I was fortunate this year to interview two great people. Maria Berthiaume CPS is the Administrative Assistant to the President of Harrison College (formerly Indiana Business College). Ken Konesco is the President of the College and Maria's strategic business partner. They were gracious enough to spend a great deal of time with me. Because I have a great deal of information to share with you, I will break it down into several Blog posts so be sure to check them out.

First Ken and Maria have worked together for over 22 years! Can you believe it? How many of you can say that with any executive during your career? The longest I ever worked with one executive was five years. Obviously Ken and Maria know what it takes to build a strong working relationship and keep a great partnership going.

One thing Maria said early in our interview was their partnership was like a "professional marriage." While I knew exactly what she meant as I experienced that as an assistant a few times, I asked her to explain it further. Here is what she said:

"When you think about, a business partner and administrative professional spend more waking hours together than most married couples. In a marriage, you must have trust, confidence, open communication, encouragement, and goals . . . it is no different in a business relationship between your business partner and administrative professional."

Joan: "Your communications with each other are very important to keeping things going. Over the years, what has changed for both of you and how do you maintain good communication?"

Maria: "Ken has an open-door policy. When appropriate, I feel the freedom to ask Ken questions relative to the responsibilities at hand to accomplish my daily tasks. We meet on a monthly basis to review our monthly objectives as well as review my annual performance goals. Email is a large part of our communication on a daily basis; however, there are times when we need to just talk face-to-face or pick up the phone and talk to each other. It's important to stay connected."

This is great advice. I have experienced this from both sides of the desk; the first as an administrative assistant/executive assistant for 20 years and then as an executive and business owner for 20 years. This is absolutely on target.