So, You Want to Be a Force Multiplier? Your Questions Answered!
I always love reader/listener/community member questions! So, we are going to dive into some fantastic questions that some of our followers emailed in about how to launch a Force Multiplier career. Let’s get started! What skills are needed to land your first Force Multiplier type job? I’m a big fan of Patrick Lencioni’s book, The […]
Workforce Issues in the News and What They Mean for Leaders and Force Multipliers – March 2023 Edition
As founders, leaders, Force Multipliers, Chiefs of Staff, and Executive Assistants, it’s imperative that we stay on top of workforce trends and issues. They not only impact our career choices, but employee retention, hiring, company policies, and organizational culture. And when major publications, like The Wall Street Journal, enter the conversation, I pay attention. This […]
4 Reasons You Should Never Miss a Meeting With Your Executive Assistant or Chief of Staff
“My Executive canceled our weekly 1:1 meeting… again.” This might be one of the most frequent frustrations we hear from Force Multipliers. These weekly 1:1 meetings between a leader and their right hand partner are often the only dedicated time that an EA or Chief of Staff has to meet with their Exec during the […]
End-of-Year Checklist for Leaders and Force Multipliers
The fourth quarter is here and it’s the perfect time to start planning for the year ahead! Leaders and Force Multipliers alike can benefit from goal setting, calendar planning, updating resumes, organizing information, and creating growth plans. Here are 10 ideas to help you end the year strong, and create a tailwind going into 2023 […]
Survey Says: Confidence, Career Development Opportunities, and Communication are Key
A few months ago, we conducted a survey for Founders, leaders, Force Multipliers, Executive Assistants, and Chiefs of Staff to find out more about how we can help you grow in your business, your career, and your life. Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey! This information is invaluable in learning more about […]
6 Ways to Get Your Boss to Share Their Time, Knowledge, and Work
What do Force Multipliers want? What do most Force Multipliers (Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff) want? Believe it or not, they want more! Specifically, they want more time with their Executive, more insight into, and context around, their leader’s thinking and priorities, and more responsibility and projects. Why? Because they want to make an […]
What’s a Force Multiplier?
Throughout my (almost) twelve years of working side-by-side with Adam Hergenrother, Founder & CEO of Adam Hergenrother Companies, I have held many titles: Listing Assistant, Executive Assistant, Coach, Consultant, co-Founder, co-author, and Chief of Staff. But what didn’t change during that time? My commitment to operating as Adam’s right-hand strategic business partner. About seven or […]
How Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff Become Impact Players
If there was one book I wish I had written, it is Impact Players: How to Take the Lead, Play Bigger, and Multiply Your Impact by Liz Wiseman. Wiseman wrote another of my favorites too, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. However, with Impact Players, I felt like she was writing directly to […]
7 Myths About Being a Chief of Staff
There are all sorts of myths and misperceptions about being a Chief of Staff (COS). Most of them come from our knowledge of Chiefs of Staff to the President of the United States (whether real – James A. Baker III and Dick Cheney or fictional – Doug Stamper and Olivia Pope). The Chief of Staff […]
The Loneliness Epidemic of Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff
“It’s Lonely at the Top” I’ve never really liked the phrase, “It’s lonely at the top.” Perhaps its just the context from which it’s usually said – from a place of privilege, as an excuse, or as a subtle request for pity. I swear I’m not cynical! Just bear with me here. “At the top” […]
9 Myths About Being an Executive Assistant
There are all sorts of myths and misperceptions about being an Executive Assistant (EA). Most of them stem from what others have seen on TV or in movies (hello, The Devil Wears Prada!). After all, there aren’t that many books or articles (fiction or non-fiction) written with assistants as the protagonist. But books, TV, movies, […]
What Business Metrics Should Entrepreneurs and Executive Assistants Track?
Think of the last time you missed a sports game that you wanted to watch. Maybe you were at a wedding and missed an NFL playoff game with your favorite sports team (go Steelers!) or maybe you just missed your kid’s soccer game because you were out of town on business. Either way, what’s the first question […]
How to Measure Success as an Executive Assistant or Chief of Staff
I was recently speaking at a summit for high-performing EAs and one of the questions that was asked was, “How do you measure success?” That’s a tough one for us Force Multipliers (Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff), isn’t it? For many other positions in an organization, the answers seem so cut and dry. For […]
How to Build Trust Between Executive Assistants and CEOs
Last week I had a fantastic book discussion with some wonderful women about Brené Brown’s latest book, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. As we discussed the various emotions highlighted in the book, we paused to talk for a few minutes about trust. Trust is one of those […]
Time Blocking Tips for Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff
Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff are notoriously racing against the clock to pack the most important things into their day to achieve results for themselves and their Executive. The following time blocking tips offer a solution to the ever-present challenge of time management for executive support staff. Over the past few years, our work […]
Survey Says: How Do I Focus on Less, But Do More?
Last week I posed this question to the Founder & Force Multiplier community: What one thing do you want to learn or change this year that would change the trajectory of your career or business? We got a lot of great responses ranging from tactical skills such as finance, marketing, and public speaking, to more […]
Should Force Multipliers Be Friends with Their Bosses?
Friendships and business partnerships. It can be a tricky situation to navigate. Should Force Multipliers be friends with their bosses? With the amount of time you spend together, how do you NOT cross over into a friendship with your Executive? A couple of weeks ago this topic came up during one of my webinars. I […]
How Executive Support Professionals Set SMART Goals
Goal-setting advice is ubiquitous these days. Every productivity expert, leadership article, and entrepreneurship podcast talks about goals (and… of course that includes our own The Founder & The Force Multiplier and The 200% Life podcasts). I get it. You’re probably all goaled-out. But hang with me here a minute. As Executive Support Professionals and Force […]
The 36 Best Quotes for Maximizing Your Productivity
Dictionary.com defines productivity as “the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services”. If you couple that with Investopedia’s definition—”productivity, in economics, measures output per unit of input, such as labor, capital, or any other resource”—then you get a pretty good sense of what productivity means. […]
11 Books for Executive Assistants & Aspiring Chiefs of Staff 2022
2021 was the year of upskilling, resignations, promotions, starting new careers, starting businesses, and more. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of movement in and out of the workforce this year. I saw this first hand with countless Executive Assistants who moved, were moving, or wanted to move into Chief of Staff […]
How to Create an Awesome Elevator Pitch for Executive Support Professionals
Explaining what I do in my role as a Chief of Staff is not always easy to sum up in a sentence or two. And to complicate matters, Chief of Staff roles, like that of Executive Assistants, can vary greatly between organizations. There is not a common frame of reference to well, reference. Long story […]
Do Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff Need an MBA Degree?
As I talk to Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff from around the world, one common question emerges: “Do I need an MBA?” I often answer that question with a few questions of my own, “Why do you want one? Do you think you need one? Why?” I’ll preface the rest of this post by […]
How to Create a Strategic Partnership with Your Executive Assistant – 2021 Edition
NOTE: This post first appeared on the Herg Life blog by Adam Hergenrother on April 28, 2016 and again on October 22, 2020 on The Founder & The Force Multiplier blog. It’s funny to look back now on how far Adam, and I, and Adam Hergenrother Companies have come since this blog was originally written […]
Everyday Carry (EDC) Lists for Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff
This week, Adam, Corie (our Executive Assistant) and I are in the mountains of Vermont for one of our quarterly Project | U retreats. We’ve already had a moose sighting, a Bernie Sanders sighting on the plane into Burlington, and last night, our fireside cocktail party was crashed by a black bear! I would say […]