Coaching for Leaders - Talent Management | Leaders
686: How to Benefit from a Chief of Staff, with Laurie Arron
Executive leaders need both truth tellers and those who can manage on their behalf. Increasingly, the Chief of Staff role is becoming more prominent. In this episode, the role of the Chief of Staff, the value they add, and how they benefit the entire team. This is Coaching for Leaders Episode 686. Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders and I'm your host, Dave Stahoveak. Leaders are born. They're made and this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. Your experience has been anything like mine. You have heard the title, "Chief of Staff." A lot more in recent years than maybe it did in the past and I think many of us have a bit of a opinion about what does the Title Chief of Staff mean but we don't necessarily think about it through the lens of today's organization and how can leaders best use a Chief of Staff and when can a Chief of Staff really help to shape the priorities of an organization and a leader. Today I'm so glad to welcome someone who's such an expert in this space will help us to do a better job of thinking about how we can leverage this role so well. I'm so pleased to welcome Laurie Aaron. She is the founder of Aaron Coaching and trusted advisor and executive coach to see sweet executives and chiefs of staff. She spent 30 plus years climbing the corporate ladder at a Fortune 10 company in sales leadership, strategic planning, and business transformation. She has also served as a chief of staff to senior executives. She is the author of, "Who Has Your Back?" a leader's guide to getting the support you need from the Chief of Staff you deserve. Laurie what a pleasure to have you here. Oh thank you Dave. I'm so happy to be here and talk about one of my favorite topics. Yeah and I when I came across your work I thought boy I'd really love to talk with you because I have heard the title, "Chief of Staff," way more in the last few years than I ever did before and when I saw your book I thought there's a lot I need to learn about the role and when I read the book I thought I had a lot of misconceptions about it. Before we get into some of those misconceptions I'm curious is it just me or is this a role a title that we're seeing a lot more now in organizations than we used to? You're absolutely saying a lot more of them now than you used to. It isn't a new role. Ironically it's been around for many many many years. It stems back to military days, Roman days but in terms of the numbers of chiefs of staff now they have more than doubled in the last 20 years in private businesses and it's a very misunderstood role. I think it might even make sense to just demystify it a little bit as we get going here. The reason that it's very misunderstood is that no two chiefs of staff are the same. They are really reflective of the leader that they support and just as leaders are unique so are chiefs of staff. While today's dialogue will help us string together the similarities that chiefs have and how they best serve their leaders it is important to know that there's not a huge peer structure. They really are individually representing the leader that they serve and that may be the reason for some of the misconception and people who misunderstand the role. But today what you should know is that chiefs of staff are really considered senior executives. They're responsible for managing the day-to-day operations and priorities of the senior leader or the CEO or any C-suite executive. They're often seen as a trusted advisor. Their main priority is the executive's agenda and implementing that agenda and initiatives and coordinating that within the company. So in many ways they're seen as a strategic partner. They have a wide range of responsibilities everything from project management to strategic planning and facilitating consistent communications both inside of the company and their leaders external presence. And my goodness they all they also represent their leader in meetings when he or she can't be present. So it's quite a powerful role and it's also very prominent in certain sectors over others. For example you're gonna see a lot of chiefs of staff in the tech sector there are many in the finance sector healthcare and then you may not see them in other industries. Let me pause right there and just now that we sort of set the stage for what it is. Is that helpful? It is and you you've already spoken to this a bit I think. But I know this perceptions out there and I've had a bit of this perception before too of sometimes thinking about a chief of staff as a glorified executive assistant and yet they really are different roles. Could you paint the distinction between those two roles? Yes I'd love to and it is a very common thing that people believe when they don't know truly what a chief of staff does. They actually think that it is a promotion from an executive assistant. It's actually not. They're both I would start I would start to answer the question this way. They are both critical roles to the leader. They both serve a distinct purpose and they're different purposes. For example both the chief of staff and the EA support the senior leader in terms of scope and responsibility. The EA however is typically handling more logistics and administrative tasks like scheduling or correspondence certainly travel arrangements. They're really managing that executives day-to-day so that it runs smoothly. And in contrast to that the key for staff takes on a more strategic and more operational role. They may be managing or leading projects. They're absolutely coordinating alignment and cross-functional teams. They're driving key initiatives and certainly managing the progress of key initiatives that are tied to the company mission. So they serve in more of a strategic advisor problem solver problem of murder type role. They also have decision-making