is a living experience and in the garden of work, there can be “no last day twig”, as long as it is alive.

The author identified the top ten attributes of a professional.

1)   Integrity

2)   Commitment and ownership

3)   Action orientation and goal seeking

4)   Continuous learning

5)   Professional knowledge/skills

6)   Communication

7)   Planning, organizing and punctuality

8)   Quality of work

9)   A Positive attitude, approachability, responsiveness

10)   Being an inspiring reference to others; thought leadership

The author further dedicates a section for unprofessional conduct.

1)   Missing a deadline

2)   Non-escalation of issues on time (pretending that the problem does not exist, may be because of fear of reprisal, rejection or loss of business).  It helps to deliver the bad news in person than leave it on voice mail at an inane hour.

3)   Non- disclosure (of conflicting interest).

4)   Not respecting privacy of information (and seeking approval of disclosure each time from the client).

5)   Not respecting the need to know (this implies sharing professional information with the spouse (labelled ‘pillow talk’).

This can be overcome if two tests are administered.

a.   But for the marriage, would the spouse otherwise have access to this information?

b.   Does the spouse qualify for the ‘need to know’ test?

6)   Plagiarism from the web, etc (which can be overcome by stating the reason for utilizing that information, acknowledging the source, and stating one’s reasoned conclusion).

7)   Passing the blame (and not owning up one’s or one’s junior’s inadequacies is as good as a bad workman blaming his tools).

8)   Overstating qualifications and experience (by trivializing the difference between expertise and exposure).

9)   Mindless job hopping (reflective of low mental maturity and branding one as a ‘competent mercenary’).

10)   Unsuitable appearance (by violating the organizations written and       unwritten dress code.  The professional is advised to keep away from distractive dressing).

The author ends the book by quoting the incident in which some policemen sold an unclaimed dead body and thereby, brings to light the fact that Mahadeva is the ultimate “Professional’s professional”, since he chose to be so and determined the values to live by.

This book will serve as a readymade guide for anyone seeking to be sincere at work.  It is written in a simple language so that reading the book will not distract the reader into understanding the lingo.  I read it almost three years ago but it took this long to write its summary. Glad I did.  Better late than never.

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