“Just Be PROFESSIONAL…….” you might have heard this phrase many times all along your B-school life. It is the most often used phrase in any situation. You fight with a friend and say to be professional; you betray someone’s trust and say to be professional; you lie to someone and say to be professional.
The word ‘Professional’ was coined to denote a person who is in any profession. So, in a B-school you are certainly going to become a Professional in its original sense, but what meaning are we attaching to the term?
By being professional we try to mean that we should behave with people in the way they expect us to behave. Does it mean that if even if you don’t want to talk to anyone but then also you have to talk to him/her? Certainly No. But in today’s meaning if you have to be professional you have to do it.
I know a friend who has been betrayed by her friend but then also she is being asked to work with that person as she is required to be professional. Is this justified? Is there no value of personalism in toady’s world? Is it only the professionalism that is going to prevail? If yes, then how a creature like human who has both heart and brain, is expected to distinguish between personal and profession? These are the questions that are in the minds of each and every person who is entering this corporate world, but where is the answer?
The answer lies within each one of us. The person facing such a dilemma is the only person who can make such a decision. He is the only one who can decide in what way he has to move. He has to decide whether by compromising on personal values he has to move forward in career or he wish to prevent his personal self.
Though I accept the fact that in life we face situations in which we have to work with people with whom we even don’t like to talk, But does that working mean being professional? No. Its just the need of the hour and we comply by it, so where is professionalism. Does any code of conduct of any profession demand from you to compromise on your personal life? No. Then why are we attaching a completely different meaning to the PROFESSIONALISM?
