This is no attempt to pat one’s own back. But when Bagchi lays down rules and regulations and benchmarks, sometimes sternly, sometimes with a gripping anecdote and initially even in an unbearably preaching tone, he makes one sit up and introspect on one’s professional journey over three decades.

For instance, take the short chapter ‘Quit Whining’. Over my 30 years in journalism, as a team leader in different roles, and even earlier, I remember telling an umpteen number of colleagues that if they’re so unhappy about what they are doing, they have no business to continue doing it. If the organisation cannot, or refuses, to give them a different role, or if they think it is not acknowledging/recognising their talent, they should look out for a new opportunity elsewhere.

In fact, one had to say to a colleague three days ago in exasperation: “For God’s sake, stop whining; more than harming anybody else, it is harming you as a person and gnawing away at your own confidence and self-esteem.”

Here is the author’s take on the issue: “Some people dislike their work, some like the salary but not the work, some dislike the boss and yet others dislike their colleagues. In some cases people dislike the idea of work itself. A professional realises that work is a blessing and, most of the time, is therapeutic.”

He adds: “Jobs are not meant to satisfy us. Jobs are not animate things that have knowledge of who we are, what we are seeking and what our special needs could be.”

A consistent and strong thread running through this rather slim volume — for which readers who’ve ploughed through Nandan Nilekani, Ramachandra Guha and more recently Jaswant Singh’s Jinnah tomb will be eternally grateful to Bagchi — is on integrity and ethics. Without basic honesty and fundamental ethics — inflating travel bills, stealing data to get your company that mega order, cooking up your CV, and so on — nobody, however brilliant, can be called a professional.

While integrity is a given — and Bagchi, the cofounder of MindTree, gives examples of how his company gave marching orders to employees who couldn’t pass its stringent test on integrity — job-hopping just for the sake of more money and making yourself believe that it is for a “greater professional challenge” is a strict no-no.

He gives the example of somebody just three months into his current job, getting a call from a head hunter for a job which offers a 50 per cent hike. “That night you do not get sleep. A lady named temptation visits you. She whispers into your ear all the things wrong with your current assignment, reminds you of non-co-operation by your new colleagues,” and so on. Before taking a call, says the author, remember two things: “You have not paid back your organisation for taking a risk in hiring you. To the head hunter you are just another head to hunt, to make his cut and bonus.”

The true mettle of a professional at the helm of affairs is tested during disasters, says Bagchi, and gives examples. How eBay’s CEO Meg Whitman landed in office at midnight when there was a power outage in California in 1999, and stayed there for 13 consecutive days, sleeping on a bed in the conference room, till “it was business as usual”.

How after the 9/11 attacks when all airlines were laying off people, cutting wages and grounding aircraft, Southwest Airlines CEO Jim Parker decided to go ahead and “deposit $179 million into an employee profit sharing account (because) it was the right thing to do.” He also decided against grounding planes and layoffs, and decided to give full refund for cancellations by passengers too terrified to fly. The result: Southwest made a profit in the last quarter of 2001.

And then there is stuff that makes Bagchi’s writing special and so different from pedestrian ‘how to…’ books. In a chapter called ‘White Space’, he describes his favourite sight while driving to work each day. The “egg van” with two little schoolgirls in their uniforms seated cross-legged with books open on their laps, at the rear of the van. The shutter is only partially open; “I have never seen their faces but I can imagine their eyes. The picture uplifts me in an instant. On the same roads I see countless office buses that ferry bored young men and women with a tired look on their faces, some sleeping or switched off from the world through a pair of white earplugs. I call the two girls my ‘angels of white space’.”

While in telecom these words refer to the frequency allotted but not used in a channel, in print white space allows different characters to form words and sentences. This is uncanny; for long years my “white space” has been the sight, in Indian villages, of girls with bright red ribbons and shining, bright eyes, walking to school, chattering happily. There cannot be a better image and harbinger of the India of our dreams.

But make no mistake; many of Bagchi’s benchmarks are extremely tough as you size yourself up as a professional! As a journalist I don’t look through people who approach me after a meeting or lecture — the treatment given to Infosys’ Narayana Murthy by a famous female columnist before he became famous. Nor do I profess keen interest in interviewing people, promise to send them questions and forget all about it, as happened to the author who kept checking his e-mail after one such encounter.

But I can’t pass many of his tough tests, such as always saying ‘no’ to office meetings where you know you have no value to add to the discussion; “a criminal waste of human potential”, says Bagchi.

Also, each morning Bagchi arms himself with a list of things to do during the day and ticks off what is done! Forget a list of multiple chores; often one fails to do even a single important task in a day. Ah, for that elusive virtue called discipline!

Simple, straightforward, engaging, gripping; Bagchi’s writing is getting better with each book!

The Professional

By Subroto Bagchi

Publisher: Penguin Portfolio

Price: Rs 399

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