In his latest book 'The Professional' Mr. Bagchi talks about various attributes of a 'True Professional'. The book comprises of approximate 200 pages and I was able to finish it in 3 sittings. I am not a book worm at all and only enjoy few books only. If a book can hold me for initial half an hour I will for sure finish the book asap. After reading book I thought of writing my personal review and here I am.
Summary: It says top 10 attributes of a professional, in order, are..
- Integrity
- Commitment and ownership
- Action orientation and goal seeking
- Continuous learning
- Professional skills
- Communication
- Planning & discipline
- Work quality
- Attitude
- Thought leadership
Accordingly book has been divided into 7 parts. Author himself asks to read the book in the order and not jump between different parts. I, personally, liked the book it is not very great book for all but a great book for a young person at the earlier stages of his/her career and for those, who are ready to step into corporate world. Narration is quite good, especially incidents quotation from author's own life experiences. Readers can easily associate themselves with the book and while reading the book they can start self-contemplation. Earlier two books of Mr Bagchi - 'Go Kiss the World' and 'The High-performance Entrepreneur' were also quite successful. But frankly I have not read those books. If you are not too busy and want to know how close, 'to a professional' you are go and give it a shot it won't take much time to finish the book. Here I will write few points about each part of the book and you can get an idea what's book all about.
Part I: Integrity
Integrity is truly a very important aspect of a professional and I agree with the Author. He cites many examples of people who showed integrity and who did not. I have also experienced that people do not take integrity very seriously. Some of them actual don't understand the term even if you don't please go and read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrity. In the last chapter of this part, I think author has become too ideal though he left the answer to individual organization. In this capitalist word you don't fire a sales person, who has forged travel bills but is about to get a million dollar deal. He may be fired just after deal is closed but not before that. I don't see that happening practically. Let's accept this.
Part II: Self- awareness
For me this was the best part of the book. It tells why you should be self aware; know what you can do, what are your limits and acceptance of your limitations. All the chapters in this part are very well knitted with each other and good to read. At least I was able to relate them with my professional life
Part III: Professional Qualities
This part was typical lecture style which you can find in lots of book like to do list, saying no, longer view etc but one chapter I really liked was 'White Space'. It tells you the concept in a very beautiful way. What is white space? White space is the time we get in between our pre-planned time e.g. time you get while going to work by bus, waiting to meet a client. One more line caught my line i.e. 'Whenever you create something, useful, always think of reuse'
Part IV: Managing Volume
I again liked this part a lot, especially stories narrated in 'Commitment' & ‘Transparency’ chapter and Manager Employee dialog where manager asks employee why was he late for the office. Again I feel it is important how you tell various concepts to reader. It should be simple; I should be able to associate myself with it. Mr. Bag chi did a beautiful job here.
Part V: Managing Complexity
If you, like me, are not aware of incidents, cited in this part it is a very good part otherwise an average section. Specially story about 3 professionals and 9 types of intelligences. I didn't know about these things before.
Part VI: New world imperatives
Here authors talks about gender, governance, IP rights and culture. The best chapter is cross culture sensitivity and gives real insight.
Part VII: The professional's professional
Here author talks about top 10 qualities of an unprofessional and a professional (mentioned at the starting of this review). Nice and concise explanation.
Finally I would like to quota favorite lines from book
'The day you feel empty shift the attention from yourself to others - go and spend time with a bunch of colleagues who have just joined the organization, help and intern with his work, write series of how-to articles based on your experiences, take a pro-bono work with your industry association. See how pitcher of emptiness begins to fill again'
'..A true professional has a calibrated thermostat which prompts the degree of reaction and control required in any given situation.'
Happy reading!!!
Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here is my independent personal opinion and are not related to either author or publisher of the book Penguin. The quotes mentioned here are directly taken from the book without any permission from author or publisher. In case you want these to be removed please drop me an email at pradeep.mishra /at/ noesispedia dot com.