6 Perceptible qualities from the book “The Professional” by Subroto Bagchi

This book is a great guide to the qualities of a true professional. I was introduced to this book by my Professor Mr. Joshi Sir during my MBA days at JBIMS. I was deeply influenced by the logic of the book which also reflects the sizing up of the human capital by the corporate world. The author has given relevant examples while discussing the attributes of a professional in detail. Subroto Bagchi was at the helm of MindTree for many years and has helped the company grow in values and corporate culture.

1. Integrity

Subroto Bagchi begins the book with an anecdote which involves a boy named Mahadeva, who after his mother passed away stuck at the hospital with no place to go to. The hospital became his universe. He ran errands at the hospital and attended the unclaimed corpses the police used to deposit. One day the police asked Mahadeva to dispose an unclaimed dead body for a meager some of INR 200. He accepted and had to do the turnkey job: Pull the stiff body from the morgue, hire a horse drawn carriage, put the body in it and take it to the burial ground, dig the ground to bury the dead.  After doing the job, he would hang around in the hospital to be summoned to dispose of the next unclaimed body.

Mahadeva did his work with such dedication, focus, care and concern that soon he was in demand. His work grew and he bought his own horse drawn carriage and between the horse and himself he was the undertaker to the abandoned. Mahadeva has buried more than 42,000 corpses in his lifetime and his dedication has earned him phenomenal public recognition. The author mentions with clarity the integral quality of the professional being the capability to work unsupervised and the ability to certify the completion of self’s work. Mahadeva, thus, is a high performer and a true professional.

2. Future View

Bagchi mentions that when you look around and see the high functioning professionals you realize where they are going. It is the intent with which they work that makes it evident to everyone that the person has the future in her sight. The sense of destination gives people what celebrated author Viktor Frankl calls ‘Something to look forward to’ in his book Man’s search for meaning. Frankl had survived the holocaust at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp in Germany during the Second World War. He studied the human behavior at the camps and especially of those who survived the brutality and hopelessness. Frankl revealed that the survivors relied on the strength of their sense of journey. They believed that they would get out of the place someday and had an unfinished task to be done in their lives.

A similar life account is submitted in the autobiographical novel “Papillon” by Henri Charrière (This book was recommended by my Father during my teens) during his incarceration and subsequent escape from the French penal colony of French Guiana between 1931 and 1945. A professional as per Bagchi is a person who can build a view of a future as against being helplessly dragged by unknown forces.

3. Observation in Self

The author refers to an interesting exercise that he sometimes asks a group of people to carry out. He requests the group to close their eyes for a few minutes in a quiet place and count the number of sounds that they can identify. Participants usually pick many sounds around them but invariably miss out on the sound of their own breathing. He says learning to be self observant is to literally watch yourself as you think, as you work and interact with others. While the author went for Sales call, he attempted not just to make the call but to notice what was happening. The opening of the customer’s door to the way they greeted each other, the smallest details of the office, the tiniest reaction of rejection, query or approval and finally how the meeting concluded. Bagchi says that the capacity to watch your own actions and utterances is the starting point of being self observant.

4. Proactive Nature

Bagchi cites Valmiki, the sage who wrote Ramayana, who had counted the many essential qualities that make a great king. The personality of Lord Rama was the manifestation of these qualities. One among them was the quality who initiates conversation termed as Agravashi. Being Proactive is an attitude and a behaviour that gets memorable relationships in both life and business. People love to deal with a proactive person. And it is every boss’s prayer to have such a person in her team says the author.

At an event, the hostess asked for a volunteer from the audience to join her on stage. She did not mention the task the volunteer will have to undergo. The request being ambiguous on the task to be performed did not get a warm response from an audience. But a person from the back seat made his way to the stage with much effort and met the hostess on the podium. The hostess asked for the man’s name and queried if he was ready for the task. The man replied in affirmative. She put her hand in her pocket and took out a USD 100 currency and handed over to the man. The man took it and waited for her to tell him the further activity the task contained. The hostess smiled and said that the task had completed and that he has won the activity. The task in effect was to identify a proactive person from the audience and reward him for this quality.

5. Courtesy and Humility      

Bagchi states that the Professional adulation is the beacon of a lighthouse – it falls on you for a few moments and then it must move on. People who think that the spotlight will always remain on them, are often rude and insensitive, soon to discover the loneliness of being in the shadows. When you suspend humility, you only hear the adulation and it becomes regenerative till you turn deaf. Bagchi mentions Narayan Murthy and his practice every night before going to bed to retain his humility. He says Murthy stays awake at night with the lights on for a few minutes to recall the mistakes he had committed during the day. It is the time he speaks to his conscience. This means reliving the pain. The process of recounting the day’s incident is cathartic. The author emphasizes the inseparable feature of courtesy and humility with professionalism.

6. Preparation

Great professionals are always prepared. Prepared individuals project a good image of the company and of themselves – that is the first step in making the client feel important. The author shares a personal experience of this quality. He says that “you must arrive before you arrive”. MindTree at that time was trying to break into the preferred list of suppliers of a fortune 500 company. Bagchi asked himself why on earth the client would want to meet him? What would make the meeting memorable when he is inundated by endless sales pitches?

That night before the meeting, the Oscar awards were announced. Slumdog Millionaire walked away with eight Oscars. Bagchi had got his entry line for the next day’s meeting. He decided to tell the executive two things: Whoever thought one day the US could have an African American as president and whoever thought “Jai Ho” would be on the lips of everyone? His subsequent pitch was on the idea of change and why it was a good idea for the executive to let the underdog in. The next day as the meeting began and the business cards were exchanged, the client opened the discussion with the following line: What an award ceremony that was last night! Did you see the Oscars? Bagchi had arrived before arriving!

The book is filled with anecdotal remarks from real life references and Subroto Bagchi has placed the narrative in a deft manner. It is a great read and I strongly recommend you to read this book.

Thanks for reading.