The Sunday Mail
Clemence Machadu Insight
Howdy folks; I am hoping not to tread much today, as my optician has advised against being closer to the laptop. But based on recent experiences, I just want to share my two cents on the subject of professionalism. Not long ago, I read about a multi-millionaire businessman who said that he sold his entire shares in a certain company that was actually performing brilliantly.
He held significant shares in that company. His reason may somehow be downplayed by some: He sold simply because the CEO of the company was involved in a sex scandal, albeit this did not affect the performance of the company. The company’s share price continued to grow unperturbed, actually.
But this “crazy” shareholder chose to offload all his shares and dissociate himself with that company.
Some may fail to quickly see the moral of this story, but it squarely lies within the four corners of the fact that professionalism builds sustainable organisations with a strong reputation.
You see, in business, people deal with people.
The professional comportment that one employee of an organisation, no matter how high or low they have climbed the corporate ladder, reflects on the overall picture of that organisation.
Too bad, very few employees know this reality, or at least act like they know it.
Much worse, less employers care much about it.
A poor display of professional conduct by an employee to the stakeholders of an organisation is a chronic disease that will eventually take the whole organisation six feet under.
A popular biblical saying goes as follows: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:6)
I have seen an old woman who religiously does her shopping in a particular supermarket far away from her home, leaving all the other supermarkets in her vicinity, simply because there is one young lady who always treats her well in that supermarket. And she also promotes that supermarket, through word of mouth, wherever she goes.
And that supermarket continues to get more loyal customers, thanks to that old lady.
She is not paid to do that, but does it simply out of the courtesy arising from the satisfaction she derives with respect to service delivery at that particular supermarket.
The consumer is king (and queen, I bet), as the popular aphorism says.
Those who belong to the royal family deserve some optimal level of good etiquette when being engaged. Anything short of that won’t yield meaningful results.
Travelling to South Africa by bus last week, I sat beside a woman who does cross-border trading.
As we were chatting, she told me that she always avoids travelling on buses from this one passenger company because a bus conductor from that company was very rude to her sometime back.
Maybe it is just that one conductor who was rude, while the rest from that passenger company are very nice.
But, sadly, the whole company now suffers avoidance because of one person.
On my way back, I was also compelled to avoid a bus from that passenger company, even though it was the only one leaving earlier (and I really wanted to arrive earlier).
I resorted to other buses that were leaving a bit late – all because of that woman’s testimony.
The word of mouth should never be underestimated!
It can pull you down from high up there!
It is, therefore, important for organisations to jealously guard their corporate reputations by never compromising on the professionalism and integrity of their employees.
It is the state of your reputation that defines your success in business.
Reputation has value in business.
You see, even when a business is being sold, goodwill is also charged, and it is basically the reputation that has been built by that business over time.
Reputation counts.
There are companies that are actually in the business of making money by selling their names to be used by others, which is called franchising.
However, the business buying those names has to actually agree to uphold some principles that have been built over the years by the franchisor, and professionalism is on top of that catalogue.
If you know that you do not pay your service providers on time, for instance, even though their services have added indispensable value to your business, then that apparent parading of unprofessionalism will successfully soil your reputation. The problem, really, is that some managers take no action at all, even after receiving consistent complaints about a particular subordinate.
Or they promise to take action but never do.
They are simply not prepared to “tamper” their good relations with their subordinates simply because one little customer has said so.
They forget the trick that a little leaven does to the whole lump.
You see, a customer will remain aggrieved and will only loosen up when the complaint has been concretely addressed, with them also getting assurance that the problem will never happen again.
But if managers confirm that unprofessionalism is entrenched in their organisations by patting the subordinate in error on the back, then the customer won’t have kind words about your business.
Believe me, you can never win a war against an aggrieved customer.
You may not see the adverse effects today, but they will slowly but surely manifest.
The day of reckoning will surely come.
Customers that get optimal redress will quickly forgive, forget and start to build the reputation of your business.
The brick and mortar that build the reputation of your business are in the hands of customers.
They also hold keys to the titanic bulldozer that can turn that reputation into rubble in no time. The decision is yours, to be professional or otherwise!
