(NOTE: I use the pronoun “she” below when referring to assistants in recognition that most assistants are female. I do not intend any disrespect to male assistants.)
Need an effective way to leverage your time, reinforce your message to your team, and learn what is really happening within the organization? Use your assistant.
Having a strong assistant and a good working relationship with her is a CEO’s key to success.
So how do you use an assistant, and why does your position have one? These two questions sound silly until I reflect on the number of people I have observed who do not know how to engage their assistants to help them manage their time and effectiveness.
So why do people have assistants? To help them manage their time and tasks in order to get more work completed. The need for this type of help increases as organizational responsibility increases.
How can an assistant help you get more work completed?
1. Manage your calendar for you
If you have an assistant, and you still keep your own calendar, PLEASE STOP. The amount of time and energy you are expending to schedule appointments, coordinate meetings and respond to meeting requests is wasteful. With technology today, there is no reason for you to do this.
Your assistant should have full access to your calendar and be given permission to schedule meetings using your calendar and to accept or reject meeting requests made of you. Privacy should not be a concern because there are ways to denote meetings as private (ex. doctors appt. or parent-teacher conference, etc.) which means the details of the meeting cannot be seen by your assistant.
When your assistant has access to your calendar, and is trained to know what you prefer, you can eliminate this task from your workload and focus on other items.
2. Access to you
As the CEO, you have many people who want access to you. From external sales representatives to the people who directly report to you to job applicants, you can stay busy just responding to all the people who want to speak with you.
Your assistant can help manage access to you so that your time is spent on your priorities. First, your assistant should answer your phone so as to screen the callers. Work with her to determine who should get through and who should leave a message. Second, identify blocks of time on your calendar so your assistant knows when you want to be available for meetings, phone calls, “open door availability”, uninterrupted time for work, etc. Third, for meetings outside the office, have your assistant confirm the time, place and agenda one day prior to the meeting.
3. Reading and triaging emails
I am not a big fan of having an assistant read emails, although I know a number of people who do. I find email to be such an integral part of communicating that people send confidential emails without thinking anyone else is reading them. So be careful and transparent. If you do allow your assistant to read your emails, you need to let your team members know this.
4. Meeting Follow Up
Effective meetings result in an assignment of tasks for those who were present. As the leader, you are often the person responsible for coordinating this activity. Your assistant can help you. Meet with her as soon as possible to review the “to do” items and ask for her assistance in following up with the participants and/or completing the work. (It is not always appropriate for your assistant to send a reminder to someone to complete a task, but she/he could remind you to ask.)
5. Your representative to staff, clients and partners
Your assistant is viewed as an extension of you, so how she performs and behaves will reflect on you. Your assistant becomes your representative. From the way she answers the phone, to the manner in which she greets people, to how she behaves in meetings, she represents you.
Your assistant may not considered “management” by the other employees, so she will be accepted as “one of them”. This means your assistant will be at the lunch table or in the break room with those in the organization with whom you might not always have a direct working relationship. She should represent you in these settings.
6. Boss Interpreter
Because your assistant works closely with you, people will regularly ask her, “What does <insert boss’s name> think about this?” or “What did he mean when he asked me to do x, y and z?”
An important role of your assistant will be answering these and other similar questions. In other words, she will be asked to interpret what you meant, what you wanted and what you said.
Numbers 1-4 above are “job description” items and tasks normally associated with assistants. These are fundamental to helping you leverage your time.