PODCAST EPISODE № 21

Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?

by Anita Charlot

Listen to Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?:

As a woman in leadership, how many of the executive assistants have you hired that brought more to the table than you initially expected? Did they possess a natural ability to see things that you could not see, either because you were too focused on more strategic responsibilities or too busy making up for the lack of talent of prior EAs? How many of your EAs were willing to tell you no, or push back when an idea you had was not efficient, if it was duplicitous, or not leading you or your company in a direction you stated you wanted to go?

If you answered ‘not one’, well, that stops today.

Inside this episode, I will save you time, money and frustration by sharing the number one thing that you need to have before you consider hiring, or firing your next executive assistant. You want to make sure that you are hiring the right person for the job versus hiring quickly and then having to fire and start the hiring process all over again, right? I know you do.

So keep listening, and let’s see if you are honestly ready to hire an exceptional executive assistant or if you still have some personal work to do.

Do you feel like you’re always running? Like you can’t find time for the simplest things like self-care, grooming, or even quality time with your partner? Of course, you do! As an executive woman with purpose and on a mission, you might feel like this all of the time. Your schedule is packed, and let’s face it, you have no energy for the things that matter most to you or your partner because you are putting energy into all of your other responsibilities. I know you do this because I am guilty of doing it as well. Several years ago when I realized that I didn’t have enough time for self-care or a relationship, I decided to determine where all of my energy was going. I created an energy wheel and followed a process that allowed me to see exactly where I was spending my energy. Once I knew where the energy was going, I gave myself permission to determine what really needed my attention, what I could cut back on, and what I could get rid of, if not forever, at least for the time being. And that’s what I want to give you, the gift of clarity with a side of permission. Follow this link to my free relationship energy wheel course and worksheet, and stop feeling like you’re all over the place. Reclaim your time and your energy today.

What You Learn:

My history in executive assistant positions, the military, and why I’m qualified to speak on this topic
Why you need to get your priorities straight in order to hire the correct executive assistant
How to attract and maintain the right level of support by asking yourself the right questions
My secret to hiring the perfect EA for you!

Featured on the Show:

Check out last week’s episode The Power of Hiring the Right Executive Assistant referenced in this episode!
Follow this link to my free relationship energy wheel course and worksheet, and reclaim your time and energy today.
Learn more about how you can work directly with Anita
Love the show? Leave a review of the show in Apple Podcasts (click the link to find out how).
Follow me on Instagram!
Find me on Facebook!

Episode Transcript

Hey there, beautiful. I’ve spent well over 30 years in corporate America, over 23 years as a dual-preneur, and 14 years in the military, along with a whole host of other skills and experiences I’ve picked up along the way. Quite a few I will share with you in this episode. I did all this while raising children, getting married, divorced and married again, getting multiple degrees, taking over managing my aging mother’s affairs while coaching women just like you in the area of dating, relationships and marriage.

After spending years overworking myself and being overwhelmed, I thought it was time that I shared my secret weapon as to how I managed to do all of this without having to do it all myself.

But first, I’d like to take you on a journey that began over 30 years ago.

I started my corporate career as a temp to an accounting agency during my college years. The temp agency had already warned me that the role of this term was to do the grunt work that the full time employees either didn’t want to do or didn’t have time to do. Knowing this was helpful, as it let me know that my job would not be glamorous, even though it was in the Bloomingdale building on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago.

I arrived at work prepared for the worst and quickly realized that the work wasn’t hard. It was just monotonous. Back then, all I knew and cared about was that if the company wanted to pay me $18 an hour to do work I could do with my eyes closed, I was taking it. That was a lot of money back then. I simply dialed into my innate ability to look at a process, dissect it, find out where the duplications were, identify the gaps, and then fix it to run smoother, faster and more efficiently.

I quickly identified the most efficient way to reduce the cubicles’ worth of files just in time to complete the entire job before heading back to school. I even created what we used to call a ‘desk procedure manual’ for the next person to make the work as easy as possible. As a result, the company offered me a full time position. But unfortunately, I had to turn it down.

That was my first experience with how I could be rewarded by doing things that came naturally to me, and that was only the beginning. The first full time corporate job I had was in the file room at a third party insurance company. While working in the file room and improving the filing system there, I took on an additional part time position with the same company after my regular shift to answer the phones. Working as a customer service agent gave me the ability to connect to customers, hear their complaints, and then create new phone questionnaires that will help improve our customer service stats overall.

I shared what I learned with management to make small shifts to our processes, thereby increasing customer retention. At the same company, I moved from those two positions to that of an executive assistant position. Here I learned the value of being the right hand to my executive, taking initiative, and the importance of discretion with sensitive company information, even though it would affect the friends I had left and the other departments. I found that I enjoyed knowing that I was the reason things are getting done with the highest level of integrity in the shortest amount of time.

