Thinking about work - Being a professional in a modern workforce

I don’t usually post much on LinkedIn, but thought of starting with things I’ve been reflecting on professionally - of late - to learn from and give back to the community. So here goes the first post. This is one close to my heart - Being a professional in a modern workforce.

At work, I place a very high bar on professionalism. Whoever said, “Hire for attitude and train for skills” got it so right. 

So if you’re in a modern workspace, here are some ABCs to follow - doesn’t matter whether you’re a fresher or a senior manager - these are non-negotiables that I’ve learned and am actively trying to imbibe in myself and others at Kalvium .

1. Turn up for meetings on time. A modern knowledge worker has many challenges. One of them is managing time and navigating between meetings. I’ve seen people get busy with multiple meetings and start to feel that it’s okay to come to meetings late (because they’re in back-to-back meetings). Breaking the bubble on this - It’s not okay! Punctuality is hygiene. 
2. No agenda no meeting. The title speaks for itself. Two questions I’ve learned to ask while setting up a meeting - what’s the agenda and how much time do we need? I’ve learned to be tight with the time allotted to meetings. If something will take only 10 minutes, block 10 minutes. Not the default 60 that Google Meet recommends (there’s a way to change that too - I’ve changed mine to 20-minute meetings by default). Another good, but not easy to follow, habit that I’m trying to pick up - saying no to meeting requests that do not come with the aforementioned things being taken care of.
3. Over-communicate. I learned this from one of my previous managers at FACE Prep - Ram Prakash Govindarajan . Hat tip to him for teaching me that giving more clarity than needed is always helpful. You thus reduce the room for misunderstandings. Simple yet elegant! And I’ve tried to adopt this ever since - assume that the listener needs more help to follow/ understand you - break it down to the absolute basics with more clarity than what 100% calls out.
4. Message instead of waiting for a call. I often get messages (I have been guilty of doing this as well in my formative years) from folks who ping with a “Can I call you?” - which I respond to several hours later. Some basics I learned here - I’ve thus learned to not wait for people - that’s the beauty of asynchronous communication - and type out detailed messages/ emails on chat - so that people can respond at their convenience and my end of the job is done. Recently also discovered the beauty of voice messages on Google chat (desktop version only) - I love voice notes - it’s faster than typing and a tip for those who are like me.
5. Clarity vs. anxiety. If you’re working in an organization that has people working in different locations (like mine), people get anxious waiting for others (way too common!) to reply to X/ Y/ Z. It’s important to understand that anxiety is a very common emotion - and it’s important to deal with it. It’s easy to deal with it btw. Some simple stuff I have learned to follow - 

• If I’m working on something and a deadline is not called out to me, I ask for one or commit to one. 
• On key deliverables, people want to know how the project is ‘progressing’. So providing periodic updates alleviates anxiety again.

So there goes a list of 5 basic stuff I’ve been ruminating of late. Nothing new - most of you might be following this already. But the beauty of basics like these is that they’re timeless - and you get to appreciate their awesomeness quite often. After all, life is about the little things.

Cover image courtesy Freepik