Do you wish someone would hand you an extra 40 hours this month?
Hiring a Chief of Staff gives you more of the scarcest resources in the world: time and focus.
How, you might ask?
Let me share some real-world examples of a multiplier in action.
Your quarterly LT offsite is coming up.
Chief of Staff (CoS) gets your thoughts on topic and purpose in a 15 min meeting, then designs an agenda for the day, builds materials, and drafts talking points. You review (15 min) and tweak the talking points (15 mins). 4 hours of planning becomes 45 minutes.
♦ Savings: 3.25 hours
You are launching a new initiative.
You’re a little nervous about how it will be received. CoS grabs coffee with five stakeholders to gauge their concerns and uses the insight to tweak your materials. All you have to do is review the changes. 2.5 hours of meetings becomes 15 mins of review.
♦ Savings: 2.25 hours
You are preparing a keynote speech.
Instead of 3 hours drafting and re-drafting, you send CoS a 5-minute Voxer message with ideas. They turn the ideas into an outline. You review the outline and send 10 minutes of feedback that gets transformed into a full draft. You are ready to start practicing.
♦ Savings: 2.75 hours
You sit down for a monthly calendar retrospective.
You star everything from the past month which was a good use of time and cross out things that were low-leverage. The recurring meetings that got X-ed either get canceled or delegated.
♦ Savings: 2 hours per week
A re-org added a new team to your group.
CoS spends 3 hours watching and learning the new group’s practices and works directly with the leader to integrate into your standups and MBRs. You just have show up and give a welcome talk (15 mins)
♦ Savings: 2.75 hrs
You have teams spread across several geographies.
One location has rumors circulating about a site shutdown. It’s impacting productivity. CoS works with the local leadership team and flies in for an All-hands at the site. You video in for a 30-minute talk and Q&A.
♦ Savings: 11.5 hours (including travel time)
Your operating system needs a reboot.
CoS did the research and moved your weekly LT sessions to a monthly MBR (3 hours saved) and implemented a 10-minute daily standup instead of status reporting (30 mins per week saved).
♦ Savings: 4 hours of research / ongoing 5 hours per month
You need feedback from your team.
CoS implements a virtual feedback system so you can interact with the team on an asynchronous schedule vs. holding a weekly hour-long focus group.
♦ Savings: 3 hrs/ month
♦♦Total time saved this month: 42.5 hours ♦♦
Not quite magic, but it's pretty close to pulling a time rabbit out of a hat!