authority. They will often be in a meeting as a proxy and drive a decision on behalf of their leader. So they're less logistical. They're less administrative and organizational although those are very important support elements. And they work together in service of the leader. In fact one of the CEOs I have the honor of supporting at AT&T said to me and I quote you are my right hand. My EA is my left hand. You're like wings of a plane and you're both critical to my success. And so from there you know you fly and you soar. And I thought it was a really good framework for how important the two roles are to serve the leader. They are not the same in really in any way. And it's very important that the relationships and chemistry between them all three of them are top-notch. You write in the book on this point a great executive's assistant can block your calls move your appointments and allow you to breathe. A great chief of staff has the extra superpower of representing you managing on your behalf and coordinating your work. And that phrase managing on your behalf really struck with me that's a key distinction between an EA and a chief of staff. It absolutely is. And one of the things I talk about briefly in the book is the importance of having a handshake meeting as you get started working if you're the leader if you get started working with a chief of staff. It's very important to set the stage and talk about and agree on how are we going to work together to really ignite this magical relationship for the sake of the impact that we can drive together for this firm or for this mission. And the handshake meeting is something I equate to sort of like them you know in a personal life marriage vows right it's the it's the professional version of marriage vows. How are we going to communicate with each other? How are we going to make decisions together or independently? How are we going to problem solve? How are we going to delegate? How are we going to approach conflict together? And I think it's really important to have a handshake meeting certainly at the beginning of a relationship but also throughout the relationship to keep it working. So not to go too deep on that here for your listeners but to even at a high level understand the importance of communication and setting expectations as one begins to work with a chief of staff. It kind of lends itself to one of the reasons I think you really wrote this book is to illuminate some of this because the thing that I really struck me immediately when I saw the book and learned about your work is thinking there's just not much out there on this in this relationship and that's part of the motivator for why you wrote this book right? Well it really is and I appreciate the question I often hear leaders who have read the book will call me or email and you say why did you write this? And the truth is Dave I wrote the book that I never had when I began chiefing myself like it just wasn't out there. There is there is stuff in the market that talks about where did the chief of staff title come from and sort of the clinical or the academic conversation around a chief of staff but there was no playbook that said here's how you do this and here's where you find great chiefs and here's how you ignite that relationship and you know I needed that on day one this is not a role that is a training ground you need to come in and hit the ground running. The bottom line is I wrote the book that I never had. And it's I think it's thinking about this from a leadership standpoint because this book is very much written to like the leader who's either working with the chief of staff or maybe needs a chief of staff or maybe the relationship isn't quite there isn't quite ideal yet and you really do frame this thinking about how can a chief really help in the best possible way and one of the indicators both that you may need a chief or that a chief can really help with is the time that a leader is that that a leader's time is just totally unmanaged. When you see that what does it look like and when is an indicator that someone like a chief of staff really could help? Yes and in the book I frame four meta problems or most common problems that leaders face and how a chief of staff can help and you're you're referring to one of them which is my time is completely unmanaged. So how would that feel to a leader? It is having no control over your calendar it's controlling you. You're very reactive to what your day includes. You are late for things. You are working chaotically from issue to issue to issue that is coming your way. You may be spending a lot of time on things that are far too detailed into the minutiae of the business when you should be working strategic priorities or worrying about the business tomorrow versus running it today. So there's a million ways to illuminate how is that painful but it's chaotic. I've seen it over and over and over again and time is not something any of us can get back. So when a chief of staff comes into the mix one of the things I've seen chiefs of staff do very very well is to look at and assess how is my leader spending his or her time and is this representative of where their zone of genius is. Do we have he or she spending their time doing the things that are most valuable to the firm or most valuable use of their time and there's almost always an opportunity to improve and I've seen chiefs do masterful things by either taking over the calendar completely or operating with the four D's, do it, delegate it, defer it, dismiss it. I've seen many of my CEOs will adopt a principle called time blocking. This is something chiefs use often where you block out your calendar to do the thing that is most important for the period of time that you need to work on it and then you move on and you don't string that that same segment doesn't show up later in the week to do the same thing you literally block out the time you do it from beginning