Professional , livre ebook

Great public efforts are often rooted in deeply personal experiences and sometimes very private feelings
 
The Professional is Subroto Bagchi’s most deeply felt book. Bagchi’s first best-selling book, The High-Performance Entrepreneur , shared his story of building a company. His second best-seller, Go Kiss the World , was the story of his life, a motivation to young people that anyone can achieve. But as Subroto Bagchi says: “ Go Kiss the World did not provide a tool kit.’
 
In The Professional he gives us his knowledge, based on his lifelong experience, of what it takes to be a professional, what qualities you need to become a great professional, and what are the challenges of the future a professional must be prepared for. Most importantly, he asks and gives answers to the toughest question every professional faces: Is what I am going to do now, faced with a difficult decision and multiple options, the professional choice to make?
 
In a world where a ‘sub-prime crisis’ and a ‘Satyam saga’ were incomprehensible; where the global economic meltdown has affected the livelihoods of millions of people; where companies and individuals are routinely revealed to have made unprofessional choices, In The Professional provides the explicit and implicit code of conduct-the boundaries which separate a skilled individual from a professional.
 
Read The Professional and find the power within you to acquire the cutting edge required for the twenty-first century workplace and gain entry into the club of professionals.



Subroto Bagchi is Vice Chairman and Co-founder of MindTree Ltd. Till 2008, Subroto was its Chief Operating Officer, a role he stepped down from to become its Gardener. His work involves co-innovating with MindTree’s customers, tending the top 100 minds in the organization and serving its fifty communities of practice. He is also Chairman of MindTree’s Innovation Council. His earlier books, The High-Performance Entrepreneur Entrepreneur (Penguin Portfolio, 2006), and Go Kiss the World (Penguin Portfolio, 2008), were best-sellers and received critical acclaim.
Subroto is married to writer Susmita Bagchi and they have two daughters, Neha and Niti.
Visit www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi.

Author Photograph by Dileep Prakash
Cover design by Gunjan Ahlawat



‘Moving and deeply empathetic…From richlyvaried experiences, Bagchi explains how toconduct one’s career with both intelligence andintegrity. This fine book will command adeservedly wide readership.’ -Ramachandra Guha, author of India after Gandhi
‘This book is important because it equatesprofessionalism with an inspirational capacity toserve with total integrity—a central attributeof the most important change-makers of our time.’ -Bill Drayton, Founder and CEO, Ashoka



PORTFOLI O Published by the Penguin Grou p Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park , New Delhi 110 017, Indi a Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, US A Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto , Ontario, M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc. ) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, Englan d Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Irelan d (a division of Penguin Books Ltd ) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell , Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd ) Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632 , New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd ) Penguin Group (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank , Johannesburg 2196, South Afric a
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, Englan d
First published in Portfolio by Penguin Books India 200 9
Copyright © Subroto Bagchi 200 9
All rights reserve d
ISBN 978-06-7008-295-7
This Digital Edition published 2011. e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-005-8 Digital conversion prepared by DK Digital Media, India.
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise , be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior writte n consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published an d without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequen t purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of thi s publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, o r transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recordin g or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and th e above-mentioned publisher of this e-book .