This feeling of identifying what needed to be done, and then knowing how to get it done is one that I still enjoy to this day. Well, when allowed.

I’ve worked for several financial institutions, consumer packaged goods, research firms, Black-owned consulting firms, real estate management, development companies, and retail stores, all while running my own business simultaneously. Regardless of where I was, I knew that I had a specific set of skills valuable to any company regarding administration, relationship management and operations.

Being in the military taught me the value of discipline, understanding how to work with different personalities, how to speak up for myself, and how to get things done quickly and efficiently even when in a dangerous environment. I took every lesson I learned in the military and applied them to my time in the corporate world. Having experienced life as a Black woman in a world where the Black Lives Matter movement didn’t exist taught me how to maneuver my way through any situation to a positive outcome. I’ve also had the privilege of working for managers on numerous occasions, allowing me to try new things, create new processes, and discontinue old ones to uncover what worked eventually. Even before my Six Sigma and Lean Sigma training, doing more and fewer steps with more clarity came naturally to me. Having had the ability to hone this skill with each new position helped me climb the corporate ladder long before completing any of my degrees.

Why am I sharing all of this with you? So that you understand that I am fully qualified to speak on this topic in the corporate, entrepreneurial, military and dual-preneur arenas.

Now that I’ve given you a greater insight into my background, lean on in, because I’m about to share the secret to my success with you.

You’re going to want to write this down as it is the most important thing you need to be a happy executive woman. You ready? I’m about to tell you right now. It’s only one word and you can use this word in every area of your life, and it’s very easy to remember but much harder to execute.

What you need is… clarity.

I know it sounds very simple, but trust me it isn’t. If you do not have this you will waste a ton of time, frustrate your team, damage your reputation, and possibly your career and even ruin your home and love lives.

Clarity of what, you ask? Great question.

Imagine that old boss you had that would hand your work back to you and say, ‘This doesn’t work. It’s not good enough.’ You thought you carried out the project exactly the way they wanted you to. But now, you’re sitting in their office confused. You look up at them after you gather yourself, and you say, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Your boss looks you square in the face and says,  ‘I can’t tell you exactly but that’s not it.’

Now, is this helpful? No.

If your boss doesn’t know what they want or keep changing their minds, how are you ever supposed to fix it or get it completed? How on earth can you be successful with a boss like this? It’s tough, I know. I’ve been the employee and the boss. Later in the episode, I will share several questions you need to answer honestly to help you attract and maintain the right level of support. Knowing the answer to these questions will help your HR business partner or hiring firm through the vetting process.

I’ll get to the questions in a moment, but you need to understand something before I do. These questions will not be easy for you. They will require you to do a bit of soul searching and the ability to be 100% honest, not just with yourself, but with the individuals that need to support you. I’ve asked myself the same questions and have even added a few more due to the recent release of an EA, who was just not the right fit for me. These questions make you feel exposed and vulnerable to those that are either searching for your executive assistant, or the actual executive assistant, him or herself.

Still, as I’ve mentioned to many of my executives and clients before, I can’t support you if you’re not going to be 100% honest with me, and I need to be able to be 100% honest with you. Our conversations may not always feel good, but they will be genuine and our relationship will be much better for having them.

Now grab your pen and paper and prepare to capture these questions. Or you can head on over to the show notes found on my website, AnitaCharlot.com/Podcast to download them.

Here are the questions: 
Are you willing, ready, and able to relinquish control in how things get done?
Do you know the tangible and intangible traits that your executive assistant should have?
Do you have scenarios designed for the interview to help weed out those not aligned with where you and/or the business is headed? 
Are you aware of your strengths and opportunity areas? 
Could you benefit from someone strong in the areas where you are not?
Are you honest about your management style and what type of EA would work best? 
Do you need someone you can mold into a mini-me? Or could you benefit more from someone that has served as a business partner that is not afraid to push back or say no if it doesn’t make business or operational sense?
Can you take constructive feedback from your executive assistant? 
Would it help to have someone who can ask you the right questions to bring out the information needed to move the business or your career forward?
Do you have a deep understanding of the difference in personality types? For example, the working styles of introverts and extroverts.
Do you need to be involved in all aspects of the work slowing down progress because you need to touch everything?
Can you allow the experts that you hire to do the work you hired them to do?

This reflective exercise is only a fraction of the work I do with my clients. There are a lot more questions to ask, and there’s a lot of talk about behavior based questions for interviews.

But how often does that executive look at their behavior before posting a job opening?

When working with women leaders, whether in corporate or the entrepreneurial space, we take our time to clarify who she is, how she wants to be seen at the office, the vision of where she wants her business or her department to go, then we determine the exact type of support she needs. Create the job description, the interview questions and scenarios based on her truth, leading to a more authentic connection between her and her right hand.

