How to Work Successfully with Your Administrative Assistant: What Every Executive Should Know

How to Work Successfully with Your Administrative Assistant: What Every Executive Should Know

Henri Duffy

Copyright 2017 Henri Duffy

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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How to Work Successfully with Your Administrative Assistant: What Every Executive Should Know

Contents

Dedication

WHY--A Few Words of Introduction

WHO

Who—you

Who— your admin

Who--the others

WHAT

Culture and Environment

Resources

Money

Time

People

Instructions

Conflicting messages

WHERE

Place

Mind Set

WHEN

…to be quiet

…to be bossly

…hiring a new admin

A Few Words in Closing

End Notes

About the Author

Dedication

To all the admins who did so much for me.

WHY--A Few Words of Introduction

My approach to this topic is the journalistic quintet of Ws--who, what, when, where, and why—although somewhat out of the traditional order. Each of these words has a great deal to do with your success and in particular the success with your administrative assistant. It’s important to be cognizant of the environment that you’re in, where in that environment, why you’re picking a particular time to do something, and where you are both physically and emotionally.

First, I will refer to administrative assistants as admins. This is in no way minimizing the tasks or the importance of a good administrative assistant. This is only a shorthand term to help keep things succinct. I will also refer to these admins as both he and she. This is not from any specific need to be politically correct, but because I have had both male and female admin’s. In fact, currently I am a male admin so it’s appropriate to use both gender designations.

I had been an executive or manager for many years and I’m sad to admit that I had often taken my admins somewhat for granted without even knowing I was doing so. Then I retired. But, having led a long and very busy professional life, I did not want to go immediately from doing a great many things and having a great many responsibilities to doing nothing other than something for myself. So I took a part-time job as an office manager/bookkeeper, the administrative assistant, for a small company in a small town.

It’s that part-time experience, firsthand experience from the other side of the desk that motivated me to write this extended essay. I quickly found that although the individual I work for is very nice, exceptionally competent in his business, and very energetic, that person has absolutely no idea of how to treat an administrative assistant or office manager. None of his actions were intentional, egregious, or probably even conscious. After a couple of weeks and some reflection on what was happening, I had hoped that I had never treated any of my admin’s the way I was being treated; although I know I had done some of the same things. Those things were unconscious behaviors, but now on the other side of the table I realized how poorly they could be perceived and how they could affect an admin.

I’m drawing on a number of different experiences as I write this book and clearly I will illustrate some of the errors that I’ve made. I’ll also look at some of the errors, or at least perceived errors, that others have made. It’s important to know where my experience comes from. I was in the military in some fashion either active duty or reserve for over 20 years; I worked in higher education for another 20 years as a faculty member, dean, vice president, and president; I’ve been the director of a Chamber of Commerce, and worked as a senior manager in state government.

The following pages are not a comprehensive list of do’s and don’ts. I want to get at some of the more common issues that can happen. In particular I want to look at those things that can be particularly vexing to our admin assistants and how some of those issues can be perceived and avoided. I’m reminded of the old military sayings; sergeants run the Army and chiefs run the Navy. The civilian corollary is that administrative assistants run the office if not the company.

WHO

Who—you

The first ‘who’ in the ‘who’ question is you. Are you newly promoted, newly transferred, or new to the company? The thing to remember is you are new to them. In some respects you have as much to prove to your admin as your admin does to you.

There are a great many trite pieces of information that could be used here; be nice, be professional, be this or that. Probably the most useful piece of information is the one you’ve heard all your life; be yourself. You may be more educated than your admin, maybe you’ve been with the company longer or maybe you have been in the specific business if not the company longer, but make no mistake your admin will see through you in about two days if you’re trying to be something other than yourself. So don’t try to change yourself, just be you.

However there are some ways you can be a better you at least at work.