the professional

The Professional

4th February 2011

The Professional

• Am I a true professional• What qualities would make me a better

professional • What is professional ethics

Professional

• What it really takes to call oneself a true professional

Unclaimed bodies

• Mahadeva– Mother and son lived on the streets – They stayed outside a hospital on the roads– Cops ,oneday asked him to bury and unclaimed body– From then on, any claimed body was buried by him

without any help– His dedication created demand for him– The horse he used to carry the bodies died– He bough a vehicle with the horse as the logo

Unclaimed Bodies contd.

• 42,000 bodies• Local petrol pumps don’t charge for fill• Felicitated by the chief minister of Karnataka

for the service rendered to abandoned citizens • Mahadeva: high performer, true professional• Ability to work unsupervised and certify his

work

Why is he a professional

• Cops do not supervise him• He is not an employee of the hospital• He has no boss to write his appraisal • He does it well without supervision

Justice murdered

• News item in Times of India • Caught on the backfoot, after a shocking TV expose, a

new public prosecutor will be name in the high profile murder trial involving a BMW car driven by Sanjiv Nanda, police officials said.

• Mohan will replace IU Khan, who will be removed after a TV news channel, on Wednesday purportedly showed collusion between prosecution and defence attorneys, seeking to bribe the sole witness to change his testimony.

Justice murdered ( contd.)

• Prosecutions case seemed to hinge on the eyewitness account of a lone survivor

• It was this man who was sought to be bought over • Who were involved in the effort to buy him

– Both the defence counsel and the prosecution counsel

• Country's two top lawyers – One has represented two sitting prime ministers – Other with impressive clientele

• Both lawyers are not professionals, though they are from the best law colleges

What integrity means in professional context

• We follow the rules • Where rules do not exist , we use fair judgment• When in doubt we seek counsel • Finally, faced with dilemma, we ask ourselves

can my act stand public scrutiny without causing embarrassment to me and my family

– If these four tenets are applied our professional conduct will meet the highest standards of integrity

Being authentic

• “ how’ve you been? I been reading so much about you and the success of your company, by the way my uncle was asking about you the other day. He thinks very highly of you”

• No point in being inauthentic and insincere • Being authentic sometimes may get us a ‘no’, but

is better than hollowness as the world is small • Professional world really craves authenticity and

is not old fashioned

Seeking help

• Seeking help from someone – a peer, a mentor, your supervisor, even a junior – is not a sign of the weak.

• The moment we seek help, we actually expand inner capacity; we create the emptiness into which other pour in their capabilities

Having a reasonable view of the future

• Building a view of the future and knowing where you are headed

• Sense of destination gives people what victor Frankel, celebrated psychologist refers as ‘something to look forward to’ in his book mans search for meaning

• Survived Nazi concentration camp. Studied the people who survived the brutality – Those who survived the camp did so on the strengthy of their sense of

journey – They believed they had an unfinished task to do. – They felt that it was they who were in charge despite the helpless

immediacy of their circustances

Beating emptiness

• The day you feel empty– Shift the attention from yourself to others – Spend time with interns – Take on pro-bono work with your industry

association– The pitcher of emptiness fills

Being self observant

• Close your eyes in a quite place and for a few minutes – Count the sounds – When the session ends people miss • Hum of air conditioner duct• And their own breathing• When you can hear your own breathing , you begin to

observe yourself

Courtesy and humility

• N.R. Narayanamurthy “ you are Amitabh Bachan and you show grace and courtesy – that is when it matters. Not when you are just an aspiring actor’

– Lesson: how we treat our vendors

Doing more by doing less

• Doing more, being engaged 24 x 7 does not mean you are achieving more

• Challenge is doing more by doing less • Disengage from doing too many things– learn something new– Sport, foreign language – Musical instrument

• Knowledge intensive world, the only way you can remain ahead is by learning

Mavens, connectors and Evangelists

• Make a short list of professionals – Doctors– Journalist – Economist– Film makers – Architects– Young entrepreneurs

• He talks to these people • These people are ‘connectors’

Mavens, connectors and Evangelists

• World of a professional consists of mavens, connectors and evangelists – Maven is someone who produces and trades knowledge – A group of mavens is usually connected to an expert who

is a connector – Connector provides clarification , linkages, assistance to

other connectors – Group of connectors may link up to an evangelist who is

the last word in a particular field – This will cut down time spent on research etc

Commitment

• After a keynote address in Delhi• Journalist: 1– Young journalist of a National magazine wants an interview– Lack of time. Asks her to mail questionaire

• Entrepreneur: 2 – Want so chat with him in Delhi, but is from chennai– Author is visiting chennai and asks her to meet him nest

day morning • Both the persons did not respond after the meeting .

Be prepared

• Prepared individuals project a good image of the company and of themselves

• Example of doctor: who knows the history of the patient. Patient is in safe hands

• “Arrive before you arrive”

transparency

• 2008, Mind tree won its single largest deal – mittal steel after they acquired Arcelor.

• Task: improve cost, performance and profitability using off shore IT capability

• Operations chief of MT Europe, Vishaal Gupta communicated to Arcelor Mittal that MT was not their best choice based on skill assessment and said that MT would pitch only if allowed to make a partial bid.

• AM told them that they were the only that was honest to admit limitations . They were asked to make a complete bid.

Responsibility of dissent • Satyam

– Eminent people failed the shareholders, 53,000 employees and their families and the entire industry by their Bizarre approval of the land deal

• Abilene Paradox – management story in which a group of people agree to a course of action that is counter to individual preference– How people agree to do strange things when they suppress their own voice and simply

go along with what everyone else is saying

• The Abilene paradox should be seen by any professional who is part of any group that deliberates on issues of conseqence

Multiple intelligences • IQ – equated with left brain activity. Mathematical – logical in nature • Yesr 1900: city of Paris witnessed huge influx of villagers who migarated

along with their children• Mandatory: children between 6 and 14 attend school. • To cope with the influx , authorities needed assess the intelligence of

children.• They turned to a self taught pscychologist named Alfred Binet, who devise

a method, which is the IQ test. US army became its largest user.• Howard Gardener’s work bought to the notice of people the limited

nature of the Math-logical capability • His book MI lists 8 other forms of intelligence : literary, musical,

kinesthetic, interpersonal, intra-personal, spatial, naturalistic and finally spiritual.

Unprofessional

1. Missing a deadline2. Non-escalation of issues on time 3. Non-disclosure4. Not respecting privacy of information5. Not respecting need to know6. Plagiarism7. Passing on the blame8. overstating qualification and experience 9. Mindless job hopping 10. Unsuitable appearance