Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business, + Website

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

WORKING WITH AN EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

If creating a personal Operating System is the first step to good self-management and time management, the second step is learning how to find and work with an executive assistant.

Other CEOs regularly ask me what value an executive assistant provides, particularly in an era where almost everything can be done in self-service, lightweight ways. It's tempting for CEOs of startups and even companies that are just out of the startup phase, to want to do it all themselves, either because they feel like that they don't need help on small tasks or that it's important to send the message that nothing is beneath them.

I'll say it again: time is your scarcest resource and as the leader of an organization, anything you can do to create more of it is worthwhile. A good assistant does just that—literally creates time for you by offloading hundreds of small things from your plate that sure, you could do but now you don't have to. A great executive assistant can create three to four hours per day for you. That's a lot of time that you can put either back into work or into the rest of your life.

FINDING AN EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

There are generally two different models of finding a great executive assistant. One is to find a super-smart, entry-level person whom you can convince to do the job for 12 to 18 months with the promise that they will be promoted if they do a great job. A second school of thought is to find a career executive assistant, ...