Melody Wilding on Managing Up and Becoming a Trusted Partner to Your Executive

Melody Wilding · 0:00

Hi, I am Melody Wilding, and today's leadership quote comes from Josiah Gilbert Holland, and it is, calmness is the cradle of power.

Intro · 0:09

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy Burrows · 0:29

Hey friends, welcome to the Leader Assistant Podcast. It's your host, Jeremy Burrows, and it's episode 400. So super excited that you are here listening and we've got a really fun conversation for this milestone episode. You can check out the show notes as always at leaderassistant.com/400, leaderassistant.com/400. And, uh, yeah, we hope you'll stay engaged and, and connect with my guest today. Speaking of, I'm excited to have Melody Wilding on the show. Uh, Melody is author of Managing Up and an award-winning executive coach. And I'm really excited today because, you know, managing up is such a hot topic in the EA world. How do we lead our executives without being their supervisor, essentially? So we're going to, we're going to have a really good conversation today. So thanks for joining us. And Melody, welcome.

Melody Wilding · 1:33

Thank you. So excited to be here with you.

Jeremy Burrows · 1:36

What part of the world are you in and what do you like to do when you're not working?

Melody Wilding · 1:41

Yeah, I am in northern New Jersey. So about an hour outside of New York. And we were just talking about how it's a gorgeous time of year here because All the trees are changing. It's perfect. This is my favorite time of year. And when I am not working, I'm a big weightlifter, so I'm always trying to challenge myself, hit a PR with my deadlift this year.

Jeremy Burrows · 2:07

Nice. Congrats.

Melody Wilding · 2:09

Thank you. Thank you. And so it really does make me feel more powerful. And it's great because I'm using my mind all day to have the opposite of that be doing something with my body.

Jeremy Burrows · 2:26

Yeah, that's awesome. I've actually recently in the last several months started doing pull-ups. And I've got, for those that don't know or haven't seen me in person, I'm very tall and I have long skinny arms. And so it's been a journey, but it's been fun to Like you said, do things that aren't on a screen and, and do things that are good for you. And yeah, feel, feel stronger is obviously a confidence booster. So that's great.

Melody Wilding · 2:59

Yeah. Pull-ups are very humbling. So I give you so much credit.

Jeremy Burrows · 3:03

Well, it's kind of funny because I'm like, I like pull-ups because I don't have to get on the ground and do push-ups. And it takes a lot more push-ups to get the workout, you know, pull-ups. I'm like, oh, I can only do, like when I started, I was like, I can only do 4 or 5. So this doesn't take very long. And then, and then now I'm like, well, okay, now I'm actually getting to where I can do a decent amount. I think, I think my record's 14 and a half. And yes, I count the halves. Uh, enough about, uh, lifting weights and doing pull-ups. Let's jump into your career a little bit before we jump into your, where you're at currently. I see in your bio you're a licensed social worker, have a master's degree from Columbia University. Uh, what, tell us about your career journey.

Melody Wilding · 3:48

Yeah. Um, maybe other people can relate to this. I think many EAs maybe fall into, fall into their careers. Like I felt like for much of my life, I fell into different things. And, um, I'll start out by saying I am a, I, I'm what I call a sensitive striver. So I talk about that in my first book, Trust Yourself. So I'm someone who lifelong has been very perceptive, has been very attuned to other people. It was only natural that I went into a therapeutic field, which is what I thought I always wanted to do. And when I came out of school, was faced with the reality of Oh, I need to get something that is better paying, frankly, uh, than what you might have in social work. And so I began working in the healthcare field, doing things like patient education. And on the side was, uh, to pay off some of my student loans, was doing counseling and coaching online before this was— I mean, we're talking decades ago now. Mm-hmm. Before it was a thing. And so back then, the people who felt comfortable doing that were on the bleeding edge of technology. So it was a lot of founders, startup CEOs, executives in New York City and San Francisco, some of the big hubs. And I really built this niche for myself of working with very high-achieving, hard-driving personalities who needed help navigating the mental and emotional sides of their career, things like imposter syndrome and confidence. And that evolved into assertiveness in their communication. And so my first book, Trust Yourself, was about that idea of how do you navigate your career as someone who is highly sensitive, but also high achieving? And the question I would receive most often after that book came out is, all right, I feel more secure within myself and what I bring to the table. Like my mindset is better, but all of that breaks down when I have to deal with someone who has more authority, or I perceive as being more dominating than me, and I don't know how to hold my own in those interactions. And that's really where Managing Up came about.