In the last episode, The Power of Hiring the Right Executive Assistant, I promised to share two examples with you. I will end this episode with the first of those two examples.

From office manager to deputy to the CEO: in my role as a senior business operations associate and office manager, my SVP made it clear what she expected during the interview and after she hired me. She and I had very similar personalities, no nonsense, all about results and very little time for unnecessary busy work. She had been with a company for nearly 20 years and was very well respected. She gave me time to get acclimated to the company for my first year, but made it clear that she will begin giving me more responsibility in the upcoming year and be ready.

Me, ready? I was born ready.

That next year, she made it clear that the office hospitality infrastructure, asset management, facilities, telecommunications, security, and anything else needed to run the office were all under my role. It was my house, and I should run it as such. She needed to focus on more strategic initiatives and did not need to be mired in the details of the day to day operations but will always be available should I need her to run interference, or I needed her to make a decision. She was speaking my language, and this is my superpower: tell me what needs to be done and then step out of the way and empower me to do it.

We were a great team. We were able to be 100% honest with each other. I learned her personality, what her goals, the organization’s goals were, sat in on meetings; they helped me see the bigger picture and kept multiple plates spinning while checking things off the list along the way. Every skill I had learned up until now, including running my own business, allowed me, us to flourish. Things got done, projects completed ahead of time and under budget, processes, improved problem areas fixed, you name it. Every visitor felt welcomed and at home, confident that I would take care of all of their needs. The more she saw I could do, the more she trusted me with. I felt fulfilled, valued, respected and appreciated for bringing my authentic self to work, and even more privileged to work for a female CEO that respected me, my decisions, even when I pushed back.

So I’m going to stop reading here for a minute – as you can tell, I’m reading – I want to make sure I let you know that I started this podcast by stating that she was an SVP, and she was.
Within our time of working together, she went from being an SVP to a COO. I’d like to think that part of the reason that was possible was that she could focus more on the strategic while she was able to handle and hand off projects to me, which got things done. So it was my job – and she didn’t say this, but I took this as my personal responsibility – it was my job to make things easier for her, and to make her look good so that she would shine. And by shining, she stood out. She got this role on her own merits, not just because of me, of course, but she got the role of COO. And while my title didn’t change, my responsibilities increased, which meant the more she took on, the higher the level of work that she took on, the higher level work that I took on as well. And that worked because we were such a great partnership. Okay?

So if I saw a better way to do things or to get things done, as long as I could provide the business case, she let me run with it whenever possible. A shift in a company policy made promotion and my position impossible, but I stayed on. Why? Not because I couldn’t find work at another company, but because we had a great working relationship and business partnership, if you will, and I didn’t want to leave her.

Eventually, being the kick ass woman that she is, she left the company and took a position in another country. Without another C-suite executive to support and the shift to working from home due to the pandemic, there was really no need for a full time office manager.

We had created a position specific to my COO. So after she left, I left as well. Had she stayed, I would have stayed. That’s how much I valued our partnership. That is the type of support staff you want, more invested in you than they are in the company.

People don’t leave companies, they leave managers.

What made her so phenomenal? She was self aware, clearly understood and articulated her needs and expectations of me, as her office manager turned deputy, and the direction of the business areas under her. She was results oriented and believed in giving credit where credit was due. She was also a great manager and even though I had no financial background, she took the time to teach me, answer every question I had, and approve any training I wanted to take. She mentored me, introduced me to key individuals and ensured that other senior leaders knew who I was and my value to the team.

What type of manager are you?

Could you benefit from a business partner like this on your team? Are you self aware? Clear enough about what you need, want, expect? Can you articulate it? My COO had her very own senior admin who focused on her everyday support needs. You can attract this quality and level of support in an exceptional executive assistant. However, depending on the size of your company or your organizational structure, you may not have the budget to hire two people.

The question is at this moment, are you truly ready for an exceptional EA?

Do you have questions? I want to talk about ways to hire or inspire the individuals on your team to become more like business partners. Do you need help getting clear on the type of support you need? Feel free to send me an email and let me know how I can support you. You can do so by going to the contact page on my website, AnitaCharlot.com.

Thank you so much for listening. See you in the next episode!

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Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?

PODCAST EPISODE № 21

Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?

by Anita Charlot

Listen to Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?:

What You Learn:

Featured on the Show:

Episode Transcript

Enjoy the Show?

IF YOU LIKE IT, SHARE IT

Get the free video training...
"Can He Handle Your Grind?"

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PODCAST EPISODE № 21

Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?

by Anita Charlot

Listen to Are You Ready for an Exceptional EA?:

What You Learn:

Featured on the Show:

Episode Transcript

Enjoy the Show?

IF YOU LIKE IT, SHARE IT

Get the free video training..."Can He Handle Your Grind?"

podcast

stay in touch

Get the free video training...
"Can He Handle Your Grind?"