to end and then you move on it's beautiful and simple. So high management although it seems very obvious is actually one of the biggest things leaders struggle with and chiefs of staff can be masterful at helping with that. In a way it's obvious but it's also so foundational right. I'm struck by how often I run into senior leaders in my work that say some version of I know what I need to be doing that's really clear to me like where my strengths are what the role is the big picture stuff I should be doing at altitude and yet I cannot find in my calendar two hours to sit down and actually focus on that and there's something powerful about you can do that yourself but it takes a lot of cognitive energy and load to like say no to block the time having someone else who's not you who's more objective to like actually be able to intervene to frame that to clear up the time it is it can be really powerful. It can be so powerful and I'm thinking about a time when I was keeping for for one of my leaders who felt the need to get involved in things as there was a particular scenario happening at the time and wanted very much to get into the minutiae of the decision and really understand the context of what was happening and I knew that was not the best use of his time nor did he need to have that level of involvement and so I very you know appropriately reminded him that his he could best serve this company by focusing at a higher level on that particular initiative trusting the team and letting the work get done and and what I offered him at the time was several different touchpoints with me so he could have updates on the progress of the team in a way that met his needs but he didn't have to dump everything and give the topic two hours of his day and so we we worked our way toward that and it worked out beautifully but I think a lot of leaders fall into the minutiae unintentionally because that's where their comfort zone is because they don't necessarily have the tools to teach them otherwise and I think that's where the chief comes in to hold the space for them to do that thing that might feel uncomfortable and then serve them it's kind of like training wheels right let me walk let me walk you or ride you in this direction give you the updates you need so at some point you don't need the updates we had an episode recently with Ty Wiggins who coaches a lot of new CEOs and one of the things that he pointed out in that conversation is that how rare it is to have a truth teller when you're the top person in the top role and when you find that person to like really latch onto them and it's the topic of loneliness comes up a lot when we think about senior leaders and top leaders of course they're surrounded by people all the time but they often don't have a truth teller and you say in in the book in referring to the chief of staff they're the only person at your company whose explicit role is to be absolutely upfront with you at all times and in all ways and I think about that and I'm wondering how does a leader set up that expectation and create the space where the chief is the person who's willing and ready to do that number one they need to make sure that they hire for that quality you as a leader want to hire someone who you you visibly see and feel in the course of an interview have the capability to take agency and you have to develop the trust between the two of you and invite the truth i had one leader say to me you know i want to in my kitchen which means like you're the one who in the kitchen is going to tell me the truth that i need i cannot run this company unless i have people like you in the kitchen telling me what i won't necessarily be told by others now let's let's state the obvious here i am certainly hopeful that the only person telling a ceo the truth is not the chief of staff i hope that there's a full team of people who feel they can represent the truth to the leader that being said the chief of staff must do it and must do it in a way that honors confidentiality honors the trust of the others on the team but knows how to bring something to the table that will enable that leader to lead differently lead more powerfully make an effective decision etc etc they know how to do that and i think when i see these relationships work really well it's because that is part of the agreement in fact it happens at the handshake meeting that it is expected one of my leaders coined me when i was chiefing for him he said you are my compassionate truth teller is what he said to me you're a compassionate truth teller and what he meant was you have the ability to tell me to the truth but you kind of do it in a love bubble you're really thinking about the way that this feedback would land with me so that i can receive it versus potentially resist it and i i was taken back by that at the beginning but but in essence it's the right thing right sharing feedback telling the truth in a way that is that is packaged in a way that the leader will receive it and absorb it and most importantly act on it you mentioned in the book an example from the tv show west wing of the character the character Leo McGarry and portrayed by john spencer one of the most brilliant character portrayals of recent memory and i just happened to go back last night and watch one a couple of the episodes snippets of Leo McGarry and Jeb Bartlett and it's fictional but it's an incredible powerful example of exactly what you describe like the trust the absolute dedication that he has to his role and yet at the same time of both hand being able to get in his face and to speak the truth really clearly and it's it's just the perfect combination of what you described yeah it is and there's a balance i think great chiefs know that there's a balance between advocacy and inquiry it isn't about advocating for what the chief wants the leader to do it is it is often through the lens of inquiry that you can ascertain what is the best