Jeremy Burrows · 6:09

Nice. So then what have you been doing for the last several years then? Are you essentially doing the coaching and the, and the speaking and training, or Have you gotten back into the social work?

Melody Wilding · 6:25

Yeah, great question. So yeah, for the last, let's see, probably 12 years or so, I have been running my coaching business full-time. And as of right now, again, just being a multi-passionate person, I can never do just one thing. So for the most part, we run coaching programs, training programs, Our most popular one is called Speak Like a Senior Leader, which, as the name implies, is about really elevating how you are coming across and your articulation, how you are perceived. The other one is called Lead from Within, which is more of an advancement accelerator from mid-level to more senior levels. So I run those coaching programs. Yes, I do speaking to corporations, training a lot, especially this year on managing up, pushing back, influencing without authority. I teach and create LinkedIn Learning training courses. So I've had over a million students and professionals go through those. And of course, writing, creating content, that is one of the things I love doing the most.

Jeremy Burrows · 7:36

That's awesome.

Melody Wilding · 7:38

Yeah.

Jeremy Burrows · 7:38

So, okay, well, we're gonna jump in then because it sounds like you have a lot of great tips relevant again to executive assistants. related to managing up. But let's start with, you know, managing up isn't necessarily about making your executive's life easier, but that's often what we as EAs have to do, right? Like, that's our job. So how do we reconcile that where, you know, we want to make their life easier, we want them to, we want to you know, put the executive back in executive assistant, right? And help them do more of their work and whatever. So yeah, what's your thoughts on that?

Melody Wilding · 8:25

Yeah, and it's, I think it's confusing, especially for, I'm going to guess we're around the same age. And I think for us and even folks who are older than us, we grew up with this mentality around managing up and even just seeing it depicted. on TV shows and movies and things like that, that it is being a professional people pleaser, right? It's just, it's make everybody else happy at the expense of yourself. Be the EA who's running behind your executive with their coffee order and saying, what can I do for you? What? And what I think there's nuance here that yes, you can be in a service function, like being an EA where you you are at the service of your executive, and we'll talk about this, but the ecosystem around them, and not make yourself smaller as part of that. So what I like to say is managing up is fundamentally about you creating the conditions to have the autonomy, the ownership, the balance that you want. A great and a main side effect of that is making the lives of the people you serve, your leaders, your CEO, whoever it is, making their lives easier. But the driving force of it is really to be more in control of your own career and to feel like you are an agent on the conditions around you, not just affected by the conditions around you. And, you know, what I have found too, I've worked with EAs in my business over the years. And I would love to hear your perspective on what I'm going to share, which is that the, the best DAs are really partners to their executives. They are not sycophants. They are not just pure order takers. They bring a point of view to the table. They come with, hey, here's how I think this process could be simplified and we could make this easier for you instead of just, okay, tell me what to do and I'll go do it. a, a gopher. And, um, I think that's what managing up is fundamentally about. It's, it's about going from just being a subordinate and an order taker to someone who can be more of a partner to your leaders. Again, you, you're almost equaling out the power dynamic a little bit by, by doing that, by being more proactive, by having more of a voice. So I would love to hear your take on that.

