Professionalism-Why Is It Important?

Good Morning Everyone

Priscilla is doing well and hopefully will be out of the ICU today or tomorrow and in the hospital for a week or so.

Now lets get down to business. What is professionalism anyway?

Why is it important to be professional all of the time with your customers and with your fellow associates?

Professionalism is defined as “the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person:  characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession:  exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace.”

Professionals perform day in and day out at a very high level.  We all want to deal with professionals in our own lives when we are at work and when we are away from work.

When you go out to eat, go to see your doctor, dentist, lawyer, or tax accountant, are you expecting them to be professional?  Do you want them to be courteous and conscientious?  I do!  I want my doctor to be extremely conscientious when she is examining me. I don’t want her to be preoccupied and not paying attention and miss something that will later bring harm to me.

When your house is on fire or you need a policeman, do you want them to be professional?  Do you want immediate service?  What if the fireman said to you over the phone, “I am having a bad day because I had an argument with my wife, and I am mad at my boss; so we will be over to put the fire out in a couple of hours when I am feeling more professional.  Thanks for calling.”

What time do you think that professionals quit thinking about their jobs?  Is it 5 p.m.?  I can tell you one thing:  I never quit thinking about my job, and I hope you don’t either.

I am always thinking about how I can be better and more professional and serve my customers and my associates more professionally.

I wake up in the middle of the night; and sometimes Priscilla, my wife, says what are you thinking about . . . and I say, “You, darling.”  She knows that I am thinking about work because she has been married to me for 40 years.  She knows also that my profession is important to our family and to the people I serve; and she accepts my response as the reality of a professional.  Sometimes it can be a burden to be a professional because that is what you think about most of the time at work or away from work   . . . and you are always trying to get better at what you do.

Can you imagine working in a place where everyone is unprofessional and went around whining and complaining to your customers and one another?  Can you imagine a place where customers or your fellow associates who asked for help or assistance were told to “leave me alone and don’t talk to me because I am hot and in a bad mood today”?

True professionals are never in a bad mood.  Well, at least, they don’t show it.

True professionals have self-discipline and set the mood for others . . . and this is contagious.

Do you want people in your life to be unprofessional?  What if a doctor said:  “I hope you don’t mind my reusing this needle to give you an inoculation, I have only used it once.”   Or “I am going to rush this examination a little today because I need to go home early because I am tired.”

How would you like to go out to celebrate a very special occasion and have an unprofessional server with an attitude who sends the message that he or she really doesn’t like serving people like you?

How would you like for your children to have an unprofessional teacher who was developing them for the future?

It is easy to spot a professional.  They care, they follow the rules, they are ethical, they are honest, and they love what they are doing.  They are not whiners; they are positive.  They are always trying to be better.  They do great work.  You love to work with them and be around them.  They make you better.  They make you want to be better.

Being a professional is a lot more fun and a lot more rewarding than just thinking about your role as a job for the next eight hours.  Professionals make their jobs more than a job.  They make themselves stand out as an important part of the show.  The day goes by much faster for professionals than it does for people who just consider what they do as an eight-hour job.

Professionals jump out of bed and can’t wait to go do their thing every morning.

Being a professional, in my mind, is a state of mind and is totally in our control.  If I want to be professional, then I will be. 

Professionals do their job properly when no one is watching.  Professionals don’t need supervision. They just need assistance from time to time.

Even recently at the grocery store, I was watching the man bag my groceries. At one point I said, “Just put it all in that one bag.”  He said to me, “I will; but we don’t like to mix food and nonfood items, sir.”   I had never heard that before.

I thought about that, and then understood what he meant.  I guess if you buy a can of ant spray, you probably don’t want it in the bag with your produce or baby food.  What a professional he was . . . and you know what, I like that!   . . . Lee