Burial of the Dead
What are the chances that you work in an entry level position or even a middle level job in a hotel, a hospital, a software company, or a government organization? Or, for that matter, you could be a self-employed professional like a doctor, a lawyer, or a journalist. In all probability you are educated, know English, and are working in (or have interacted with) the corporate sector. Perhaps an MBA, or a student at an engineering college? You probably consider yourself a professional, or on the road to becoming one. Definitely your station in life is well above someone whose job is to bury unclaimed corpses from city hospitals.
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A Lesson in Humility - Professional’s Quote
While we wait for the release of The Professional, here is a lovely piece from a professional I have never met but like many of you, keeps in touch over the Internet. Dr. Ramana is a neuro-surgeon from Vizag and he has this absolutely humbling story to share.
“The ghat-road passing through deep jungles on the way from Koraput to Visakhapatnam (Vizag) is dotted with hamlets inhabited by tribal people living in harmony with nature. Medical facilities are not easily available unless they travel to the nearest town - sometimes to a primary health centers through forest paths carrying the sick on a make shift stretcher. Usually the literate among them or patients from small towns who have relatives at Vizag come here for specialized treatment. This is how a family of four landed up at our hospital one night.
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The Professional - Book Launch, 30th September 2009
The long wait is over.
Mr. Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Sons, clearly the most iconic professional figure in our midst, will launch the book in Mumbai on September 30th at the Taj Mahal Hotel at 7:00 PM.
For those of you in Bangalore, I will do a book reading at the Crossword on Residency Road at 6:30 PM on Tuesday the 6th October.
And for my readers in the North, I will come by to the India Habitat Center on Thursday the 8th October.
I am looking at a visit to the east later in the year.
Thank you all for your affectionate wishes, your encouragement and I look forward to your critique when the book is in your hands.
Meanwhile, tell your friends not to buy a pirated copy!
Dalai Lama Visits Zen Garden
While we all wait for the launch of The Professional later this month, I have something special to share with you.
I trust that all of you are tracking the Zen Garden in Forbes India magazine in which I have had the rare privilege of hosting some truly remarkable people from Jimmy Wales to Siddhartha, from Anu Aga to Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. In this unusual column, I get to know of their personal space, their ideas about life and work and their life-lessons.
This fortnight, I have the rarest of rare occasions: His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is the visitor to the Zen Garden. He is, to me the CEO of the soul and entrepreneur of the spirit.
On behalf of all of you, I had the opportunity to converse with him recently in Delhi. We talked about today’s business crisis, on leadership and the young professional who loses affective regard for the idea of work while seeking early material success.
Do not miss it, you must pick up the collector’s issue from the news stand in the coming week and let me know your thoughts.
The Professional’s Professional - Professional’s Quote
Pradipt Kapoor is a senior executive in the IT organization at SITA, based out of London. For those who do not know, SITA is the world’s leading provider of communications and information technology solutions. In the airline industry, the computer terminals are often called SITA terminals. Pradipt is a great professional who came into IT from a non-IT background. He has been an entrepreneur is his previous life and he has this story that exemplifies professionalism.
“One of my sales managers in a past company came to me with great concern. He knew he was on the verge of signing a deal but he wasn’t convinced that the solution we were selling to the customer was needed by him. The customer seemed to want a “Rolls Royce” where a bi-cycle would do. It seemed that this was because the CEO of that organization wanted an IT solution without having any knowledge of IT. Even though the commission associated for the deal was big for the salesman, he felt uncomfortable. We went back to the customer seeking a meeting with the CEO. We explained our views to the astounded man. In doing what was the right and not the convenient thing the Sales manager not only won favor of the customer but also built the reputation of the company. He put his personal short term benefit to a side.”
Uplifting stories of professional conduct go beyond the white-collar mould. Here is one from Venkatesh Komarla who heads delivery at MindTree’s Knowledge Services business.
Venkatesh started life at MICO Bosch’s India operations as a graduate engineer right out of college where he picked up his first lesson in commitment and ownership, more »
Story about Integrity and Values - Professional’s Quote
In the last blog, I had shared with you how had I reached out to a world-wide group of people I deeply admire for their professionalism while writing The Professional. I had asked them these three questions: what qualities did they admire in a “professional”? What were some of their own uplifting experiences in dealing with other professionals? Three, what were their recollections of unprofessional conduct?
These men and women, from a diverse set of fields, indicated a list of qualities. I collated the feedback to rank the most coveted ones.
The top ten professional attributes that jumped out were:
1. Integrity
2. Commitment and ownership
3. Action orientation and goal seeking
4. Continuous learning
5. Professional knowledge/skills
6. Communication
7. Planning, organizing and punctuality
8. Quality of work
9. A positive attitude, approachability, responsiveness and
10. Being an inspiring reference to others, thought leadership
It is redeeming that Integrity came right on top because that is the one with which I open “The Professional” which will be on your hands soon.
The Professional contains an expansive conversation on the subject that is often considered prudish but in reality, is the keystone of the arch.
While discussing instances of professional conduct while researching for the book, here is a great lesson from the life of Amit Varma, a man I deeply admire.
