Are technically competent professionals who work long, hard hours "true" professionals, seeking superior quality in their work and striving to provide the best service possible to their clients? Or are they "cruisers" adhering to standards, but performing

David H . Maister, of Maister Associates, Inc., Boston, is the author of Managing the Professional Service Firm and a former professor at the Harvard Business School, He consults to professional service firms worldwide.

Chapter 1 REAL PROFESSIONALISMI frequently ask professionals what they consider to be the difference between a good secretary and a great secretary. The answers flow freely. Great secretaries, I am told:* Take pride in their work, and show a personal commitment to quality* Reach out for responsibility* Anticipate, and don't wait to be told what to do -- they show initiative* Do whatever it takes to get the job done* Get involved and don't just stick to their assigned role* Are always looking for ways to make things easier for those they serve* Are eager to learn as much as they can about the business of those they serve* Really listen to the needs of those they serve* Learn to understand and think like those they serve so they can represent them when they are not there* Are team players* Can be trusted with confidences* Are honest, trustworthy, and loyal* Are open to constructive critiques on how to improveAll of this list can be summarized in one phrase: Great secretariescare.Two obvious points need to be made about this list. First and foremost, it is applicable to all of us, not just to secretaries. With virtually no modifications, this list could serve to delineate the defining characteristics of what differentiates a great consultant from a good one, a great lawyer from a good one, and so on. Indeed, this list is a reasonabledefinitionof what it means to be a professional.Second, this list has nothing to do with technical skills. Few secretaries are deemed to be "great" because of their ability to type 95 words a minute or file documents in nanoseconds. Similarly, very few professionals become known by their clients as "great" purely as a result of technical abilities. The opposite of the wordprofessionalis notunprofessional,but rathertechnician.Technicians may be highly skilled, but they aren't professionals until they reliably and consistently demonstrate the characteristics listed above. Professionalism is predominantly an attitude, not a set of competencies. A real professional is a technician who cares. (You may recall the old slogan "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.")How many of us so-called professionals are prepared to be held accountable for behaving according to the standards set by this list? Yet we often ask people who earn a fraction of what professionals earn to meet these standards. This raises an interesting question: Why would secretaries be willing to strive for such standards? Why would anyone whoisn'tsharing the profits want to demonstrate this level of commitment?To find out, I asked Julie O'Leary, who began in 1985 as my secretary and who is now my business manager. Julie meets and exceeds every one of the standards listed above. This is what she had to say: Professional is not a label you give yourself -- it's a description you hope others will apply to you. You do the best you can as a matter of self-respect. Having self-respect is the key to earning respect and trust from others. If you want to be trusted and respected you have to earn it. These behaviors lead to job fulfillment. The question should really be, "Why wouldn't someone want to do this?" If someone takes a job, or starts a career worrying about what's in it for them, looking to do just enough to get by, or being purely self-serving in their performance -- they will go nowhere. Even if they manage to excel through the ranks as good technicians -- they will not be happy in what they are doing. The work will be boring, aggravating, tiresome, and a drag. It should be clear from this why I consider Julie O'Leary to be more of a professional than many of the lawyers, consultants, accountants, engineers, and actuaries that I meet. (I sometimes worry that her professional standards exceed my own.) If you've ever been a purchaser of a profe