From "You Can't Manage Time"

Overview

When we’re impressed with people on the job – colleagues, management, anyone – it’s sometimes hard to put a finger on just why that is. It’s their demeanor. It’s a combination of their dependability and expertise. It’s their character and it shows up, sometimes, in their status, or at least in how they’re regarded by others.

See? It’s hard to pin down exactly, but really what it amounts to is professionalism.

Wikipedia says professionalism is “The standing, practice, or methods of a professional, as distinguished from an amateur” and “professional status, methods, character, or standards.”

If it’s difficult to characterize it, maybe we should think about what it looks like. People who have it:

• Are good at follow-through
• Remember to call you back when they say they will
• Are on time
• Do what they say they’re going to do, keep commitments
• Are relatively organized

Emotional Intelligence and Professionalism

In Emotional Intelligence terms, this shows up as a personal competence: Conscientiousness, which Daniel Goleman defines as “Dependability, responsibility in fulfilling obligations.”

Expectations

So we have some idea now about what “professionalism” is all about. Most people demonstrate professionalism, some more than others. Only the most saintly among the professional workforce could demonstrate all aspects of professionalism all the time. And let’s face it: If they were that perfect, we’d be suspicious.

With the right natural ingredients and the right influences, professionalism develops in people over time. Entry level people often demonstrate less than experienced professionals. That said, we’ve all seen examples of people who’ve been on the job a long time and have precious little.

The assumption here about professionalism isn’t that everyone falls short and everyone, therefore, is due some amount of criticism. However, to discuss this topic we have to explore some personally negative things – undesirable behaviors and outcomes that show up in people. But let’s do so in a framework that has as its underlying assumption that most people get up in the morning planning to do the best job they know how.

Yes, there are evil professionals, but they’re rare. Most people don’t drive to work every day thinking, “I sure am glad I promised that report would be done today because I have no intention of even starting it!”

Most of us fall somewhere between incompetent and extraordinary and, depending on the job at hand, we’ll be closer to one end of the continuum or the other. As you consider where you are on the spectrum, don’t be hard on yourself. Keep in mind that most people come to work every day to do the best job they can. That includes you.

Dr. Richard Farson, in his wonderfully insightful book about paradox in business, Management of the Absurd, says it best:

“Most employees are trying to do the best they can. They prefer to do good work, to cooperate, to meet objectives. They prefer harmony over conflict, action over inaction, productivity over delays. Not everyone, and not all the time. But in general, people want to perform effectively.”

Now, if you’ve fully internalized that and you’re ready to read on without assuming the worst about yourself, continue.

Symptoms

How do problems with Professionalism show up:

Missed deadlines, late to meetings – We all know people who are consistently late to meetings. We schedule lunch with them 15 minutes ahead of when we actually plan to start, so we don’t get too hungry waiting for them. We may be less aware of missed deadlines on the part of our peers, unless we’re working on something together, but news about missed deadlines often comes out – either as a confession or because we discover some upstream dependency that wasn’t met.

Undependable; follow-through lacking – There’s a difference between missing a deadline and not meeting commitments at all, not coming up with the goods once assigned. Follow-through, living up to your accountability, is an essential ingredient of professionalism, and consistently undependable people aren’t long for their jobs.

The all-promise-no-deliver form of this is probably the worst. “I’ll do it!” earns the volunteer the immediate gratitude of the meeting leader, unless that person has a reputation for always stepping forward at first and then consistently not coming through. These habits waste everyone’s time.

“I’ve got to get organized!” - Staying organized is a personal thing. Anyone can make an edible meat loaf if they follow a recipe, but unfortunately there’s nothing quite as precise as that for staying organized. Each well-organized individual has his own recipe. For some, it means the filing must be done every day. For others, 200 unopened emails waiting to be read is okay. For yet others, a neat and tidy desk is required. But being neat is not the same as being organized.

Neatness Counts?

I once worked for a man who was meticulous. He always placed chairs under his conference table equidistant apart, pushed in just so far.

He insisted on erasing every mark from the white board in his office after every meeting. On Fridays, he wiped down the same board with cleaning solution ‘til it shone, removed any dubious-looking leaves from his office plants, and stacked the papers in his inbox so that every corner was aligned with precision.

Although he was fastidious, the technical staff who worked for him were not. One week, tired of the relative states of chaos in the cubicles of those who worked for him, this vice president declared Cubicle Clean-Up Week and promised a prize for whomever he deemed most improved.

Some people took him seriously, others didn’t. One who didn’t, particularly, was the department guru, a guy whose desk was often hard to find amid the mess he lived in. But, for fun, the guru re-cycled some of what he’d collected and then crammed the rest into drawers so his workspaces were cleared off. That Friday, he won the prize. On Monday, he unloaded his drawers back onto his desk, and most of the damage was restored.

The guru was known as an expert with great follow-through skills and a quiet, optimistic manner – a real professional. He never dropped an assignment, never missed a deadline, and the quality of his work was considered exceptional.

Was he neat? No, but he was organized.