Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/576097
PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THOUGHT LEADERSHIP 149 Chuck Lauer: A Thank-You to Gatekeepers Who Protect the Boss By Chuck Lauer, Former Publisher of Modern Healthcare and an Author, Public Speaker and Career Coach M any people don't understand the cru- cial role executive assistants play. ey function as a "gatekeeper" to the outside world, so their bosses can get their work done. Even former CEOs who benefited from gatekeepers seem to forget this when they retire and become part of the crowd on the other side of the gatekeeper's door. ey hate it. A friend of mine who was a top executive at a very successful healthcare com- pany retired a few years ago and began doing a little promotional work for a manufacturer. Calling the CEO of a prestigious health system and reaching his executive assistant, he asked to be trans- ferred to the head honcho post- haste. My friend was discreet. He didn't inform her of his previous position. Doing so would have been like those Hollywood ce- lebrities who, whenever they feel they're not being treated with ad- equate deference, will blurt out, "Don't you know who I am?" No, my friend wanted to be treated like anyone else, and I respect him for that. But in response, this gatekeeper told him the same thing she probably tells any sales person. She politely asked that he send her a request in writing, so that she could determine whether it should go to her boss or to someone else. When my friend was told this, he felt he was getting the run- around, and he was livid. He called me aerward, still so upset that he could hardly speak. He couldn't get over the way he'd been treated. I listened to what he had to say, and since he's a very good friend, I felt I could be honest with him. I told him the executive assistant was totally within her rights. It was her job to be the gatekeeper for her boss — a very busy person who very much needed to preserve his time. I gently re- minded him that when he'd been working in the C-suite, he would have wanted the same thing. He thought about it, regained his composure and actually felt embarrassed about his reaction. "It was wrong the way I handled this," he said. Me, I've always respected the work of the executive assistant. As a salesman for many years in my early career, I was the one calling up to try to have a word with the boss. As a salesman, it was crystal clear to me that the executive assistant held abso- lute power, and I had better be as respectful and as charming as I could. Otherwise the door would remain tightly shut. She — and it usually was a "she" at the time, although more men have joined the ranks since — would determine whether I would be able to have any word at all with the CEO. Later, when I became publisher of Modern Healthcare, I had the opportunity to be on the other side of the door and have my own executive assistant. I came to depend on her as the air I breathed and the legs I walked on. For more than 25 years, Cathy Fosco was my gatekeeper and business confidante — even aer I le the magazine and started working as a speaker and advisor. To my great sorrow, I lost her to cancer a few months ago, and I deeply miss her — both personally and professionally. A talented administrative assistant is quite literally worth his or her weight in gold, according to Melba J. Duncan, a former ex- ecutive assistant for top CEOs of major Wall Street companies and now head of search firm that places executive assistants. In a 2011 article in the Harvard Business Review, she calculated that when an executive makes $1 million annually, a top-notch assistant is worth a salary of $80,000 a year if she can save her boss five hours in a 60-hour workweek. at extra li makes the boss 8 percent more productive. Many a highly competent assistant, she added, significantly exceeds those savings. is person filters out distractions that would force CEOs to be in a reactive mode, making it possible for them to "proactively set the organization's agenda," Ms. Duncan wrote. A talented administrative assistant is quite literally worth his or her weight in gold.