Professionals?

Do we, as Indians, also have an assembly line that is focused on the making of professionals?


Lima Sehgal

Professionals are not born – they are made. Unfortunately, not in a test tube (though hi–fi science fiction may soon become true), but in the assembly line of life.

Do we, as Indians, also have an assembly line that is focused on the making of professionals?

Unfortunately not. Our educational systems are obsolete. The acquisition of knowledge for the sake of knowledge still reigns supreme in our system – application is secondary.Take our primary education as an example. Very little formal training is given on skills essential for surviving in the world we get to face as grown ups. Protecting our kids is a basic instinct, but we carry it too far when we also protect them from learning the harsher realities of life, believing that kids are incapable of the reasoning and logic to handle them. We have created an artificial world of childhood. Our education is quite cut – off from life. It’s amazing how, after years of learning the 3’R’s memorizing text books and frolicking in playgrounds, we still expect an end product packaged with the right combinations of skills and   abilities required to succeed in life. Sowing dead seeds and expecting a harvest?

What is even more amazing is everyone’s surprise when, in spite of the best school, college and professional training, you still turn out to be a half–hatched egg. Like most of us are.

Much as we would like to put the blame on individual aptitudes, we can no longer ignore the fact that we are too slow in reacting to the kind of inputs required, and too lackadaisical in responding to the changing demands of our environment. It is no wonder that all of us look at successful people with so much awe. They’ve made it, in spite of the utter lack of support from any of our systems that contributes so little to the development of individual competence.

A dangerous development of modern times is our role models. There was an international survey conducted by Cartoon Network some time ago. Children across Asia were asked to name their most admired person (role model). 60% of Indian children named one of their family members. Of these, 30% said mother, and 21% father. This generation will lead lives which will be totally different from their parents lives. Our role models – teachers, parents, successful people around us, as well as the sports stars and the movie superstars – will be getting outdated during our own lifetime. Their methodologies for success will become obsolete. They can no longer be a beacon for our future. We have to blaze our own trails –alone.

To succeed, we have to become professionals, which by definition is a person having the requisite know how of winning. How does one manage that in an environment that simply does not propagate professionalism?

For starters, take our attitude towards money.Life today is governed by commercialism like never before. We are what we earn, but we are still hostile about the concept of money as a driving force Sanjay V., a seasoned Chief of Personnel, says “I never offer a person a job if I suspect that getting more money is the  person’s main motive for changing a job. The person may be tempted to move again the moment he gets a better offer. “ Money mindedness has been a derogatory term. The traditional money lender is hated world wide.

We resist change. We continue to be obsessed with our past, because we know we are getting obsolete by the minute. We bask in the glories of past achievements sprouting our qualifications on our visiting cards and littering our conversations with anecdotes of our achievements. It doesn’t work. Joe E. Brown, comedian, said “If you have to tell people you’re rich, you ain’t”.

The older you get, the more insecure you become, and more involved in reflections of past glories. We have to protect ourselves from getting old, and we need more than cosmetic and physical solutions. We need to first shift our focus to the future, see what is required, and make our adjustments accordingly.

We must take a lesson from the dinosaurs. They got wiped out of existence because they did not grow in intelligence to cope with the factors that caused their extinction. Or maybe, such a possibility never caused them much worry.

It shouldn’t happen to us.

Copyright © 2013, Jobnet magazine, issue 109
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