Jeremy Burrows · 10:57

Yeah, I think that's well put. I know that's a big topic too, or, you know, what is a strategic partner? You know, I know next week I'm publishing an episode with Annie Kroner for episode 401 that is all about her book launch, which is called The Strategic Business Partner. And so it's a hot topic for sure. And I think kind of to my comment about Putting the Executive Back in Executive Assistant. People ask me, Jeremy, you wrote a book, you have a podcast, you do all this training and speaking for helping assistants grow and professional development. How do you develop as assistant? How do you be a better assistant? And my response has been in the last few years, I'm actually not thinking about trying to be a better assistant. I'm actually trying to think about how can I be a better executive? How can I do more of my executive job? And so that's how I frame the whole partnership idea is that, listen, we have a set of goals. You, you, my executive, have a set of goals and I am here to help you accomplish those goals, right? Your goals are my goals. And so I think you're spot on. I think the The partnership and the managing up go hand in hand for sure. Well, let's get into a couple more concepts or frameworks that you provide in your book and in your training. One is the 4 Cs. Tell us what the 4 Cs are and how can an EA tell which one their executive is?

Melody Wilding · 12:44

Yeah, the— it might be helpful to back up and explain how the book is structured around these 10 conversations for managing up. Because what I was also finding is that people had these vague one-liners and ideas like, oh, I know I need to be proactive. I know I need to understand my executive's priorities. I know I need to make myself visible. But how does that all come together in a methodology and something you can execute on day after day? And so the, the 10 conversations really emanated from that, and they start with the most foundational and go to ones that are more advanced. And the second of the conversations is the styles conversation, because once you are, as you were saying, your goals are my goals. Once you're aligned on the direction that you're moving and what you're trying to achieve together, then the question is, how do you work with someone who is different than you? We're, we're all wired differently. You're going to encounter over the course of your career, different executive personalities, even in a role. What I like to say is managing up to your direct leader is not enough because even as an EA, there is still an ecosystem around the executive, the other C-suite members. You may be interacting with board members or important vendors and customers sometimes. There are all these other actors you have to manage up too. And so, um, the styles conversation is, how do you do that when we often perceive someone being different than us as difficult than us? Why does this person ask so many questions when I give them— when I tell them the direction we're going and a new process we're going to put in place? Why do they ask me a million questions? Why don't they trust me? It feels like it's undermining my expertise. Or at the beginning of the book, I tell a story about someone who would approach their executive and say things along the lines of, this is really hurting team morale. People are feeling very stressed out by this. And the executive would essentially say, I don't care. Figure it out. We still need to get things done. And when this person understood that, oh, this person has a different lens. through which they're processing and need to hear information. It's sort of like, I call it the diamond principle. You may have one stone, one message, but depending on the facet you shine on it, you're going to be more effective versus others. And so the 4 Cs is based on the fact that if we look at psychological research over the last 50 years, there have been tons of studies that show Communication styles, broadly speaking, of course we're humans, we're more nuanced than that, but broadly speaking break down into 2 dimensions, which are dominance and sociability. So dominance is how assertive and direct someone is, whereas sociability is how much do they prioritize relationships, connection. And if you map those on a 2 by 2, you get 4 different quadrants. And there's different, um, measures based on this. Mine is called the 4 C's. So first you have your commander personality, which is that leader I was referring to just a minute ago, who is all about action. They're all about momentum, bottom line, uh, objectives, concrete results. They tend to be more competitive. They are the person who's not really afraid to cut you off because they're trying to optimize for time and outcomes. That's your commander, very high on dominance, lower on sociability. Then we move to a cheerleader. A cheerleader, high on dominance, so they aim high, they move fast, they have a lot of goals, but they're also higher on sociability. So these people tend to be a bit more enthusiastic. Uh, they tend to be more compelled by stories because they have more of that sociability. They care about social proof. They want to hear who else is this working for? Optics. How is this going to make us look as a team? Then you move on to a caretaker. A caretaker is high on sociability, lower on dominance. So a caretaker, as the name implies, they're more concerned with harmony, stability. They are the executive who wants the bullet points in advance, wants time to sit with something, wants to know. are people on board before we execute this change? Because I don't really want to rock the boat that much. And then last is your controller, who is low on both of the dimensions. And they tend to be very logic, precision oriented. They do care a lot about process, like how are we getting from A to Z? I want to see the steps. I need to understand that because that's how they gauge quality. And so they care a lot about rigor. They will ask a lot of questions. That is the person that will say, okay, well, what were your assumptions behind this? Or what are we expecting to get out of this? Um, and so you can see how a common dynamic that I often see with EAs is that you may have a caretaker style. You may be much more people-oriented. You may be slower to bring up problems or softer with your feedback, and you're managing up to a commander who wants the bottom line. And again, a really common dynamic that happens is you lead with a lot of the context in the background. Okay, so here's what Jane said, and this is what happened in that last meeting. Let me bring you up to speed. And they kind of cut you off really quickly and are like, what do you need from me? Just what do you need right now? And we may take that as dismissive, or they don't care about me, they don't have time for me. When actually, if we realized, hey, I know you only have 5 minutes now, let me just give you the bottom line from that meeting and the one decision I need from you, you'd get what you need in half the time with also half the frustration.