To my daughters, Neha and Niti
Contents
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREFACE
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
Part I INTEGRITY
BURIAL OF THE DEAD
THE DAY JUSTICE WAS MURDERED
INTEGRITY IS PERSONAL
DOCTOR , HEAL THYSELF
THE MANY SHADES OF GREY
FIRING THE STAR SALESPERSON
Part II SELF - AWARENESS : WHERE COMPETENCE ENDS AND PROFESSIONALISM TAKES OVER
KNOWING WHO YOU ARE
BEING AUTHENTIC
BEING COMFORTABLE
SEEKING HELP
NOT SUFFERING FALSE COMPARISONS
HAVING A REASONABLE VIEW OF THE FUTURE
LOOKING BEYOND MONEY
BEING DEEPLY SELF - OBSERVANT
REINING IN REACTIONS
WELCOMING FEEDBACK
NOT SUFFERING FALSE ATTRACTIONS
DOING SOME THINGS FOR YOURSELF
BEING PROACTIVE
TAKING CHARGE
COURTESY AND HUMILITY
THE BIG PICTURE
Part III PROFESSIONAL QUALITIES
OF TIME , BODY AND SOUL
DOING MORE BY DOING LESS
THE TO - DO LIST
SAYING NO
QUIT WHINING
A LONG VIEW OF TIME
MAVENS , CONNECTORS AND EVANGELISTS
WHITE SPACE
CREATING REUSE
WHAT IS YOUR TOUCH - TIME ?
WHEN PATHS DIVERGE
Part IV MANAGING VOLUME
THE POWER OF VISION
AFFECTIVE REGARD
COMMITMENT TO COMMITMENT
BE PREPARED
ASK PERTINENT QUESTIONS
INTENT LISTENING
HUMAN BEINGS FIRST AND FOREMOST
THE REWARDS OF TRANSPARENCY
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF DISSENT
Part V MANAGING COMPLEXITY
THREE DISASTERS , THREE GREAT PROFESSIONALS
LOGIC OR EMOTION ?
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
THREE LEVELS OF KNOWLEDGE
THE FIVE MINDS OF THE FUTURE
CRITICAL QUESTIONING
DEALING WITH PERSONAL PAIN
Part VI NEW WORLD IMPERATIVES
INCLUSION AND GENDER
CROSS - CULTURAL SENSITIVITY
GOVERNANCE
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
SUSTAINABILITY
Part VII THE PROFESSIONAL’S PROFESSIONAL
A YEN FOR PROFESSIONALISM
THE UNPROFESSIONAL
RETURN OF THE DEAD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The idea for this book was conceived with my editor Sumitra Srinivasan. Our free-ranging discussions seemed to bring us back to the questions: Am I a true professional? What qualities would make me a better professional? What is professional ethics? What does it mean for me? Faced with a difficult decision and multiple options, how do I know I am making the right choice? And we realized that most people ask themselves these same questions, undergoing moments of uncertainty about how they can be the best. Why not a book, she suggested, for the scores of people who become doctors, engineers, journalists, architects, teachers in fact anyone who works in a professional capacity which they can use. I am grateful to Sumitra for her encouragement, critique and patience.
Writing, at one level, is a solitary experience. Had it not been for my life partner of three decades, Susmita, I would not have been able to take on the task of being a writer. She feeds my body and my soul and puts up with the emotional highs and lows that a writer must suffer before he is able to produce anything of meaning. I remain eternally grateful to her for many reasons; one amongst them is helping me bring this book to you.
As I began writing, I was fortunate to meet Prashanth, an unusually gifted young man, from the Spastics Society of Karnataka. He agreed to be my research assistant for this project verifying sources, seeking information that may be useful, and questioning the prose and sometimes the purpose. Despite being severely impacted by his congenital affliction of cerebral palsy, he provided a tremendous amount of help and symbolizes the spirit of a professional. I thank him for his dedication and enthusiasm, without which this work of love would not have been complete.
At MindTree, my colleague Shanti Uday has been running my life with the patience of a quiet, ever-flowing river for a decade now. Her support has been enormous in helping me with versions, backups and the final editing. I remain always grateful to her. Shanti, thank you for everything.
Working for MindTree has many rewards chief amongst them is the space it provides me to be myself. And the resources to write three books within a span of five years! My colleagues there never once ask me what I am doing on company time because they deeply believe that I am doing something valuable externalizing MindTree’s core.
In gratitude to MindTree, proceeds from this book, like in the case of the earlier two, will benefit the MindTree Foundation. MindTree Foundation works in the area of primary education with special emphasis on people with disabilities.
As I looked back on my working career to find examples of professionalism, I realized how greatly I have been influenced by countless people bosses, peers and subordinates from whom I have gleaned lessons in professional behaviour. To each one of those individuals I remain indebted. Many lessons from some very special people, whom I call ‘professional’s professionals’, are included in this book. These are people to whom I reached out to tell me what they think are the attributes of a professional through personal anecdotes, illustrating both professional and unprofessional conduct. A big thank you to Ashok Soota, Anjan Lahiri, Abhi Dhar, Amit Varma, Asha Mathen, Ashutosh Sh