I must admit that, as an executive assistant to one of the busiest executives I have
ever worked with in my career, my personal ability to use my ESP to find things
came in handy. Of course, all great Administrative Professionals have some form
of ESP (Executive Sensory Perception) that keeps them informed. This has been
especially true when my executive asked me on multiple occasions if I knew where
his cell phone was. Retracing every step, he took that day, including every floor of
the building, every conference room, and office he had been in, and of course, I
would inevitably find it.
I knew exactly where it was all the time (right?), I just needed to get my steps in
that day!
Being able to use our ESP helps immensely in finding lost things, gaining
exclusive information, and reading our executives' minds to answer before they
ask. It is a superpower we tend to take for granted; however, it has saved me
numerous times.
One example is when my ESP would kick in and I just knew he was going to lose
his daily binder with his schedule, meetings, briefings, data, and communication
for the day, so I made a duplicate just in case... just seeing the future.
I was almost always right!
Let me share a story about Sally. As an executive assistant, her influence stems
from exercising patience and creating remarkable results, as she demonstrated on
this occasion.
Sally received a call from her executive who had just arrived at the airport to find
that his flight had been cancelled due to severe weather. He called Sally from the
airport to urgently ask her to rebook his flight so he could get home at a reasonable
time. Her first question was, “Are you at the ticket counter now?” and he replied,
“Yes, I am…here, talk to the agent to see what you can arrange,” and of course,
now Sally was put on the phone with the ticket agent!
After several minutes of negotiation, because many flights that day had been
canceled, Sally was able to re-book her executive on an alternative flight. Her
executive was standing there watching it all happen as the line grew longer behind
him. Sally remained calm and composed, demonstrating her remarkable ability to
leap a tall, insurmountable obstacle with tact, diplomacy, and common sense, as
well as some negotiating skills. Her executive made it home at a somewhat
reasonable hour as he had asked.
Yes, some executives are very needy, and it is up to us to not only pay attention to
our gut feelings and tap into that executive sensory perception to save time and
frustration, but it also requires extraordinary patience when it seems that our
executives’ immediate needs are so simple or obvious to an outside observer that
they could handle it themselves. I have realized that our true superpower is making
ourselves indispensable to the executives we support.
Believe me, they cannot do without us!