You give a lot to your career, but are you investing your energies in the right direction? Many assistants are known for a tendency toward perfectionism. Of course you want to be known for the quality of your work, but you may more effectively meet everyone’s needs if you approach this from a basis of nurturing your own resilience.

Join this recovering perfectionist for a look at prioritising resilience as a means to both high performance and career satisfaction!

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Why the question for perfection?
• How nurturing your resilience helps drive high performance
• The impact of networks on your resilience.

Assistants often excel at advocating for others and taking care of their colleagues’ needs, but may not be quite so comfortable when it comes to advocating or negotiating on their own behalf. Whether you're an introvert, extrovert or ambivert (reflecting qualities of both introversion and extroversion), you can impact your career satisfaction, performance and progress by thinking like an executive.

Honing these skills can benefit both you and your employer, as you can achieve greater clarity of communications and reduce misunderstandings and frustrations.

If you’re ready to enhance your ability to speak up for yourself and refine your negotiating skills, join Shelagh in this session. Plan to explore why and how self-promotion needn’t be an unwelcome concept. We’ll also look at visibility and recognition, and how to achieve these for all the right reasons.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Self-promotion: how to make it work, rather than backfire
• How to enhance your visibility and recognition of the value you bring to the organisation
• How to negotiate like an executive

Our business and personal lives are increasingly digital, and we often rely on technology without blinking an eye. If you tackle work projects from home or respond to emails outside office hours, you may find yourself using personal hardware for business purposes. Nor is it uncommon for people to rely on their employers’ networks when using their personal smartphones.

With this blurring of boundaries, it’s important to be aware of the potential implications of a cyber breach – for you, and for your employer. We’ll take a look at those breach implications, and the latest tactics cyber criminals employ. This is important, because EAs working with senior executives and boards are attractive targets. We’ll wrap up by looking at practical, proactive measures you can take to mitigate those risks in the office and in your personal life.

Join Shelagh in this session, and you'll see why she's been been called the assistants' cybersecurity whisperer.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Breach implications
• Recognising risk
• Mitigating risk - best practices

Debate has followed a prominent business publication's article about the “vanishing” executive assistant, and we continue to witness the accelerated rise of artificial intelligence (AI). In the midst of all this, one thing is for certain: assistants of all job titles need to be able to adapt to and manage change.

While change is something assistants routinely handle, it’s increasingly unfolding on different levels. Technology, demographics and other factors are driving changes that can be developmental, disruptive or transformational in nature. Join Shelagh for a look at how to adapt and not only cope, but thrive in times of change.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

Learn about developmental, disruptive and transformational change

Explore how to nurture your resilience through self-care

How to build confidence and convey value through self-management

Brand is simply another word for reputation; it reflects the image and perceptions people have of you. However you refer to it, you've likely established an image or brand that impacts your career prospects. .

We regularly turn to mirrors to check how we physically present ourselves to the world, but how often do we assess and nurture our brands? The way you dress and look are a couple of elements, but there’s more to it. You also have the ability to enhance your influence or reduce your brand through the way you speak – to your peers, and to power.

Your brand impacts not only your career prospects; it also influences others’ perceptions of your principal (boss) and employer.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Learn how image, attitude, credibility and social media impact your career prospects
• Assess the current state of your brand
• Identify how to nurture and own both your brand and your career

Is life-work balance a myth in your experience, or something that’s achieved in spurts? Assistants make careers out of supporting other peoples’ successes, sometimes to their own detriment. They often work extended hours in the office, at home, or sometimes during their commutes.

If you routinely check email, texts and other business communications even when you're on vacation or under the weather, you may be doing yourself a disservice with your digital habits.

Does that same commitment to being "on" also lead you to overextend yourself on the job even though your principal (boss) doesn't expect or even know about all those extra hours you put in? Do those long hours translate to peak performance, or to a tired, stressed-out assistant?

While there are certainly roles that couldn’t be accomplished without inordinate hours, sometimes assistants place unreasonable expectations on their own shoulders. That can impact an individual’s resilience, which in turn impacts job performance. Whether or not you consider life-work balance a realistic goal, you can increase your resilience with a mindful approach. When resilience is nurtured, that’s good for you and good for business. With increased resilience, you're likely to perform better and while at least tipping the scales toward a better sense of balance.

So what are some of the challenges in establishing and maintaining boundaries between business and personal lives? In this session, we’ll look at the quest for perfectionism as well as the office equivalent of FOMO, known as a fear of missing out. Shelagh will also challenge participants to identify boundaries between personal and business lives, and how to establish and maintain them.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Identify whether you’re sometimes over-invested in your work, and why
• Be prepared to play “What if …”, to identify what would happen if you took steps to achieve a better balance between your personal and work lives
• Identify boundaries you would like to establish, and how to articulate them

If you’ve ever found yourself playing catch up in the office or struggling to get out the door at a reasonable hour, this interactive session will help you work smart and not just hard. You're no doubt highly committed, but are you proactively managing your time and priorities?

Sometimes it's an issue of workload. Perhaps you support multiple committees, supervise challenging colleagues, or find yourself approaching burnout. When you have a lot on your plate, it can be easy to slip into a reactive mode.

Be prepared to assess the difference between being busy and being productive, and to consider strategies that support efficiencies. Shelagh will also discuss how use of an annual calendar and work plan can increase your capacity to be proactive, and also have a positive impact for your colleagues.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Learn to manage yourself, not just your time
• Recognise when you've reached a career plateau, and how to move on
• Identify organizational practices to increase efficiencies

While recording standards have evolved, one thing hasn't changed: many assistants are uncomfortable with the task, or uncertain about getting minutes right. You want to document information that's relevant for institutional purposes, and meeting participants want concise, accurate records. This means you need to distinguish between what should and shouldn't be recorded.

