the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well.While not altogether the longest definition you can find in a dictionary, I still think the meaning behind it packs quite a punch.
Well Trained Skill
While a good majority of professionalism actually comes in the form of soft skills, the one thing that nobody can argue with is proven tactical skills. I once worked with a complete jerk. He made it hard for other people to get the job done if they had to interface with him as a team-mate. However, when he was allowed to be isolated and function as a solo-unit, his hard skills trumped just about everyone else in the company. He's definitely one of the most technically apt programmers I've ever met. Do I want him on my team? No. But he gets hired for important work because he's very VERY good at writing code. Depending on the needs of an employer, sometimes the professional soft skills get overlooked in favor of ridiculously good hard skills. Granted, I have my own opinions about toxic team-members. But there's plenty of evidence in our field to suggest that not everyone needs soft skills to get by.Good Judgement
Internet Etiquette
We all have bad days. We all have our outlets for ranting and for venting. The first and most important thing to keep in mind when you need to rant - choose your medium wisely. The millisecond you put your comment out on the internet, think of it as permanent. Someone will find it. Most likely, someone will find it that you didn't expect would ever see it. Posting a picture of yourself (or your room-mate) sloppily drunk, while potentially hilarious at the time, certainly won't get you the positive attention you prefer at the office. In fact, if at all possible just avoid those kinds of embarrassing situations in the first place. Separation of work and life still happens. But you're fooling yourself if you think the things you do at home or with your friends are entirely off limits to your employer. Unless you have a strict and very locked down social media policy, your behavior around others will reflect outwardly towards your workplace. Be careful about the activities you choose. It's OK to be silly or stupid. Just remember that someone else is going to notice, so make sure you're OK with whatever it is someone else will see.Communications Professionalism
Besides avoiding drunk-posting on Facebook, there's other areas in your career that depend on good judgement. Think, for a minute, of the different communications channels that you use every day at work. I, for one, have instant messaging, email, phone, texting, and direct human contact. Now, think about this situation for a minute. Your web application just went entirely belly up. What's the correct order of operations to get everyone's attention? If you work in an office, the first thing I'd recommend doing is running down the boss personally and getting his attention face to face. Then, immediately follow up with a very high priority email to everyone that needs to be involved in fixing the problem. Whatever you do, DON'T get on Facebook/Twitter and say "ROFL our server crashed!" Bad idea. Very, very bad idea. The richness with which you communicate your message to the intended audience matters deeply. There's a scale I like to follow that helps: Face-To-Face>Video Conference>Telephone>Instant Messages/Texting>Email. There's also plenty of literature and advice as to how quickly someone should expect you to respond based on the kind of communication they want to partake in. Here's a pattern I want to get better at enforcing:| Face to Face (or two-way phone) conversation: | The best way to get my attention immediately and have zero delay expected. But you might have to tap me on the shoulder if I'm rocking out to Beethoven. |
| Instant Message: | 15 Minutes or less after my status shows "Online". This only applies at work. I don't do much IM replying at home |
| Voice Mail: | 1 Hour or less after I'm back at my desk |
| Email: | 1 business day |
| Social Media Direct Message | Unpredictable. Please don't use this for anything important at work. Because I can't promise I won't be ignoring it for a week and a half at a time |
| Snail Mail: | Wait, what? I'll probably get back to you eventually. I can't give you any idea how long I'll take because I don't think I own any stamps. Where does one even buy stamps...? |
Polite Behavior Getting back to the way you interact with your colleagues, politeness matters. If you have to leave a voice mail for someone, use courtesy and make sure they know the best way to return a call back to you. Also leave a day and time you intend on attempting to contact them again. That way you set a clear expectation that the other person doesn't have to get confused about. Something like
"Hi Mr. Johnson. I'm calling about the widget we promised to your team in October. I have a question about it, and in order to keep us on track for its delivery we need to have clarification no later than close of business, this Friday, September 31. You can always feel free to reach out to me at 555-555-5555. If I haven't heard back from you by close of business Thursday, you can expect to get another call from me Friday morning. Thanks!"
Politeness extends to all aspects of your professional behavior. Whether on a phone call, writing an email, or responding to an instant message, manners matter. Please, thank you, and you're welcome really go a long way to making a conversation more amicable. And, as far as I'm concerned, vulgarity is just !#@% stupid. I realize that most words are just "colorful metaphors" - but if you want people to take you seriously as a professional, generally speaking cussing is out of the question. Sure, I've been known to drop a colorful metaphor on a rare occasion. But in general because that's not my normal pattern or something I keep as part of my vocabulary, it gets people's attention when I use those words. It's rare. However, even in the rare case where vulgarity manages to slip in it's even more important to follow it immediately with polite kindness. Getting worked up and turning explosive places everyone on the defensive. Even people who don't really need to be. And that, in turn, can lead to strong negative emotions that lead to poor business decisions.