Amit got his MBA from Kellogg School of Management and has been with MindTree ever since we started. Today, he heads MindTree’s worldwide consulting practice in IT strategy out of California, USA. Here is a story about integrity and values from his school days that has shaped Amit’s business outlook and I am sure will touch you deeply:
“This is an incidence that goes some time back when I was 14 yrs old and was representing my state (West Bengal) in cricket. more »
Go Kiss the World is now in Hindi - “Chum Lo Jahan Ko”
Go Kiss the World is now in Hindi - “Chum Lo Jahan Ko” has just come out as a Penguin publication and is currently on the stands.
The book has been very well translated by Saroj Kumar.
Chum Lo Jahan Ko will take the message of the original to a much wider audience and I am very happy about that. After all, it is written for young people from the other India. Meanwhile, like all of you, I am waiting for “The Professional” to make its debut and I hope all of you will let me know what you think of it.
When I was writing the book, I reached out to a set of professionals whom I deeply admire: doctors, managers, software architects, bankers, journalists. These are people I call “professional’s professional”. I had asked them for three things:
1. Qualities they think essential to be a called a professional
2. A positively uplifting anecdote of professional behavior and
3. One negative anecdote they have come across in their dealings with other professionals
In response to my request, Scott Staples, co-founder of MindTree and currently CEO of our Knowledge Services, had this great story of a rookie salesman:
Ethylene Glycol is widely used in the manufacturing of plastics, but most people are not aware that this is also the key ingredient for manufacturing automotive antifreeze. In the late 1980’s, the U.S. had a number of issues at plants that manufacturer Ethylene Glycol and hence a spike in pricing for automotive antifreeze occurred due to a lack of product in the market. Automotive antifreeze and other automotive after-market products are primarily sold in the market by local distributors. But more »
The Professional
All of you will be glad to know that my next book “The Professional” is ready for release in September as a Penguin Portfolio publication.
After “The High Performance Entrepreneur” and “Go Kiss the World“, this is the third of what I intended to be a trilogy.
All of you who have been part of this blog are in reality the very first people to see the cover of the book. So, here it is:
In this book, I am devoting myself to answering the one seminal question: What does it take to be considered a true professional in any field?
This book delves into the essential qualities, beyond just professional qualifications, that are needed to be called a 21st Century Professional.
“The Professional” has been endorsed by Ram Guha, author of “India After Gandhi” and Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka. I hope that The Professional will appeal to a wide cross-section of readers from those in corporate employment to a cross-section of self-employed professionals who want to stand out.
“The Professional” took me a lot of energy to conceptualize, write, edit, revise and finally to make it ready to go to Press. My editor at Penguin, Sumitra Srinivasan says that I have poured myself out in this book and I believe her.
I hope all of you will soon get a copy of The Professional and one day, let me have your thoughts on it.
Budget 2009
I grew up in the tribal districts of Orissa. In places like Koraput and Keonjhar where my boyhood was spent, the nearest railhead was a day’s journey from home. The tribesmen made a living by cultivating the slopes of the mountain, gathering forest produce and tending their animals. Many who lived high up in the mountains were seasonally disconnected from the district administration during the monsoon and the pigeon mail was the only way to contact the marooned. There was a place called Telkoi in Keonjhar where the lone Public Health Center had only two medicines: one for dysentery and one for constipation. The reason was simple. The tribesmen ate mango and jackfruits in every form - from the time they were small to the time they ripened, they ate the seeds and of course, the mango kernels as well. As a result either they had lose motions or none at all. When the government tried to demonstrate them how to cultivate the Taichung rice, they watched intently until the rice formed milk and then they simply sucked it and did not let the rice wait until harvest. That was forty years ago.
After I grew up, at 25, I visited the Simlipal reserve forest in Mayurbhanj and stayed there for a week. My guide was a forest guard who had brought his bride from the village haat and was living-in with her. He had not been able to save up the bride price to pay the father-in-law yet, so they remained unmarried. They were raising his nephew whose father was serving a life-term for murder he had not committed. The man had simply surrendered to the police and agreed to the allegation because that was a more peaceful thing to do. The alternative would have been exposing the women and the children. Fast forward to 2009. Not much has changed in Koraput and Keonjhar and Lalgarh. The veneer of development has been replaced with that of law and order.
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Zen Garden
It is time to share something all of you would love to know.
Forbes – the internationally acclaimed business magazine now has an India edition. It was launched in Mumbai last month. From the content and design of the first two issues on stand, it has clearly set a new benchmark in business journalism in India for sure. Who is editing it? Indrajit Gupta, the man who gave me Arbor Mentis and Times of Mind in my past lives; these were columns that many of you still remember.
Indrajit has been after me for more than a year to write something very different. Now, between my work at MindTree, the travel it entails, and a new Penguin book coming in September, it has really been a packed time. So, I tried my best to fend him off. But he would have none of that. So, I finally gave in. And “Zen Garden” was born. In it, every fortnight I meet an unusual entrepreneur who shares with me the tales of the journey for my readers.
The first issue has featured VG Siddhartha of Café Coffee Day, the second one features Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales and soon on the stands, you will find Ritesh Sidhwani…
You can read past and the future editions at
Zen Garden section of Enterprise in Forbes India magazine
So, save the bookmark and let me know what you think.