Jeremy Burrows · 19:05

Right. Well, I know for a fact, I mean, I felt it, and I'm sure that other assistants listening felt it as well. But that example you just gave, you know, what do you need from me? Right? Like that, it's like you were looking inside the window at one-on-one meetings between executives and their assistants. So I love that way that you framed it. It's like, hey, you know what? You have to, you know, let's use the term managing up again. You have to actually start off and say, Hey, here's the one decision I need from you. But here's the high level, the TLDR, if you will. This is what we need to move forward. And I think that's super helpful. The commander, cheerleader, controller, caretaker framework, super helpful. So definitely we could talk the whole episode on that, but I really want to cover a few other concepts as well. And of course, If anybody wants to dig in deeper on any of the concepts, they can reach out to you and we'll share your info here at the end of the conversation for that to dig deeper. But let's move on to another one that I thought was interesting, and it's what you call a me manual. So what's a me manual and how should an assistant share one with their executive?

Melody Wilding · 20:30

Me manual is basically a guide to you as a professional, how you tick, how you process, how you think, preferences you might have. And I know for an EA that might be listening, it's a little like, but that's not my place. My place is to adapt fully to them and is to show up in the way they want me to. I can't even imagine approaching my, my CEO or my leader and saying, this is what I want you to do. So let's break that down. It's everything from, again, are you the type of person who would prefer to, like something that I share with my team, I tend to naturally be more caretaker, like is my default. I have to flex into the other styles just by the nature of my, my job. Um, but by default, I'm the person who wants to prepare, give me time to think about something. So in my Me Manual, that's what it says. If you need a decision from me, please let me know at least 2 weeks in advance. Like, give me a heads up that we're going to need a decision by something on the 15th so I can start wrapping my head around it. And that may be something you include in, in your manual. Bottom line, I think it is a great exercise for you to do for your own self-awareness, because many times we never sit down to think about what are my preferences around how we prepare for a meeting or how I receive feedback or How do we confront a conflict or an area we don't agree? My working hours and what would be helpful to have in an email versus, versus not. So it can be very helpful to articulate that, but it also allows you to approach your leader and open up a conversation about how you work together. And I think that's the key here. It is not bringing it to your leader and saying, here, here you go. Here's how I want you to deal with me. Because they'll say, well, that's— it's really the other way around. But it's more about— and you can blame me. You can say, you know, I heard about this concept in a book I was working on or some professional development I was doing, and I thought it was interesting. I always suggest using an organic opening to bring this up. So right, we're recording this towards the end of the year. I would say this is perfect timing to say something along the lines of, as we're thinking about about how we take our work to the next level in 2027 and how I serve you even better. I think now is a good time to be talking about how we work together and how we're accomplishing your goals around X, Y, and Z. So as part of that, I have this document that I put together, which I can share with you in a moment. But I would suggest bringing up specific parts of it, and in particular areas that may have been sore points for you in the past. And you— why I say the giving feedback or how you deal with conflict, those are 2 that, that often come up where you might say something along the lines of, you know, I'd really like to get on the same page about how we tackle prioritization. Because in 2027, I know there's going to be even more we want to do and other demands coming down the line. So if we could get ahead of that and be on the same page about how we communicate around that, we're going to move faster. Now, from my end, as your EA, here's what would be helpful to have. If you have— so my team did this to me and they said, here's what would be helpful for us. If you could put together a brief before you just tell us to go make changes, can you put together a high-level, like, decision brief of what you want why something needs to happen, like what is the business context for this, and what's the ideal state you want to get to. And then we can chime in on the dependencies, who needs to be involved, because what I was doing was like, do this, do that. And it would have all these cascading effects of breaking things in the other business. And that, that has been incredibly helpful for, for us. And I didn't perceive that at all as don't tell me what to do. But it allowed us to then have a compromise of, okay, what you're asking for is probably going to take me too long. So here's what I can do. I can do a Loom video where I'm talking it out because it just takes me too long to type these things. And they said, fine, that's great. It just helps us get 80% of the way there to start a conversation before we just run off and execute. So again, it opens this door organically. Um, and I can't tell you how many times people will say, I brought my Me Manual. My leader said, this is great. Can I do this too? Or this is, yeah, this is something I'd love to do with the rest of the team. Let's do this at our retreat or our all hands. And it becomes such a helpful tool for everyone to understand where other people are coming from. Rather than, again, we get into our own heads and we personalize everything. So.

