The ‘un’ Professional

Yesterday I was going to a bank near my house. To avoid being guilty of adding to traffic chaos I choose to use the public transport. Within a few minutes I got into a bus. I gave 5 Rs to the conductor, he immediately gave few coins back to me and I was furious, I knew these guys cheat the public and the government, they are unprofessional. In a fraction of second all these thoughts crossed my mind. But next thing he did was took bundle of tickets from his bag and gave me a 3Rsticket and went ahead shouting "Tickets .. tickets".

  In the next stop a young man, smartly dressed came in.  When the conductor came, hegave few coins and said that he will get down at the near by stop. I could clearly see the conductor was not happy but he was not in a position to demand from the young man.

This incident made me to share few thoughts on being a Professional.

It is not enough that we behave professionally; we also should empower others to perform their duties professionally.

One way to distinguish what is being professional is to look at what is NOT professional.

Some of the traits or practices of being unprofessional I could list down are given here.

These apply to all roles, whether you are CEO or Security Guard or Sales Manager (and of course a software engineer!)

1.       Not honoring your commitments

2.       Taking-up roles for which you are not qualified/competent

3.       Not being in communication with  relevant stakeholders

4.       Not being punctual

5.       Engaging in gossip about the organization and/or co-workers

Founder of MindTree Subroto Bagchi has written book called "The Professional" covering various aspects of being a professional. We will cover some points from it in the next week's article.