decision for the firm what needs to happen here for the business and to drive that conversation balancing advocacy that that felt important to say and again it's also very foundational that it must be set up at the handshake meaning that we together are going to have to have difficult conversations how do we want that to be dealt with how do you want feedback do you want it quickly do you want me to set up space for it do you want me to set the table do you want me to be direct do you want whatever it is inquire what would serve the leader best and cater that truth-telling to what they need that's what affected chiefs do yeah and the key distinction i'm hearing there is it's not that the chief wants their agenda it's that the chief wants the leader's agenda to come out and by giving that feedback having those tough conversations doing that in a way that works well for that leader that's really the driving force behind us 100 percent look at look at the said very simply the chief of staff's agenda is 100 percent to serve that leader's agenda and the business mission period full stop certainly they'll be asked for their perspective i mean they're hired into the role to be a trusted advisor and a strategic partner to the leader so they're always going to be sharing their two cents they're dot connectors they see things across leadership teams and functions in ways no one else can do because they just don't have that that view but at the end of the day they are there to serve the mission and so whatever they're advocating for or whatever feedback needs to be delivered it should be in crisp alignment with what's most important to drive the business forward one of the other places you surface that leaders can really use a chief of staff well is when they find that their team is spending more time solving problems than preventing them and you write at the core a chief of staff is a proactive individual what is it that's so critical about that in this role when i see thieves operating at their peak they're always two steps ahead of their leader or they're two steps ahead of a potential problem surfacing when i see them do their job masterfully things are dealt with at the at the level of 10 before it becomes a level 100 and and that's not easy to do but but it can be done and it requires a chief to be spending their time proactively looking around the corner looking under the rocks to make sure that things are dealt with before they become a problem or put a big initiative in jeopardy for example now that takes time and i think teeth really need to invest in themselves to understand you know where do i need to spend my time what is most important where do i sense there may be bad weather and where are things humming smoothly a smart chief of staff will take the time to assess that and then direct their energy accordingly but too often i will see wonderful teams be spending way too much time solving problems and that is not i just don't think that that is the most effective way to lead and and if we can if we can leverage the chief of staff to be a problem a verter to go sniff things out proactively and prevent things from slowing us down then that is a great use of a chief of staff's time and i think that should also be set up in the interview process that is what this role is being designed for and that's how you get a full ROI out of the role look nobody nobody's going to turn their their cheek to a problem solver we all need good problem solvers but what are you making space for when you avert problems hmm that's how to think about that yeah and and it's just the nature of being in a senior role that you're going to miss stuff and be blind to things and people aren't going to tell you stuff and the old story of the emperor's new clothes right there's some aspect of that that happens in almost every organization and so ideally the chief of staff can see where the message is getting lost where the connection isn't happening where the blind spots are and and surfaces that proactively to the leader yes and i have an example of that that i think works really beautifully and again it was one of the leaders i did not cheat for him but i got to witness him doing this at my previous in my corporate role and i thought it was beautiful so the punchline you're talking about is that there are oftentimes around leaders way too many yes people yes yes yes you know leader talks about something at a meeting and before you know it 15 people are acting on it but it really wasn't even intended that way so that can happen and oftentimes the real truth the gory truth doesn't make it to the leader they get some other higher altitude headline that doesn't really serve the context the leader needs to lead effectively and so one of the things i i witnessed one of our our leaders do that i thought was brilliant is at the end of every meeting you know a big important meeting about an initiative about big priority he would invite the last 10 minutes of the meeting he would invite the contrarian point of view and he would do it very deliberately you know for the next 10 minutes we're going to go beat up why what we're about to go do is the wrong thing let me invite why what we're about to go say yes to isn't going to work and i'm going to give everybody agency for the next 10 minutes to literally show up and beat it up and and that really expanded the dialogue around the table it enabled the leaders to stretch their thinking knowing that it was really safe to do that that was the 10 minutes 15 minutes whatever to get that out and the company that particular team ended up making in some cases a very different decision but that wouldn't have happened unless the time was created to do that and so it's just one of the ways to care for having yes people or having the true the full truth not make it to the leader is that you create a segment or create space for that dialogue to take place and of course a chief