Effective Executive/Efficient Assistant (Part 2 of 3)
June 5th, 2006This week, we continue our series on working effectively with administrative assistants. Given that this is part 2 of 3 parts, we’ve obviously had a lot to discuss on the subject.
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June 5th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Spot on guys. Great words of wisdom. I’m a bit impatient of waiting for the final show. Only because of the enlightened truth you spread. Glad my wish of this being a three-part show has come to fruition. Keep up the fabulous work on this podcast. Have a guest speaker on to discuss the behavior issue of angry employees, dealing with self and with colleagues.
June 6th, 2006 at 3:40 am
Great work guys. Really enjoy listening.
Practical question about Effective Executive/Efficient Assistant - how do delegate the management the email and calendar using outlook? I would love to have my assistant read and deal with my email and also manage my outlook calendar, but I have yet to find a practical method for doing this unless I simply give her my laptop. Any ideas?
Thanks, Ron
June 6th, 2006 at 6:21 am
I whole heartedly agree with Jes. I can see that this is some powerful stuff. In the past I have fallen victim to managing my own time. As you stated, this can eat up a lot of valuable time.
One aspect that you haven’t mentioned yet, but is important to an effective relationship with your assistant is the physical layout of the office. Previously when I had an assistant their desk was right outside my door. They naturally became the gate keeper to my office and my time. In my current position it was not possible because of the physical layout of the building. My assistant sits in the next office down the hall, but can’t see or control access to my door. As a result I have people stopping by unplanned for relatively minor issues (i.e. signatures) that could be better grouped by my assistant and presented at one time. I have struggled to get this under control without destroying relationships. Until I had this office I never knew how important the physical layout of the office is to productivity and managing your time.
Keep up the good work. I can’t wait for the third part of the series.
Martin
June 6th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Martin,
You’ve proven yourself to be prescient … we tallk specifically about that topic on next week’s podcast!
Mike
June 7th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
In my last job, I had my secretary’s cubicle rebuilt and relocated so that she could be right outside my door, for the very reasons that you mention. It is, indeed, critical.
June 8th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Ron-
If you’re running Exchange, I believe this is done with something called Permissions.
Without Exchange, there are two options I’m aware of. First is hosted exchange, which you can get at intermedia.net. The other is a 3rd party product I’ve used and liked, but at times it’s a little kludgy: OsaSync Pro.
Hope this helps. If you have Exchange, your IT guy should be able to do this for you trivially….
Mark