Silicon Valley Leader’s TPOP Megaphone

Readers:

I’m sharing an e-mail that was sent to me from a senior leader in the Silicon Valley that I thought you’d appreciate. This senior leader is communicating with his people – through the lens of the seven mind-sets in The Power of Professionalism (TPOP).

The leader is a very successful start-up guy…a real peach of a guy. He’s the top guy in his company.

He’s familiar with my work–having previously read The Big AHA!

He agreed I could share his e-mail as long I extracted the company’s name – which I have. I have substituted in its place the fictitious name Walnutians.
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Walnutians:

You’re aware I am normally not inclined to read business books. An author I’m familiar with – Bill Wiersma – released his second business book this week: The Power of Professionalism.

His first book was good… but fairly standard fare for the genre… so I really didn’t expect much inspiration from the second. I was wrong.

His premise is simple… being a professional has nothing to do with one’s profession. Rather, it is the way one behaves that establishes one’s position as a professional. Because this is a business book, he had to create the inevitable bullet list, summarizing his assertions. Reading his book, I proudly found myself thinking about how these points apply to Walnutians, so I thought it might be useful to express that.

1. Professionals have a bias for results.

Walnutians work hard. Walnutians put in long hours. Walnutians are smart. Walnutians work well with others. Walnutians know and continuously improve our craft. These are givens. Most of all, Walnutians listen. We listen to our customers. We listen to each other. We listen to our inner voices. No matter how hard or well we work… we can only hear the impact of our work when we express that work and listen to its echo. Our work is the design, production, delivery, sale, support and, most of all, adoption of our vision through our applications. Walnutians crave, not the sound of our own voices, but of our audience.

2. Professionals realize (and act like) they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

We Walnutians know that we are different. In our pursuit to make a real difference, we challenge ourselves too often to thrive without the certainty that our efforts deliver more than a paycheck. We are building something new… something sustainable… something that transcends each of us.

3. Professionals know things get better when they get better.

Walnutians strive toward perfection. Perfection is impossible, but I cannot image giving up its pursuit. Sometimes we try to do too much. Sometimes we lose focus. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we simply get tired. However, when we are driven by the sincere desire to improve ourselves, our team and our customers, we learn, we respond, we deliver and we improve some more. Through vision and persistence, today’s crisis becomes tomorrow’s distant memory.

4. Professionals have personal standards that often transcend organizational ones.

Walnutians are not perfect. We live separate, complicated lives that layer upon our common purpose. We could not produce and convey that which is special if we did not accept each other’s differences and imperfections. Similarly, we would be unable to embrace and respect a collective culture, if we were not each individually committed to high personal standards and mutual respect.

5. Professionals know that personal integrity is all they have.

Our workforce is distributed. This enables flexible schedules and increased connection with family and friends. However, it requires substantial discipline to manage one’s own time. Distractions are tough enough when we work together in an office. They are much tougher when we work apart. This is not easy. We know that. We embrace that. Walnutians know that we are special and that we bear the responsibility to manage and improve our focus and contribution.

6. Professionals aspire to be masters of their emotions, not enslaved by them.

All customer-facing Walnutians have to deal with this on a daily basis. We are passionate about what we do. We become frustrated when we can’t meet every customer’s needs or when customers don’t acknowledge our commitment and sincerity. It is essential that we embrace our emotions, because that is a key component to passion, but we have each learned that emotional hotspots, when allowed to simmer without explosion or denial, lead to healthy interactions, self-improvement and organizational responsiveness.

7. Professionals aspire to reveal value in others.

A company’s ultimate product is its culture. Our vision is solid, but the future is dynamic. An organization that is focused inward, toward individual rigidity is vulnerable… unable to see and adapt to unanticipated changes. If we are insecure in our own worthiness, we dis-empower ourselves… and become inflexible. We become unhappy, unfulfilled and unproductive. Walnutians recognize that our own value is integral to that of those around us. When we feel good about something we have produced, we know and acknowledge that this is so because we have received the best from those on our team. When a customer is successful, that customer knows that they are valuable, because we have conveyed this through our interactions with them. They have contributed not only to their own efforts, but those of a larger community.