of staff can orchestrate that beautifully and what i love is when i see it everywhere you know we're not just going to do it for our big decisions but we're going to invite it into the hygiene and the fabric of how we run this business that it shows up everywhere because there's no downside in doing that i'm thinking about what you said a few minutes ago that yes the chief of staff absolutely needs to be the truth teller right and ideally there's also a lot of other people in the organization who are doing that as well and one of the real gifts that a chief of staff can do is to cultivate that climate that that happens not just with the chief but other people on the team and i'm curious when you see chiefs do this well that and they're not it's not just them and the leader having that kind of truth telling but it's happening throughout the larger team and organization what does it do what is it that them and the leader do to really set that up you know what i one of the things i pride myself on at my core i'm a relationship builder i love to build trust and and relationships and that takes time and intention and what i always say to new chiefs and leaders that i work with is send your chief on a roadshow virtually or whatever make sure that they set aside time to truly get to know the senior leaders on this team and what their agenda is and establish trust at the very beginning have that handshake meeting with each of those leaders and make sure that each of those leaders understand the role of the chief is to ignite that team serve the leader serve the mission but not to go around the other leaders or to prioritize one over another they're there to create the symphony the orchestra and that's when teams hum so i you know really effective chiefs certainly in their second six months of their role or even the third six months of their role they're igniting each of the leaders around that table to reach their fullest expression of leadership and service of the mission they're getting to know those leaders in a way that invites them all into the kitchen and so practically speaking Dave what that might look like is working with one of the leaders saying hey i know this is a really big this particular decision is a really big decision to you i'm sensing it's not going to go the way i know you would like it to go let's talk about that and let's be present to what's important to you so that when we have this meeting with the leader we can do fill in the blank x y and z that simple heads up enables that leader to prepare for a dialogue that he or she might not have been able to prepare for had they not had the heads up and the heads up is trust so so what a chief is doing is bringing together the most productive dialogues possible and that's one of the ways they can ignite the performance of the team they just see what's needed in fact gave i i built a score card for my chiefs that reflects that allows them to reflect on how much of their time are they spending in a proactive way and how much of their time are they spending reactively because something happened to the business that they need to go deal with and when they really look at that from time to time and they see how much of my time and my spending proactively it's like the example i just gave i'm out there working with one of the other leaders to make sure that i'm preparing them for something so they can have an awesome dialogue with our leader versus them going to that meeting and being surprised and the conversation potentially falling flat that's what a great chief of staff is thinking on and that's proactive yeah and i'm guessing a big component of this too is what the leader says who has the chief to others in the organization about their relationship with their chief of staff and and and how that person represents them what is it that's important for leaders to articulate about about their chief of staff to other stakeholders well it's a really important point you're making and one of the things i insist on when i work with leaders and chiefs is that they absolutely properly launched the role and what does that mean that means they are specifically describing to the leadership team what the chief why the chief was hired what the chief is is there to do and how and how they will be working with the chief for the greater good it's almost i like to say set the table set the table for this relationship to soar and if you don't set it up to soar people flounder they don't know how to work with this chief and it isn't explained to them so not only do i insist that that happen i often write or craft a draft of that launch letter for my leader so that they can personalize it or edit it as they see fit but that they set themselves up for success so it's absolutely critical that they do that and then again sending the chief on a bit of a roadshow to meet with each of the leaders have their handshake meeting and establish together what is possible for this team i think that's all very very important it's it's no secrets it's operating with trust and transparency and and frankly the chief is usually what the data says is the chief is usually in the role for about 18 months after 18 months they're off getting promoted or running a line of business running a p&l they're they're off doing something else sometimes they become the coo it can be a lot of different things but maximizing that work and the possibilities for the team in that 18 months are up to the team and setting setting it up for success is absolutely essential you write at the beginning of the book that if you're on a plane and taking off from new york you will be done with the book before you land in chicago and i'm talking to my ceos right yeah you are and i really appreciate how concise the book is i mean i did the almost the entire book in one sitting and there's a lot here and we're not covering intentionally some of the other pieces here that are how to hire