Jeremy Burrows · 25:51

Yeah, I was actually going to say, if you didn't bring it up, I was going to bring up that like we as assistants managing up should help our executives put together their, their me manual. You know, that's part of our job too, is to say, you know, hey, what do you, how do you work? What do you like to, when do you like to have meetings? When do you not like to have meetings? Who are the people that you need to stay in touch with versus, you know, more proactively versus just waiting until they reach out. So yeah, that's super helpful. Thanks for sharing. Okay, so let's get to another interesting common question that I get. One of the more common questions I get from assistants, how do you say no to an executive, especially one who won't take no for an answer?

Melody Wilding · 26:42

Yeah, I'm laughing because this is like— if there is one thing I have been brought on, brought in to train and speak on over the last year, it is this. We are all being asked to do more with less, and the demands just keep piling up and it's like nothing gets subtracted. So how do we handle all of this? And now, as we're rocketing towards the end of the year even more, it's, okay, we want to wrap this up. Before year end, we want to get this started before year— before 2027 kicks off. So it's even more heightened now. And I think you put your finger on something important, which is, I say something provocative, which is that no is not a complete sentence in the workplace because that is how, unfortunately, even if it's not your intention, you can get labeled as resistant. not a team player. Literally, your job as an EA is to figure out how to make things happen and enable them. And so that's why in the book, there are a few structures I teach for straddling that line of, you don't want to be a complete pushover to just say, yes, sure. And your plate just ever keeps expanding because this is when, and when organizations bring me in, the number one thing I hear is, Everyone is doing that. Everyone is saying, yes, sure, because they don't know, they don't want to say no to the executives. And then we are left with subpar work. Things don't get delivered on. Our executives are having to chase people, which is wasting their time. So when you do that, you only create more problems and you can also back yourself into a corner. where you become so, uh, indispensable to your role. I'll tell you a quick story about this. Um, I had someone who years ago now was in an EA role at a, um, at a law firm. And she, she, like many EAs, was sure I could do this. I can do that, volunteering for other things and just became almost this dumping ground. for everything and everybody within the business. And what she realized and what we worked together on was that she had put herself in this position where she was now so indispensable to different parts of the business that she had no mobility. And because she never said no, she never pushed back, she never negotiated, responsibilities, the feedback she was getting is you're not ready for the next level. What, in her case, she was not going for a senior EA role. She actually wanted to convert her role into a special projects role. That's what she really enjoyed and found she was bringing the most value around. But they kept saying, you're not ready for this because we don't see you know how to prioritize. And guess what? That's one of the main things that comes with operating at a higher level.

