 |
Marian Bateman
Training an executive team
There is a new paradigm that is emerging in executive offices as executives and administrative support staff learn the Getting Things Done methodology. The key is training the team together and the result is an office where the team functions with a high level of clarity and cooperation to get more done.
Let’s take a look at what happens when staff are not trained as a team. The price tag is lost invoices, unreimbursed travel and expenses and filing systems in complete disarray. Travel schedules are often botched and meetings occur that do not have the right people in them or do not even need to happen. This sounds like the office that must have been staffed on Halloween, but often this is simply the result of high volume and not knowing a new way to think about the art of work.
The role of most administrative support staff is to complete the shorter cycles of action that the executive cannot complete. The executive carries the Projects and Areas of Focus and delegates his/her incomplete cycles of action to their support staff. This may sound simple, however I have spoken with many administrative staff who think that they “should” be responsible for processing the In Basket for their executive. Administrative staff share they don’t know what to do with all the paper in their executive’s In basket. Here is a simple answer; it is not their responsibility to know what to do with all of it. The executive must have the skills to process their own “In”, they are the ones that know their projects and can determine what next action is appropriate.
I have also listened to executives who share that their administrative support staff cannot find a critical document or lose track of a key communications. Yet the executive has not set up a solid reference system and there is no agreed upon protocol for quick and effective communication.
The above problems can be easily solved if both staff are working with the same thought process. How can the executive delegate his/her short cycles of action to someone they cannot trust? How can the administrative staff function if the executive does not process their “In” on a routine basis? Learning the five stages of workflow and adapting the GTD thinking can create the foundation for a highly functioning team.
Each member of the team needs to be clear on what are the best practices for working together as a team. Here are some tips and tricks that are being practiced by some of the best teams we have coached:
Tracking meetings: Each team has their own preference for how to set up meetings. Some administrative staff choose to set up an @meeting support file, others track meetings in an @meeting category in tasks, (if you are using Outlook). Some executives prefer to email their administrative support to request a meeting, others, using Outlook forward a task to request a meeting.
Scheduling Travel: One administrative support staff created a different checklist for each travel location for the executive. She captured each trip as a project as she had different tasks to complete that were routine for each city. Travel support files can be highly effective for the executive. Please see our recommendation for traveling pending folders in Tips and Tools on our website.
Maintaining Personal and Professional Contacts: how to use key words to facilitate knowledge retrieval. The executive selects key words that are entered in the notes field of your address book to find the contact. For example, a key word may be SLC for Saint Louis Clients, enter SLC and you can pull up all of your Saint Louis clients or enter family and you have your short family list etc.
Processing Business Cards: Business Cards need to be processed like any other information. If the only action is to enter the information into your address book select a key word to retrieve the information.
Action Folders versus Action support folders: Administrative staff often use action folders rather than action support folders. For a talented administrative staff it can take longer to track a task than to do it in the moment so action folders can be more effective. Some common action folders for administrative staff are: T&E to process, @Meetings, to schedule upcoming meetings, To Copy etc. The executive will usually have a number of project support files that contain support material for key projects, whereas the executive is the Project for the administrative staff.
Filing options: Learn the distinction between project files and reference files and agree how to set these up and maintain them. Some executives do all their own filing, while others write the name on a post it, stick it on a file and the administrative staff does the filing. The key is that the executive does the naming otherwise the administrative support staff will be the only one who knows where to retrieve the information. This creates a system where both the executive and the administrative support can retrieve the information easily.
Develop short cuts for communications: Key in shortcuts for email addresses and learn shortcut keys. I have worked with teams that create their own categories in Outlook for easier communication. For example one executive created a category for incoming calls. The administrative support entered the data and the executive looked at the calls and then easily transferred the information to an @calls list or another category without retyping the information. Another executive using Outlook created a category for their administrative support and entered all tasks and the administrative support staff simply checked this category throughout the day. She experienced this as much easier than sending voice or emails to her administrative support. It is important to note that each team has their own personal preference and it works to honor your own style.
Use of Memo/Notes: Set up key lists to retrieve commonly used information. This can be a list of key sales contacts, restaurants, birthdays to track etc.
Use of Voicemail/Incoming Messages: Agree on an easy and quick way to communicate voice messages. We do not recommend phone logs, see David’s article on this in Tips and Tools on our web site.
Calendaring: Agree on how and when the executive is going to have processing time during the week. The administrative support staff can then function as the guardian at the gate so that the calendar is not overscheduled.
Weekly Reviews: Agree upon how you are both going to communicate on a regularly basis. I worked with one team who agreed to meet weekly, both the executive and the administrative support came to the weekly meeting with their projects and next action and their agenda list. Another team preferred daily meetings, some teams do most of their communicating via email.
There can be a tremendous shift of energy when the foundation is established with an executive team. The team that masters the art of work moves into a zone where their energy is going towards greater creativity and productivity and then the fun begins.
back to all
|
