Thriving Under Administrative Pressures through Organizational Aptitude

January 14, 2016

By: Bernice D. Lorenz

Executive Assistant

Edelman

What is organizational aptitude?

Aptitude is an acquired or natural ability in a specific area or

discipline. In this instance, organizational aptitude means

learning how to stay extremely organized which will help

make you indispensable to your manager, your team, and

your organization.

BEST PRACTICES

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Best Practices -- General

What are the things we do the most? We have to:

• Prioritize

• Manage Multiple Tasks

• Get things on calendars

• Plan Events

• Handle sensitive information

• Field internal and external communications

• Be the first point of contact for internal and external clients

• Retrieve information handily and readily when you need it

Lets break down what we do and how we achieve the best goal in every situation.

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Best Practices – Calendaring

Handling calendars

• Look at the electronic calendar every day for at least a week ahead.

• Confirm each meeting

• Print/Save any attachments

• Ask for information about the attendees.

• Build in travel time

• Have your calendar mirror that of your manager.

• Get connected!

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Best Practices – Calendaring

• Don’t suggest new times for every invite.

• Encourage your manager to regularly stand up when the meeting is supposed to be over and politely exit.

• Change the calendar invite reminder alarm to five minutes

• Be sure you know what type of event is in the calendar and what’s coming up next.

• Ask pertinent questions about the event invite by using one of your checklists:

• Attire?

• Guests?

• Parking/Valet/Car service?

• Travel time?

• Cost?

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Best Practices -- Prioritization

How should we prioritize calendar requests?

1. Client crises.

2. New business calls and meetings

3. Catchup meetings and meals with the client

4. Your manager’s superiors

5. Your manager’s direct reports

6. Outside organizations

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Best Practices – Managing Multiple Tasks

What do you do when you have three or more matters that need to get your

manager’s attention?

• Check your prioritization

• Get those weekly time reports done

• Do your manager’s expense reports regularly

• Make sure any reports or special projects due from you are completed

accurately, and on time.

• Follow up with your manager’s direct reports to get those items he or she

needs on time.

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Best Practices – Controlling Internal Stress

Control your stress levels!

Raise your hand.

Your manager’s bad day

Your manager’s bad attitude

• Set boundaries

• Check your email at a regular time and stick to that timeframe

Are you missing last-minute changes?

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Best Practices – Controlling External Stress

For those stressful client complaint calls:

• Stay calm

• Don’t take anything personally.

• Ask the right questions and get all the details

• Repeat what they are saying

• Give them your contact information

• Get the information to the appropriate party

• Follow up

Leave your at home stress at the door

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Best practices – Note taking

Take good notes.

• Walk around with a paper notebook and pen while in the office.

• When notebook and pen are not handy, download a note pad app on your phone.

When should you be taking notes?

• At meetings

• By your phone

• When you’re at home

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Best practices – Fielding communications

Learn how to write for business.

Proofread what you have written.

Make sure what you have written is accurate.

Don’t answer someone in haste.

Never put on social media anything that is

questionable.

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Best Practices – Be a good team member

The Do’s of being a good team member:

• Establish good rapport

• Jump in to assist

• Volunteer for things

• Respect one another

• Share what you know

• Have a sense of humor

• Be inclusive

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Best Practices – Be a good team member

The Don’ts:

• Be Passive aggressive.

• Ignore people

• Sabotage the success of others

• Hoard information

• If it feels wrong, don’t do it.

When you become a dependable, indispensable member of the team,

you will gain more respect.

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Best Practices – When you See a Need

Regular Team Meetings

A new idea for a Lunch & Learn session

A great new team building idea for the admins

Motivational speaker series

Ordering supplies

Reception area procedures

Can you teach a class?

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INFORMATION IS YOUR FRIEND

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Information is your friend - General

• Every piece of information that comes across your

desk could be useful.

• Don’t think you won’t need something.

• Use your electronic folders.

• Learn how to do things you’ve never done before.

• Be well read.

Information is your friend - Travel Folder

What will you need when you go home?

• Work in process folder

• Things that are pending

• Reports or projects

• Printed out emails

• Printed out calendar

• Documents pertaining to upcoming meetings

• Passwords (online only)

• Your laptop!

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Information is your friend: Info on your Manager

Information on your manager, or Manager “Bible”:

• Credit Card Information

• Driver’s license

• Family Information

• Automobile Information

• Insurance Information

• Frequent Traveler Information

• Preferred Restaurants

• Golf clubs including membership information

• Luncheon clubs including membership information

• Preferred Florists

• Passwords for voice mail, computer

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Information is your friend – Electronic Folders

Electronic folders that work for me are:

• Departments or department heads at our company

• Outside Organizations

• Calendar Items

• Reference

• Events

• Project Codes

• Customers

• Travel

• Resumes

• Expense Receipts

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Information is your friend – Create Lists

Make lists, and then make more lists. What kinds of lists could be helpful to

you?

• Clients-Frequent Contacts-Vendors –The “VIP Master” List

• Subsets of this list:

• Holiday Gift or Card Lists

• Invitation lists for corporate events

• Golf outings

• March Mania events

I’m sure you can think of thousands of lists that you could use to help you stay

organized.

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Information is your friend - Email

• Read, and re-read your emails received.

• Read, and re-read the emails you plan to send.

• If you have access to your manager’s email inbox, read

things that will be pertinent to you day or your week

• Copy email signatures and create a contact.

• When you receive an email with a particular task or request,

leave it in your outlook inbox until it is accomplished.

• Review your “Sent” folder.

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Information is your friend -- Checklists

Create checklists for tasks you do on a regular basis.

• Event planning

• Calendar Items

• Ordering Food

• Invited Events

• Supply ordering

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Clutter is your enemy

While information is your friend, clutter is definitely your

enemy and is emotionally draining.

Organize your clutter.

• Touch it, read it, decide what to do.

• Reduce, Refer, or Rearrange

• Sort things and rearrange them by: Priority, Action

item, Date

Do the math: Less clutter = less stress.

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Managing Your Manager

Manage your manager or your team:

• Travel arrangements

• Hiring or firing people

• A team member’s ability to help out on a particular project

• Travel time to get to a meeting

• Whether or not a meeting should even happen

• Whether or not an email should be sent

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What can possibly go wrong?

When you are armed with information, you can head off any possible disasters when:

• A flight gets canceled

• There’s a snowstorm

• You need to contact people because your office will be closed

• You need your manager’s frequent flyer number, or where he is staying.

• A client cancels a meeting while your manager is in flight already on his way

• A corporate card gets rejected

There are thousands of things that can go wrong, but properly armed, they won’t go wrong

around you!

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Classes

What classes should you take? These are some recommendations that will help you succeed:

• Microsoft Products:

• Excel

• Word

• Powerpoint

• Event Planning

• Effective Business Writing

• Proper Grammar

• Computer programs applicable to your industry

• Join a professional association and take some webinars and online classes (as you did today) and keep up your knowledge!

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Recap

Every day:

• Look at the calendar

• Follow up on what is due.

• Book time on your manager’s calendar for yourself

• Get in early!

• Avoid negativity and negative people.

• Be a great team member..

• Be accessible to your manager.!

• Share what you know

• Your job is what you make it

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AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE – THE ADMIN’S PLEA

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Questions?Bernice.Lorenz@Edelman.com