Jeremy Burrows · 29:46

Hmm.

Melody Wilding · 29:46

So you can actually shoot yourself in the foot when you don't practice this skill. And okay, so some of those structures. Number one is the conditional yes. The conditional yes is you say yes now, especially when we're talking about someone with more authority. We have to think about reputation and saving face and the social capital we wanna preserve or build. So you say yes now. with the expectation that limits will come in the future. So you may say, and this first script is usually better for someone who is not your direct leader, which is something along the lines of, we totally understand this is urgent. We're happy to push this over the line, get this done for you now. Keep in mind moving forward, We can't always honor a less than 24-hour turnaround with X, Y, and Z and the other, you know, initiatives that were, that I'm overseeing for this leader. Um, so you're setting an expectation that next time you may have to say, I'm sorry, it's within the 24-hour deadline and you can use one of the other structures I'll give you in a minute. Or if it is with your leader, again, you can say yes. Let's do this now. After we get through this busy period, then let's sit down and figure out how we put a process in place or a structure or have a tool or whatever it is to get ahead of these types of requests in the future so that we're not, we're not in a jam come end of month and we have to produce something for the board or whatever it is. So again, it's say yes now, but an expectation of a limit in the future. That's the first one. The second is the trade-off approach, which is the classic, if we add X, then we have to subtract Y. So this positions you as more of a partner because you're not just saying, okay, sure, you're not just being the order taker, but you're also not shutting it down and saying, we have so many things happening right now. We can't possibly take on one more. You are coming to the table as a problem solver to say, here is what I see happening across the business and across what you have given me. If we add X, then that's going to jeopardize the timeline on this or the quality we can deliver on that. And then from there, I suggest that you make a recommendation. Like, what I would recommend from here is that we push back This thing to next quarter because it's not as timely and we focus on, we can slot this other thing in there. Does that sound good to you? And most people stop at the, well, what do you think we should do? We can't do both of these. So which do you prefer? But come to the table with a perspective. It is much easier for a busy executive to answer yes, no, do this, do that, don't do either of those than it is to have an open-ended question. thrust on them. So giving them a starting point. And then last, this one actually comes from, um, the Harvard Negotiation, uh, Project, and it's called the positive no, which is essentially saying, I can't do this, but I can do that. And so this is one you can layer onto the conditional yes, for example, or the trade-off to say, all right, understand we want to accomplish all of this in the next week. Here's what we can do. I can get you the skeleton of this deck. I can make introductions to these 5 people, not all 25 people. And so again, it's about coming from a positive framing versus a negative one around what you can't do.

Jeremy Burrows · 33:42

Awesome. Super helpful. I know the, the kind of the trade-off one is the one that I probably use most often. where it's like, hey, you know, I can do this, but I'm going to have to push this to the back burner. So I love that. Okay, so the next question, we got a couple more that I want to dive into. The next one is, how can EAs get credit for that kind of behind-the-scenes invisible work that we do? And what should we do when someone else takes the credit?

