Profession doesn't make one Professional

Looking back is unavoidable and even more pertinent is to foresee. I have learnt that former can help latter to happen better. There is no need to resist or change the transformation happening in one's surrounding. One can be at peace in staying away from "what is this happening" versus "what ought to be happening". The changes external to "I" should be taken openly after giving in one's best.

Career path is never inferior to career growth. Work life to be happy is based on happiness in life. One must play to strength rather than assuming that strength can be derived from an organization or the brand or the size. Admiring self is as critical as assessing self. Both must run parallel albeit allowing each of the emotions emanating out be felt and sank in.

Almost twelve years back I got a call from a Fortune 500 company to appear for an interview. Ostensibly, I heard that name for the first time. Out of my habit and need of the hour, I did my best to know its business and headed on. Today when I look back and read it as history, I move forward confidently. The selection process and those two years that I worked there changed the way I live my "life and work life". By the time I decided to move on from there, I knew it is all about giving your cent percent, it's all about loving your work and your company, loving and being honest to market and above all loyal to customers. Those two years made me contemplate that to work alongside a global brand, one needs to understand the ingredients of that brand and pick few for self. I am amazed to see that for decades and centuries the marketers have worked hard to make the customers loyal. I wish the companies are half as loyal to their customers and if not more then that much to employees.

Coming back to career and work life, I learnt during all these years as why loving your company was as important as loving your career and why giving more time to your work was important than investing that for being in good books of few people in the company. It is imperative to back the person you are led by and equally noteworthy is to tell her/ him what you believe to be good for the team and organisation. Following the culture of organisation one must lay down the impeccable culture individually too, as it is but a hollow to be cultured professionally if one isn't so at personal level. At times professionals are so obsessed with the USP of their organisations that they never observe their own USP and end up being generic. Interacting with a leading Brand professional having served some world renowned companies I noted for my life when he said "USP is to be kept up on the sleeves" which is rarely seen. Professionals are afraid that it will be copied. I laugh it off.

It is interesting to note how people talk about their success coming their way due to the hard work and foresight. At the same time those very people term market and external factors as cause of their downfall and failure. Isn't it oxymoron? One needs to be gracious in accepting both. This makes one turn into stalwarts from mere professionals. Such instances make us learn certain things those are not featured anywhere in the world. You will find those bestsellers less interesting once you count yourself for both success and failure.

Finally, I believe it takes time to realize "What do we earn for" and even greater it makes you slog to understand "What do we work for". At the cost of sounding philosophical, I do wish to say that it takes above two realizations to know that "It is what we live for".

Avinash Chandra Jha