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Underneath It All by Joan Burge
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Assistant Edge

Joan Burge's Administrative Blog

Have Daily Huddles with Your Executive Assistant

Posted by: Joan Burge on 5/20/2009

With everything that transpires in the workplace and at warp speed, you and your assistant need to have daily huddles to make sure nothing falls through the cracks and the top priorities are always on the top!

These daily huddles can take place on the telephone on your drive into the office or face-to-face at the office upon your arrival. (Don’t worry; they should only take 5 – 10 minutes if you do them every day.)

Here are the types of things I discuss with Jasmine, my Chief Executive Assistant:
- Daily calendars to confirm events, time and any last-minute requirements.
- Department or company issues
- Telephone calls and e-mail
- Upcoming visitors
- Upcoming trips
- Future projects
- Follow-up items/status updates

Most importantly, always confirm your top 3 – 5 priorities for the day. Remember many things happen with you after your assistant leaves at 5:00 p.m. until your assistant returns the next morning. Therefore you want to let your assistant know of any shifts in priorities.
 

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3 Comments

    • May 20 2009, 3:01 PM Jessica
    • Great reminder, Joan. My executive and I have just recently started making an effort to do this. It's a great way to make sure we are both on the same sheet of music! Sometimes we "walk & talk" if needed. I shared with my executive the article by Mr. Sweetland that included your convictions. He agreed with my comments relating to our partnership and he is on board. I'm so glad that I spoke up and shared with him.
    • May 26 2009, 11:12 AM Tori
    • Unfortunately, my last three managers didn't believe in these meetings. I've only had one manager who did; and, that was a very long time ago. I've needed to find alternate ways to get the information from them so I can do my job. For one manager, I need to prepare an email at the end of the day listing the outstanding items and issues he needs to address. My verbiage is short and to the point. Some other managers, I have to throw quick questions their way as they're running from one meeting to another to having a discussion with someone in their office. They are still insistent not to have a quick 5-10 daily meeting. I try the best I can to adapt my style to theirs; however, it would be a lot more efficient and productive to run things the other way.
    • Jun 02 2009, 10:45 PM Joan Burge
    • Hello Jessica! I used to have "walk and talks" with some of my favorite executives. That works too! I'm glad you asked your executive about his perspective on the Sweetland article. Good for you! Continued success.
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