I love talking one-on-one to executive assistants. They are always insightful and I like hearing what they think; how they see things from where they sit. These are usually high-level executive’s assistants who represent all kinds of industries and live in various parts of our country. Yesterday, I had one such conversation. In 20 minutes, I gained perspective on about 5 different topics. So I will spread them out over a few blogs.

One comment that was made by this EA to the CEO of a large corporation was that she really doesn’t see many star assistants in their organization. And that she could only think of a few who could take her place some day. She said, “Many do their job well, but I don’t see many stars!” One aspect she talked about was that when you work at her level, you must have outstanding protocol. You must be sophisticated and have a little knowledge of everything including classic books so you can add excerpts to a speech or modern music so you can tell the person creating your executive’s big presentation that a certain song would not be appropriate.

I’ve always said that to be a star in this profession, you have to do 100 things well and be a sponge. It isn’t any one thing that makes a person a star-performing assistant. It is in the knowing 100+ things … and the little items are very important. Yes, etiquette and protocol are important; especially in a world that is so casual people don’t even say thank you or hello in passing.

More to come…