Melody Wilding · 34:18

Yeah. Well, let's talk about this on a few levels. So in terms of you getting credit, because so much of what EAs do, they are the unsung heroes. You are the ones making it work behind the scenes. But yeah, it can feel like no one recognizes that. And then, you know, some other leader gets the, gets the credit for it. So there is a process I teach for one-on-ones. Called the SYNC agenda. And SYNC stands for successes, your challenges, next priorities, and commitments. The successes is the most important part here. With successes, this is not just you giving the status updates to your leader. This is not just, well, we, I set a meeting with this person. Or we got this software ordered and I handed off this to this person. Those are status updates. We need successes that are more outcome and results-based. So, okay, let's say you did hand off a process to this person. Then is that, whatever it is, Q4 objective that is fully on track and it's set to be launched by December 15th? That's the headline outcome I want to hear. And then you can say, we did that by this process is fully handed off to this person now. And so that's a switch I think people really need to make is instead of focusing on what you did, you need to think about why it matters. And that is, that is where you can talk about behind the scenes effort as well, where, you know, as an EA, you're often having to align or communicate with lots of different people, and things don't always go according to plan. So a lot of people assume successes has to be wins and progress. It doesn't. That's not real life. A, something that can go in your successes is also, how did you deal with the fact that you were having to deal with 2 C-suite members who were kind of at odds with each other? And you might say, well, we were having some, you know, complications between product and engineering. So what I was able to do was get both of these people on a thread, and you can give some insight into how you solved a certain challenge, which also gives— can also be a success. And so that, that is one thing as well. The other thing I would say is The N in the sync agenda is about next priorities. And this is where you turn the tables in your one-on-one onto your leader and ask, what else is coming down the pike for you? What's the temperature around this sort of project or this change you've been trying to push through at the leadership level? All of that gives you a lot of great intel about how you need to be navigating some of the stakeholders around them. But it can also be a great opportunity for you as the EA to step up and say, let me take that off your plate. Actually, would you like me to reach out to that person and be the point of contact on XYZ? Would you like me to present a few slides on this initiative? Because maybe like my client, you are leading some special projects and you want to have visibility around that. So it gives you these organic built-in opportunities week to week to claim some more of that visibility for yourself. Yeah.

Jeremy Burrows · 38:03

Love it. And, and kind of a natural progression from that would be, how do we then take that shift and transfer it to, how do I make a case for A salary increase, a bigger title, more scope, more money.

Melody Wilding · 38:23

Yeah, you have to start much earlier than you think you do. I think a lot of us get so consumed with the work that we look up and we think, oh no, it's performance— we're coming up on performance review time. I'll ask then. And I call this the performance review paradox, that either we are so heads down that we're not thinking about our advancement, Or we assume that the evaluation time is when those decisions are made. When in fact, that's when those are announced. You need to be way ahead of that. And so once you, once you know, or once you're aware of what you want to be working towards, you want to gently float that to your leader. And this is what we did with my client who was moving from, again, a pure EA role to more of a special projects role. was she said to the, to the head of the firm, she said to him, you know, by the end of this year, I would love to be in a position where 80% of my role is being spent on these special projects. What do you think about that? What would have to be true for that to be the highest value move to the business? That was such an eye-opening conversation because what it told her was he was really concerned, if I'm remembering my details right, he was really concerned with special projects around thought leadership creation, kind of getting them in creating white papers and publications and things like that. She would have never known that. So that allowed her to be more selective and also guiding the special projects she did take on and how she framed things. to him when they were successful about how were the things she was working on enhancing the reputation of the firm externally and their ability to attract better quality clients as well. Big difference there. It also helped her know, he— she had asked, you know, who else needs to be on board with this sort of decision? And he had mentioned, I think it was someone on the operations team. Um, and so she was able to build a relationship with that person, sort of get them on her side as a champion and an ally. So you need to start earlier than you think to float that, to get appetite, to understand. And actually, the hope is you will contract around what needs to happen by when. So if you can say, okay, we're in January now, what needs to be true? What do you need to see from me in terms of results or behaviors by July? Then you can come back to the table and say, great, based on that conversation, I have a template for this in the book where you can put together this sort of plan for yourself and scripts of how to present this. But you can put that together to get agreement on that. And then I suggest once a quarter, you are flagging a one-on-one to focus on your own development, where you are checking progress against that plan to say, all right, we talked about how in the last quarter you wanted me to step up in these, these ways. Here's what I have done. Are we still on track for— and even sometimes my clients will make this around, I want to be on track for an exceeds expectation to be in a position for my comp to be reassessed by the end of the year. Are we still on track for that? Has anything evolved or changed? So you're catching these things earlier rather than once it's too late.

Jeremy Burrows · 42:00

I love that. And I love the the idea and the framework you said is in your book where it's like, you got to write this down, right? You got to document this. And then you can have something that you can check back in on and say, hey, remember when we talked about this? Here's what we agreed to. How am I doing? I feel like I've checked these boxes. You know, if there's— if in the every quarter sync is a good idea too, because— It's not just an annual thing where you're like, oh, well, I thought you did good the first half of the year, but the second half of the year was kind of rough. And, you know, it's like, no, we talked about it, we documented it. This is, this is the progression. What do you do if, let's say you do that process and you go through a year of documenting, you've grown, you've checked off all the boxes and they still say no.

