To the core of the core

Till Satyam happened, the IT sector had the respect of the cop and the lineman, says Subroto Bagchi. Currently IT major Mindtree?s Gardener, he has just launched his third book, The Professional, where he addresses basic issues about our life. And nation-building, asserting the need for professionalism in its true sense to prevail in India if we are to move to the next stage. Suman Tarafdar comes away with quite a few lessons on how to be more professional, in work and in life.

You have listed the top 10 attributes of a professional. Is being professional more about an individual?s working life or an ever present attitude?

The difference between a competent individual and a ?professional? is integrity. Without it, you are just a smart cookie. That?s all. You are not the one who would build a legacy, not the one who would be memorable. Professionals are people who care about building memorability.

As you have written, Indians do not place great value to integrity. How important is it for a society to not just have ?professionally qualified people? but professionals?

The movement from G20 to G8 would have to be led by professionals, the task is that important. In the 1980s, we can say we won economic freedom, where for the first time, if you were willing to work, you could work. This phase has just about started, a phase where we would be intellectually free as a nation. This coincides with the opening up of the world and making it a level playing field. Multiple factors are contributing to it ? not just our willingness to be open to the world, but also globalisation of trade, collapsing of time and space, the internet, not to forget the demographic imbalance of the world today. Given all these things, we are in a never before situation. When you are battling a political enemy, the enemy is outside. When you are trying to win economic freedom, the enemy is external and within. When you look at intellectual freedom, you are your own limitation. When such a situation arises, then it becomes very critical to do things right.

Essentially, when you look at the idea of professionalism, it is about doing things right. A few days ago, there was a picture of Manmohan Singh at the G20 Summit. 20 years back, we couldn?t think of it. Ten years back, we did not think an Indian prime minister would pose for that picture with the confidence Manmohan Singh exuded. This is G20, but there is also a G8. The journey has begun now for the nation from G20 to G8. Politicians, bureaucrats and economists have brought us from nothing to G20. The journey from G20 to G8, or the core of the core, will be a journey only the Indian professional can take us.

Sometimes you see ads that say ?surplus export rejects?. And people queue up to buy export rejects. That mindset has to change. It is changing, but the size of the change is not proportionate to the opportunity, which is so large. As Narayana Murthy said, if only Agra could be cleaned up and presented as the wedding destination, it could earn billions of dollars in foreign exchange. People did not understand him. Don?t have to sell ill-made handicraft or try to woo the budget traveller any more. People fly to Las Vegas to get married, it?s a multi-billion dollar industry. It has third rate weather round the year. Why wouldn?t you get the people of the world to marry in Agra. It requires professionalism of very high order. There are 2,000 such opportunities to play big, taking advantage of India?s size, population, climate. The opportunity is large, but it?s a finite window.

How will this be resolved?

The resolution is in recognising the gap. Once you know the gap, you are willing to address it. Don?t trivialise the gap. When you look at a population of 1.2 billion people and their everyday needs, the kind of professionalism required to deliver will be of a different order of magnitude than what we have known in the last few centuries.

Where do you see the biggest impediments toprofessionalism?

The impediment for the first time is me, myself and I. The middle class driven society is a vestige of the colonial past. And this society has several issues. It is a servile society that trivialises issues. This society confuses professional qualifications with professionalism. It is telling its children to go get the job that gives you enough money. There are two strands ? my child must do better than my neighbours, and I must consume more. Success and happiness is very consumption oriented. This society and its educational system are not asking the fundamental question. How will the article clerk doing the audit of Satyam ask the pertinent question if in school he was told to shut up. The job of a teacher seems to be to maintain law and order in class. When I go sometimes to management or engineering colleges and the principal or the director very proudly puffing up says ?last year we did 99% placement and this was the highest salary offered was this much?. It?s horrifying. When people are obsessed with their child, such a society does not take a long view of time.

Is this change going to comenaturally?

It has to be a concept change. It has to be a matter of self selection. People at various level have to understand that it is a minimum common level of professionalism. And then you need to run it for a couple of generations, till it becomes a part of DNA of the country.

The government is a hugely powerful force. It can both be a force of positive change and it can be the force of negative change. The level of corruption that exists in both society and government today, can be antithetical to the idea of professionalism as well. The fundamental difference between corruption elsewhere and corruption in India ? two things. One is the size of retail corruption, the Rs 2 to Rs 10 corruption, which is unimaginable, unthinkable in any developed society. The second thing is that the difference between us and a developed country is the ordinary citizen in the normal course of life and work is not impacted by corruption.

Is the IT sector symbolic for the changes you hope to see?

The IT sector was fortunate to interact with the global market, which gave the advantage of big exposure to some of these things. The IT industry will have to be a lot more socially engaged, and lot less self-centred to pass on the benefit of its knowledge to other sectors. Otherwise you run the risk of being alienated. Even if you say something good, people might not listen. Some alienation has happened in the last 10 years. Even before Satyam happened, all this was in the air. But Satyam shook up the cop and the line man. Till Satyam happen, the IT sector had the respect of the line man and beat cop. That was the bigger blow. The reputation has to be protected.

It will remain relevant for the next 10 years but will have to reinvent itself because what constituted value will change. Many of the things are relevant to the IT industry today. We need to move from a state where we were expected to do a flawless job of the work asked from us. As I see in the next 20 years, our relevance would be decided by our capacity to invent the future of our customer, to go create the future of our customer. If you speak to the top brass in Japanese auto companies, they have a picture of a future that is 100 years from now.

Where do you see Mindtree headed?

We are a work in progress, you see. On August 18, we completed 10 years. The next big thing is we are driving towards the next billion dollar mark. According to Ashok (Soota, Executive Chairman, Mindtree), if we look at that mark, only about 20-25% will come from the M&As. So a significant part of the future will come from growing the company. Slowdowns will come and go. We are born in 1999, and in 2000 came the recession. In 2001 came 9/11. We respect the fact that people don?t bond in good times. We were born in adversity and made friends with it!

Ten attributes of a professional…

1) Integrity

2) Commitment and ownership

3) Action orientation and goal seeking

4) Continuous learning

5) Professional knowledge/skills

6) Communication

7) Planning, organising and punctuality

8) Quality of work

9) A positive attitude, approachabilty, responsiveness

10) Being an inspiring reference to others; thought leadership

… and an unprofessional individual