how to identify how to get onboarded so for folks who are hearing this and are thinking either i have a chief of staff and we don't quite have this tuned perfectly yet or i'm thinking about this or i'm in the process of of redefining this role and bringing someone on i think it's an essential guide for you so i hope folks will pick it up and lori is i'm thinking about everything you've said i've got one other question as you have had this book out now and have lots of people reaching out to you and utilizing this framework i'm curious what if anything since the book has come out and you've started talking with people about it that you've changed your mind on i don't i would say this that a lot of times it's easy to know what needs to be done but i think we as humans certainly me i will often fall into a space where i over analyze or even make something more complex than it needs to be because i want to get it right or i want to serve the leader or perfect something before it goes out the door and while those things are all well intended and that's certainly not something that is shameful what i've learned or what i've changed my mind on is is very ryan holiday it's it's just the best way to get something started is just to start is literally take the next indicated action pick up the pen start writing the book pick up the phone go schedule the meeting write the outline for what it is that needs to be done just take action and to me that that has changed my life it's changed the way i serve my leaders it's changed the way i support leaders and chiefs of staff it's changed how i run my own business i don't get stuck in the minutia anymore and i don't make things more complex than they need to be in fact i have i have this little button right next to my computer and it's one of those easy buttons i ask myself what would this thing in front of me what would it look like what would i go do if it was easy and it snaps my mind into gear and i automatically start thinking about ten things i could do to get it started and look that's just setting an intention just just do it Nike just do it lori aran is the author of who has your back a leader's guide to getting the support you need from the chief of staff you deserve lori thank you so much for your work thank you dave it's an honor to be with you and your listeners if this conversation was helpful three related episodes i'd recommend to you one of them is episode 597 how to help people speak truth to power megan rates was my guest on that episode we talked in this episode with lori about the importance of leaders having a truth teller and the chief of staff that being such a critical part of the job and it's also incumbent upon the leader to create a space and expectations to make it easier for everyone to speak truth to power megan and i talked about that in episode 597 looked at her research and some of the practical things that leaders can do to do that better also recommended episode 635 how to start better with peers michael bungay stanner was my guest on that episode author of the coaching habit and his more recent book looking at how to have the best possible relationship we heard from lori about the handshake conversation between a leader and a chief of staff michael and i in episode 635 broaden that conversation and looked at not only from peers but starting a relationship with anyone especially in the professional space how to do that his framework so helpful for beginning that and leaning in so you have those conversations about expectations up front and then of course the last week's episode 685 how to start a top job tie wiggins was my guest and we talked about some of the ways to start well the importance of hearing truth many echoes of this conversation as well if you hadn't if you haven't heard it already an important complement to this conversation all of those episodes of course you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website i'm inviting you to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com if you haven't already because it'll give you access to the entire library of episodes that i've aired since 2011 and you can search by topics you can find what's most immediately relevant to you but in addition to that there's a ton of other benefits inside of the free membership and one of those benefits is access to all my interview and book notes when i was reading lori's book i went through and highlighted a ton and then i curated the most key highlights paragraphs that i think are key free to know about and reflect on i also integrated them into my interview notes some of those things we hit on in this conversation some of them we didn't have time for but they're all available to you as part of your free membership to download not only on this episode but every past episode in recent years it's just one of the many benefits inside of free membership to activate your free membership go over to coachingforleaders.com and you can set it up right away and it's free so it's pretty easy to get access immediately and if you already have your free membership i would invite you also to explore coaching for leaders plus it is a way to take the next step on insight and the connections and personal relationships that we're having inside of our community and hear some of those conversations in depth every single month i'm inviting a past guest who's been on the podcast into a conversation with some of our academy and pro members for something we call an expert chat and most recently Kwame Christian was our guest for that conversation we sat down with him for an hour and had a conversation about finding confidence and conflict many of you also follow Kwame's work he's been on the podcast several times over the years as a dear friend and as the director of the american negotiation institute and also the host of the negotiate anything podcast we had a lively 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