Five Things I learned at the McChrystal Group Chief of Staff Summit

So I had the good fortune of attending the McChrystal Group Chief of Staff Summit last week in Alexandria, VA and spent 48 hours with some very senior Chiefs of Staff, going through a variety of exercises and workshops (not to mention an inspiring run on the National Mall at 530AM, aka 230AM my time).

If you are not familiar, McChrystal Group was founded in 2011 to bring General McChrystal’s “Team of Teams” framework to companies and organizations seeking to be more effective and adaptable.? Given the group’s focus on execution, they put heavy emphasis on the Chief of Staff role as a Force Multiplier for a productive org.? Hence the summit.

The stock seems to be rising for the Chief of Staff role, perhaps driven by hybrid work and the pace of technological change. There are now a number of professional groups out there working with Chiefs, and a rapid increase in courses and online communities, but this gathering was the most senior group that I had seen assembled.

To set the stage, the first attendee I met was a formal Colonel in the Air Force, in training for a CoS role at a F100 company.? Another had previously run a business unit for a company you’ve heard of, personally responsible for revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars. ? Another was responsible for organizing meals for 1M people, a day as a part of her role.?

This was a serious group, representing large public companies, as well as major governmental agencies.

I was there on a fact finding mission as the CEO of Ambient, seeking to better understand workflows that could be automated for the Chief with the help of Generative AI.

Here are my five biggest leanings coming out of the event:

1. Chief of Staff is a No Ego role.? Many of the Chiefs in the room had previous P/L experience, and have tasted the fame and visibility that comes with P/L.? But all that goes away with the CoS role.? A direct quote from one of them was something to the tune of “You will not see my name in any press releases.? I will not be recognized in any newsletters, or be in the WSJ.? My definition of success now is simple: if the Principal and / or the company win, I win.? That is my reward, and that is enough for me.”
2. Chiefs of Staff love (and need?) frameworks to describe where they should allocate their time.? This is a much misunderstood role, and the Chief has the potential to be pulled into an almost unlimited number of directions. A great fear of a typical CoS is to become an “Easy Button” for the org - someone who can get almost anything done, and therefore is asked to do almost everything.? Frameworks are crucial for the Chief, to ensure alignment with their Principal, but also to ensure that the ELT (or others) don’t misunderstand what they are there to do.? Here is an example framework from McChrystal Group.
3. Time Management is everything.? It’s up to the Chief (together with their Principal) to decide where in the framework they can be most effective delivering impact to their org.? And they then must protect their time to ensure that maximum hours are going towards true dial moving activities.? One experienced Chief to a public company CEO divided his responsibilities into three lanes; serving the Principal, serving the ELT, and serving the greater org.? Together with his Principal, they decided his greatest impact is in helping the ELT execute to their potential, and they worked together to ensure there were maximum hours heading in that direction.
4. The Chief must proactively manage their career. ?While the role is No Ego, the Chief must make sure to work with their Principal on what career progression might look like.? There is no one size fits all on career progression for a Chief; some are being groomed for a P/L role, some will go on to found companies, some will serve on as the glue between execs / administrations.
5. Influence Through Steering the Conversation.? The Chief has several levers of influence; the trust of the Principal and their access to complete information are two that come to mind.? But the one that stuck with me coming out of the event was the Chief’s ability to steer the conversation of the most senior and powerful people at their org.? One way they do this is via ELT operating cadence; typically weekly, monthly, and quarterly gatherings of the Executive Leadership Team.? It’s often in the Chief’s court to set the agenda for these meetings, deciding what topics and initiatives make the cut (and which ones don’t).? The most senior Chiefs I met were extremely thoughtful about how they managed this process.

A couple of other bonus bits and bytes that I picked up:

• Forcing pre-reads / pre-watches seems to be on the rise as a hack to ensure maximum productivity during expensive ELT meetings
• All the reach and influence of the Chief will fail if they lose the trust of the Principal.? Chiefs have to earn the right to help steer the org through service to the Principal.
• A couple of terms I kept hearing to describe the role: dot connector, air traffic controller, cat herder, Ear (and Game of Thrones style “Hand”) of the Principal,?
• The best Chiefs allow their Principal to focus “Up and Out,” by mostly handling the “Down and In.”

I took a whole notebook full of notes.? If any Chief wants to jam on any of these thoughts, please reach out ([email protected]).

From a product development perspective, I came out of this event particularly interested in seeing if Ambient can help productize workflows for agenda creation / topic forecasting and calendar instrumentation / tracking.

You can check out more from McChrystal Group’s on the Chief of Staff role HERE.

Lawrence Coburn is the co-founder and CEO of Ambient, a purpose built AI powered tool, designed to give Chiefs of Staff back 10-15 hours per week in productivity gains.