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How To Make Yourself an Indispensable Assistant

And, if you’re an independent VA, become totally essential to your clients. They will think of what you “save” or “make” them, not what you “cost” them.

So how do you become essential and indispensable? In the following article, the first of a series, Betty Burr provides tips and techniques for becoming even more vital to your decision makers. For the past 20 years, Betty has trained thousands of administrative and virtual assistants. She heads NoonTime University, Inc., a provider of teleclasses, webinars, and on-site training.

This first article shows you how to help an organization or individuals save money. It’s something you can do yourself and/or suggest to your clients or bosses.

“We Have to Start Meeting Like This!”

by Betty Burr

Most meetings are over long before they end!”- Communications expert.

Meetings account for the greatest amount of unproductive time, topping telephone calls, paperwork and travel.  - Wall Street Journal survey

One good way to show your value to clients or bosses is to help them save money. Millions of dollars each year are thrown down the drain because of staff or project meetings that are too long, get off track and don’t accomplish much, or have the wrong people there so no decisions can be made. Nine out of ten companies call meetings that waste company time and resources, with as much as 50% of a leader’s time being spent in meetings. By bringing attention to the fact that there is a better way, you can demonstrate your value.

Two admins, Sue and Alice, ran into each other in the hall of the Webcore Corporation building. One said to the other, “Oh, good, Alice; I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Let’s pop into this empty conference room for a minute; I have a few questions.”

The other admin agreed. “OK, Sue. But before we even sit down, I need to limit this meeting to 10 minutes. Will that be enough time?”

“Sure,” replied Sue. “We’ll make it work.”

“And also,” Alice continued, “ could we identify up front what we need to accomplish in this conversation?”

Does this scenario sound far-fetched or realistic? It probably sounds very unrealistic. That’s because Alice was doing something that doesn’t happen in most businesses  – practicing Effective Meeting Management.

As an AA or VA, you can practice and demonstrate Effective Meeting Management principles at any gathering of 2 or more people. And you can advise groups or meeting leaders about ways to save money by tightening up their meetings.

In organizations where EMM has been incorporated into the culture, even casual one-on-one get-togethers have some structure – a “mini-agenda.” Participants establish time limits and specify desired outcomes for every meeting up front – the way Sue and Alice did.

In meetings of 3 or more people, practitioners of EMM use three tools to make meetings shorter, tighter and way less frustrating. And things get done! These are 1) An “Accountability Agenda,” 2) A “visible memory” and 3) Facilitative Communication Techniques.

In this article, we will look at the first of these tools, the Accountability Agenda. This tool helps ensure that:

A)      The right people attend at the right time.

B)      People know topics in advance and when the meeting will get to each subject.

C)      People come prepared.

D)      It’s easier to keep the meeting on track.

E)      Everyone gets a chance to be heard.

F)      Specific action items and accountability are created.

How can an agenda accomplish all this? The agenda is a means of assuring that the meeting accomplishes the purpose for which it was called. Because of that, follow-up meetings are often eliminated – meetings that are held because the first meeting didn’t do what it was supposed to do.

Suppose one meeting were eliminated per week. If 6 people who earned $30 an hour usually attend the meetings and meetings generally lasted 2 hours, that would be a weekly savings of about $360, or $1,440 a month, over $17,000 a year! And that’s from eliminating just one meeting a week.

Example

Here’s a hypothetical situation to show the use of a good agenda:

Eduardo is preparing the agenda for next week’s Research Department staff meeting. He uses the list of discussion topics generated at the end of the last staff meeting as well as input solicited from all the participants via email.

Once he has the draft of the agenda done, he emails it to the attendee list for feedback. His cover note reads: This reflects my understanding of our desired agenda. If I don’t hear from you by noon tomorrow (3/5/02), I will assume this is OK with you.”

Here is the format of the agenda he sent out:

Research Department Staff Meeting

Date & Time: 3/7/03    9-10:30 AM

Place: Conference Room 5

Attendees: J. Jones, W. Hernandez, M. Caldwell, G. Washington, D.L Tai,

E. Ortega

Objective of the Meeting: Determine the best way to approach Marketing to prepare them for the results of the latest Research Dept. study

 Agenda: 

You’ll notice that this “Accountability Agenda” has more information on it than a typical agenda. Let’s take a closer look at how it  can make the meeting work better.

Meeting participants are prepared.

By knowing the process of each item on the agenda (the “How”) participants know what they should be prepared to discuss.

 The right people are there at the right time.

The timelines allow people to know when it is essential that they be in the meeting. For example, let’s say that one of them absolutely must take care of something else sometime between 9 and 10:30. Between 10:10 and 10:20 anyone except Eduardo and D.L. could be out of the room without compromising the effectiveness of the group.

It’s easier to keep the meeting on track.

If someone brings up something that it not on the agenda, the meeting leader/moderator can point out that it isn’t on the agenda and politely request that it be tabled until the next meeting. In addition, to satisfy the person that he/she has been heard, the moderator writes the item on the list for the next agenda.

Everyone (who wants to) gets a chance to be heard.

The “Process” column of the agenda tells participants that there will be discussion opportunities. On the other hand, the time allotted (usually short) suggests that input will have to be limited. It encourages people to be brief and to the point.

Specific action items and accountability are generated.

At the end of the meeting, the agenda calls for the creation of an action plan. This plan should have a similar format as the Accountability Agenda. The Accountability Action Plan columns are: What (Action), Who (Accountability) and When (Due/action date).

By using the Accountability Agenda format and the Accountability Action Plan, your clients and your work group will find that their effectiveness increases, their wasted time decreases, and they are able to cut down on the time spent in meetings. And by helping them get to this point, you become a hero!  

The other two techniques mentioned for improving meetings - A “Visible memory” and Facilitative Communication Techniques – will be covered in the Teleclass, also called “We Have To Start Meeting Like This,” which will be offered to readers of Adminprof.com at a reduced cost. Please see the web site for an advertisement about this opportunity.

Bonus: Betty’s ABC’s of Successful Meetings

©2003 Betty Burr.  Reproduction in any form for any purpose without express written permission of the author is prohibited.