Melody Wilding · 42:54

Yeah. And this, this happens. Listen, it happens a lot. You have a few options here. You know, of course, I'll just say right up front, at a certain point, you do have to assess, is this where I can grow long-term? And I always say managing up is the fastest way for multiple reasons to figure out if you should stay or go in a job. And this is one of the reasons why. So you have a few options here. Number one is I see this happen often when reorgs. occur, and then leaders are very preoccupied with all of those changes. And so you may negotiate for something in the future to say, you know, I'm, I'm happy. I understand we're in a lot of flux and there's a lot of change happening. So why don't we do this? We'll reconnect in 60 days from now, or, you know, end of February. And in the meantime, you are proving how, especially when there is a reorg, how are you fitting into the new structure? How are you making it work? If the reorg has happened because of business necessity, like cost savings reduction, how are you contributing to that? I had a client just recently who's again more in a service function. This happened around her. And what she was able to do was they work with a lot of external vendors. And she was able to go to the vendors and negotiate more favorable contract terms for them and able to come back to her leadership and say, I just saved us $50,000. And that's going to put her in a really good position come, you know, the end of the year for her evaluation. So you, you can sort of defer, get a, get a promise for the future. You can also do almost a trade-off here of, all right, I understand a title change or moving to this capacity isn't an option right now. What do you think about this other little step? Uh, piloting this special project or, uh, allowing me to get a license to this software to try to streamline this process. And you almost treat it like, again, a proof point that you are trying to build that can then give you credibility to do something else. Um, and listen, there often comes points where you do need to have a come-to-Jesus conversation with your leader, which is, um, we've talked several times about how I'm trying to add more value here. And I understand things change. However, going forward, I want to understand for my own career and my trajectory here, what does it look like for me to grow in this role? Mm-hmm. realistically and almost subtly hint at the fact that you may be losing engagement, right? And, and I've had clients even say to their leader, this is really important for me to stay engaged in this role and make sure I am delivering the maximum value with the most enthusiasm for you, which again, it's, it's a little bit of this canary in the coal mine. that gives many leaders a wake-up call that, oh, this person I've been neglecting, I can't afford to lose them, so I better get my act together and, and help them out.

Jeremy Burrows · 46:20

Love it. Yeah, that's super spot on, and really appreciate walking through that and the other frameworks. Uh, we could, we could talk all day. There's lots of good stuff and highly relevant to my role as an assistant and to roles of assistants listening. So thank you, Melody, so much for being on the show. And yeah, how, what would be the best place? We'll obviously put all the links to the books and everything in the show notes, but what's the best place for people to reach out if they want to connect, say hi, and learn more?

Melody Wilding · 46:53

Yeah, managingup.com is where you can find all the information about the book. And when you get your copy, there's a form on that page. Make sure you fill it out with your order number because we'll send to you access to the the private vault we have of dozens of different scripts, templates, guides from the book. So we have a Me Manual template. We have that professional development plan template. We have scripts for saying no. People love this, feel like it's an invaluable companion to the book. So make sure you get that. And then other than that, the best place to connect with me is LinkedIn. Please come over there. Let me know you heard me on Jeremy's show and let me know what stood out to you. The best part is being able to connect with people who actually listen to this and put some of the steps into action.

Jeremy Burrows · 47:40

Perfect. Awesome. Well, I'll put all those links in the show notes at leaderassistant.com/400. And please do reach out, say hi, connect with Melody. Lots of great resources. And as you could tell, listening to our conversation, super relevant insight for assistants of all industries and experience. So thanks again, Melody, for your time. And again, leaderassistant.com/400. Appreciate you being on the show.

Melody Wilding · 48:16

Thank you.