Admin Note
June 29th, 2006I answered a question on the forums tonight about working with administrative assistants, and it reminded me of something worth sharing.
A manager had asked me what he should do in this situation: “My admin, whom I share, printed out an email that was sent to me, and showed it to another manager. This other manager had a person on his team who was referred to in the mail, and she ‘was just giving him a heads up.’ I feel like she breached my trust, but I’m the one who gave her access to my mail in the first place. What should I do?”
Before I share my answer, if you haven’t listened to our casts on admins, I encourage you to do so. In it, we make the case for fully utilizing the incredible investment your organization is making in you if you’re blessed with an admin reporting to you. if you don’t immediately become more effective AND efficient, you’re not worthy. The cast will help you do what you need to do. And, several admins wrote us and told us they loved the show. One felt it should be required listening for all execs with admins. One of my favorite kudos ever on the site.
The answer: fire her. Yes, sorry. Even if you haven’t explained the inviolability of email… the admin ought to have known. What she did was grossly unethical, and while I may cry while doing it, I still believe it’s the right thing to do. (He didn’t, and later regretted it a thousand times over.)
(And if you haven’t talked about confidentiality with your admin, do so today.)
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June 30th, 2006 at 5:22 am
Manager Tools : Indispensible
Just wanted to explicitly pass along a link to whomever reads this blog…
The link can be found…