Aligning Your Strategy
Julia Schmidt
LinkedIn Top Administrative Assistance Voice ??Certified Reinvention Practitioner ?? C-Suite Executive Assistant ? Strategic Business Partner ?? Author ?? Speaker ??
Understanding your executive’s goals
As business partners, the Executive and Assistant have to be extremely conscious of the impact they have when their activities are linked. Knowing the executive’s goals is crucial to all Assistants. It allows optimized performance and maximum output. Understanding the objectives your executive has to accomplish will help ensure consistency among tasks and initiatives.
- Do you know what are your executive’s goals for the year?
- Have you asked your boss how you can help him/her to deliver?
Know your organizations strategy
A business is best aligned when the interests of all stakeholders in the business are in alliance with the strategic objectives.
- Have you read your company’s strategy?
- Are you taking part in strategy meetings?
- Is your job description reflecting the overall strategy and your executive’s objectives?
It is all about communication
Use your one-to-one meetings to ask questions and learn more about the strategy and its activities. Everyone understands a well-communicated strategy at some level. Be the person who helps the top management communicate and filter the strategy. A while ago, I invited my VP to present and explain the organisation’s strategy to all of the assistants. The VP helped everyone to understand the strategy in terms of their own day to day work.
Sometimes the main challenge is presented by a plan that is too difficult to be easily understood by all employees. Ask yourself
- Is everyone “getting it”?
- How can I help the executive team to communicate our strategy plan?
Become a strategic enabler
The Executive-and-Assistant Strategic Alignment focuses energy, eliminates redundancy, removes conflicting work and defines the capabilities and competencies, which provide strategic synergy.
How can the Assistant help his or her Executive achieve specific goals related to the organizations strategy?
- Take accountability and be engaged. The organizations strategy is also YOUR strategy.
- List all actions that you can perform to help the executive accomplish their goals.
- Keep networking. It will help you to know how the strategy is being understood and communicated by the rest of the organization.
- Understand your job description and make it reflect the organizations goals.
- Remove obstacles. Take ownership for as many tasks as possible from the executive’s to-do list. It will give your Executive more time to focus on the strategy plan. There are many activities Assistants can do on behalf of their executives, as for example handle e-mails, share information, lead and attend meetings, define meeting agendas, make decisions and initiate projects.
Make your executive know that your efforts matter!
This post was first published on Eventopedia - The Proud Assistant
Read my series of blog posts about Strategy on Eventopedia:
The Proud Assistant is a blog by experienced & Award Winning Executive Assistants, Networkers & Bloggers.
About Julia: Julia Schmidt is Executive Assistant and Board member of EUMA Norway. Julia is an enthusiastic EUMA-member. She wants to bring EUMA – European Management Assistants to YOU and create sharing & learning platforms.
REALTOR?
8 年Julia, this is an insighful article! As always, you share what we need! Thank you!
Mentor & Trainer of Executive & Personal Assistants/Office Professionals/Business Support Services
8 年When the opportunity arises it's really beneficial for the senior EA (EA to CEO) to set up in-house networking groups with other senior EAs and to use this opportunity to share information (confidentiality prevailing) and an appreciation of each other's workloads. Many middle-management EAs do not have the opportunity to actually understand and learn about the organisation's strategic direction and there is a sense of being kept 'out of the loop'. The role is a valuable role and, as Jan Jones said, communication is key. The EA is, after all, usually the main communications conduit between Executives.
Resilient, proactive, collaborative, agile Executive Assistant | Assistante de direction contexte international
8 年Thanks for sharing this great article !
Author, "The CEO's Secret Weapon How Great Leaders and Their Assistants Maximize Productivity and Effectiveness"/President, Jan Jones Worldwide Speakers Bureau
8 年Good advice, Julia. Communication is key so you can come into alignment with your executive. Share the vision with fellow EAs and colleagues so they don't feel isolated from the company's goals and understand why they are doing their job day after day. It was great you invited your VP to communicate with the other EAs. I bet they appreciated it.