I've been facing many unprofessional business people from around the globe. Not only from small business, sadly I found some of them coming from some big or even major brand on its field.

As we've seen so many books written about professionalism, ethics, etc, we've heard wise business men and women telling about how important a professionalism is, and mostly each of us expecting standard professionalism from every business where we are the customer, it is so ironic and pathetic that some of us still do things unprofessionally. Especially if you are one of those business people, and your main field is the service area. Now, that's poor of you.

Professionalism comes from a deep integrity. And integrity is something you can't have if you don't have a good spirit on everything you do. So in a simple way, I could say, someone that not professional on his/her job, don't have an integrity on his/herself, and don't have any good spirit, vision, and mission on everything that he/she do. A looser, yes. An idiot, yes (since this is already a spiritual quotient age, dude!). A bragger, yes. An achiever, definitely not.

Well of course, we always have bad days. Things not always run so smooth. And sometimes we can be really messed up and leads us to unprofessional stuff. Just say, once a month, we will have that bad day. And what differs us from those unprofessional sucker? Nothing. Once again, NOTHING. Yes, you are a looser, an idiot, pathetic and ironic. Your welcome.

As we all know, habit is something consist of a constance behavior, and habit will provide an automatic response as a behavior. So behavior and habit will support each other to create a perfect attitude of a person. Professionalism and integrity are two main attitude that we should have as business people and even as human. Integrity will create a professional attitude, while professionalism strengthen your integrity. A circle that couldn't be parted away.

Now could you imagine what would it be if you put excuses like bad days, external matters, urgent problems, or whatever, you named it. Yes, it is like you put a small stone on your car wheel while you're driving it. It simply won't work. And since it is a circle, a cycle with no end, well, the worst is waiting for you. You will start with one blank space and one excuse, and end up with nothing. Well, a cycle of excuses and nothing for exactly.

Sure I know, habit and behavior are something we should developed. And I know we all started from bad behaviors and habits. Well, who never lie once in his/her life? (A lie is a lie. I don't accept white lie.) So we have lots of homeworks to achieve our best attitudes, including our integrity and professionalism. But hey, we have the good news. It works exactly the same as the destruction process. A circle progress, a cycle with no end. You start one act, and you'll definitely have them in every part of your life. Well, of course that if you don't put any end or blank space or excuse once it is progressing.

The big question might be, “How are we going to know that we are already professional and have integrity?” Though every field has its own manual about the ethics and system, the very basic rules of professionalism and integrity is just a piece of cake.

The first basic rule of professionalism is, put yourself on other's shoes. If you demand your partner to be on time, yea, make sure you're not busy thinking of the excuses you will give once you meet him/her. If you demand your supplier to serve you on time, please handle your schedule much better, dear. If you want your business project to be handled properly, play with the rules, babe. Everyone has their own expectation. Isn't it ironic if you can't even fulfill your own expectation?

The second basic rule of professionalism is, do beyond your expectation while you're putting yourself on other's shoes. Yea, it simply means do everything beyond what others expect from you. However, since I know very much that one always think about his/her own needs and expectations, I guess it would be easier to do it this way. So, when you demand your partner to be on time, make sure you are on the meeting point at least 15 minutes before. When you demand your supplier to serve you on time, make sure you handle the schedule like a week before. And when you demand your business project to be handled properly, make sure you've read the terms & conditions, knows the rules, and don't cut the lines, dear.

The third rules is, when everything goes wrong, believe me, you really are a sucker at that time. Nothing can goes wrong with these basic rules. So just keep your mouth closed, don't blame anyone or anything, it is simply your fault or one of your weaknesses. Accept it, make sure you've noted that on your head, and make sure no same mistake for the future. As you know, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Sure, I know, sometimes, though we have done all the rules, there were just some people that don't have the same professionalism standard as we have. Those are the unprofessional folks. And no matter what you've done, you just couldn't make it better then what you had done. Well, sorry to disappointed you, but.. No. Those are actually NOT external problems or unexpected matters, cause actually you could identify your 'so called' partner in a simple conversation before. So if you couldn't identify that they are not professional, it is your fault. Not theirs.

However, thought some part of it, is your fault, I know it is not always good to be too hard to yourself. Sometimes you did great and you still got trash. And sure, you can feel great or better and deserve to be approved as professional once you've known and sure that you did no wrong. And how can you know whether you did great and those folks are the looser, or you are the real looser? Oh, believe me, you'll know it.

If you are the real looser, you will keep giving more and more excuses even to yourself. You will keep blaming this and that, while part of yourself talk in a very small voice “I could do it better actually..., I know part of it was my fault..” or something sounds similar to that. And your feeling? Well if you can be honest, you will feel a bit of regrets.

If your 'so called' partner are the real looser, believe me, there is only two sentence in your head, “He/she is nuts. Thank God I don't get the deal.” or “What did he/she think about? No way, I am not in” or “Huh?? What what what??” or something similar to that. And your feeling? What feeling? Ah, you don't even give a damn.

How about integrity? How can you know whether you have the integrity or not? Well, you can start by shutting your mouth up. Really, you don't need to talk about yourself. Let others talk about you and you can listen to them. Moreover, by shutting your mouth up, you prevent yourself of talking unimportant things and bluffing or bragging around which could only caused you lost your credibility. Simply think before talk.

What you really need to do next is to evaluate your performance. How many goals that you've achieved? How many things you said you wanna do that have been done? Actually, it is all about “say what you mean and mean what you've said”.

I've been writing and discussing about professionalism and integrity so many times, yet I still found some people that has none of them. Some of them don't know how to identify and don't know how to start a difference, the rest are just plain failures and total losers that never understand neither why they never scored great deals nor why they stuck up with their positions for more than five years.

Some of them think that professional means busy (that's why you found many advertisements that show people with busy schedules, called as professional), hi-tech, and geeks. While the others think that professional is the 'it' nicknames for someone great on his/her field.

In the meanwhile, integrity, is just an alien's word to most of them. “Say what you can say, and say it loud. Prove is a different thing.” That's their motto. Communication skill is a skill of bluffing, bragging, name dropping, and bad mouthing. Management skill is a skill to hide all the negative side of your company including tax payment, poor human resources, poor skill and knowledges. Marketing skill is a skill of manipulating information as long as you can sell (That's why Marketing and Management skill should be together and bounded along).

Frankly, it is so ironic and pathetic. What kind of future that you, as a business people and a human, hope to welcome when you don't have professionalism and integrity in your life? As answered by Warren Buffet for a question from a MBA Student at Harvard Business School about how he decided to accept someone as his worker, “I see three things, the first one is personal integrity, second is intelligent, and the third is high passion and high energy scale of working. But if you don't have the first one, then the rest means nothing to me.” The Integrity Advance

And as mention by John C. Maxwell in his book 'There's No Such Thing As Business Ethics', people try to use specified ethics for their spiritual life, other specified ethics for their love life, etc. That's what makes them messed up. Ethic is ethic. If you want to act with ethic, make it as the only ethical standard in your life.

Do you still think that professionalism and integrity are just business sparks?

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I know I've committed to write most of my blog using Indonesian language, but I need to write this article in English, cause I need to deliver the messages to some people that don't understand Indonesian language.