Shelagh can help you elevate the quality of your minutes as well as your confidence when it comes to this important aspect of the job. Anticipate discussion of purpose, accessibility, context and organizational needs. We’ll also look at the recorder's neutrality, how best to record resolutions, and the art of attribution.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Enhance your confidence when it comes to recording meetings
• Ensure that your recording practices have evolved and meet organizational needs
• Tips to assess your minutes for neutrality
• Understand what should and shouldn't be recorded

You may not chair the meetings you record, but you can certainly take the lead when it comes to organizational systems that will benefit you and your colleagues.

A good agenda can impact meeting success, and that includes effective use of participants' time. We’ll focus on agenda design as well as the use of consent agendas and report templates.

Since securing colleagues’ agenda deliverables in a timely manner can sometimes be a challenge, we'll also look at communicating with work plans and calendars to ensure that colleagues know what’s expected of them and when. These tools also help you increase your efficiencies, as they eliminate the need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to agenda planning and recurring meeting items.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Understand how consent agendas work and help make the best use of meeting time
• Tips for agenda templates that help people better prepare for meetings
• Encourage efficiencies through the use of briefs/report templates
• Why a work plan/forward calendar is a win:win for you and your colleagues
• Tips for developing your own work plan/forward calendar

This interactive session will challenge you to assess the impact your writing skills have on your career prospects. Whether you’re comfortable in your current role or want to enhance prospects for promotion, you’ll benefit by considering what your business writing says about your credibility, currency and professionalism.

Join Shelagh to enhance your ability to write for multiple audiences and demographics, with concise content that’s underpinned by good grammar, proper punctuation and organizational knowledge. Even the best assistants will benefit from revisiting how to structure business communications with clarity and logic. We’ll also focus on your choice of words, and how your writing can either convey or toss away power and influence.

Through this session, you’ll reassess your writing skills from the perspectives of executives and other colleagues as well as clients and recruiters. In the process, you’ll gain insights on how to ensure your written communications yield positive reputational impacts for you and for your employer.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Writing with your audiences in mind
• Be concise: write so that people will read your work
• How to structure your communications with clarity and logic
• How to ensure your grammar and language enhance, not diminish, your reputation

The best assistants are recognized as extensions of their executives. They’re well informed and acquit themselves with confidence. Despite this, even C-level assistants sometimes hesitate or experience discomfort when asked to speak in front of a group.

Whether it's a planned presentation or a request to provide a project or event update during a meeting, each such occasion represents an opportunity to enhance your reputation and your capacity to influence decision making. Shelagh studied speech arts and was winning public speaking competitions at the age of 13, and shares the strategies that supported her success in interview situations and as an EA.

Focused preparation goes a long way, and this session will position you to tackle speaking opportunities with greater skill and confidence. You'll come away with Shelagh's step-by-step process to prepare for presentation success.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Tips on preparing and polishing a presentation
• Why flipping your perspective helps you speak more effectively
• Proactive strategies to ease unwanted nerves

Assistants often excel at advocating for others and taking care of their colleagues’ needs, but may not be quite so comfortable when it comes to advocating or negotiating on their own behalf. Whether you're an introvert, extrovert or ambivert (reflecting qualities of both introversion and extroversion), you can impact your career satisfaction, performance and progress by thinking like an executive.

Honing these skills can benefit both you and your employer, as you can achieve greater clarity of communications and reduce misunderstandings and frustrations.

If you’re ready to enhance your ability to speak up for yourself and refine your negotiating skills, join Shelagh in this session. Plan to explore why and how self-promotion needn’t be an unwelcome concept. We’ll also look at visibility and recognition, and how to achieve these for all the right reasons.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Self-promotion: how to make it work, rather than backfire
• How to enhance your visibility and recognition of the value you bring to the organisation
• How to negotiate like an executive

Perception is reality, so join Shelagh for a look at how executive presence begins with your own perceptions and attitudes. Do you feel your voice is heard? Would you like to enhance your ability to assert yourself, negotiate on your own behalf, or influence others?

Perhaps your focus is on making it through meetings or interviews with increased confidence. Much of this comes down to executive presence, and how to establish one that is authentic to you.

Assistants are accustomed to advocating for their colleagues, but are not always as comfortable with self-advocacy. Career growth is impacted by your capabilities, insights and integrity, but it’s also helped along by healthy doses of self-promotion. Plan to look at exhibiting your best traits through your communication style, including a focus on body language.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

Eight steps for effective self-promotion

How to enhance your visibility and recognition of your contributions

Negotiating like an executive

You’ve heard of risk management and you may have some understanding of enterprise risk management (ERM), but you’d like to learn more. That’s good, because ERM is an important strategic business discipline that can make a difference in your organization’s ability to execute on its strategic plan.

ERM done well results in informed decision making, and it reflects a series of processes put in place to manage risks. There’s also integrated risk management (IRM), and Shelagh will explain them both. She’ll walk you through risk processes and the respective roles that employees, management and the board hold in an organization’s risk management. We’ll explore different types of risks and terminology such as risk appetite, ownership and tolerance before moving on to internal controls, internal audit and mitigation strategies.

As we discuss the balancing of risks and returns, we’ll also look at risk monitoring and tools such as risk registers and heat maps. Shelagh will provide you a clear, elevated understanding of risk management’s role in your organization’s success.

You continually strive to perform at a high level in your role, which may involve preparing or polishing some of the materials that ultimately wind up in front of the board of directors. Or perhaps you want to gain strategic insights to ensure you add value as an assistant. In either case, it’s helpful to build your understanding of governance. If you’ve ever wondered how a board functions, or why directors may challenge management and ask questions, this session will provide insights on the strategic nature of governance.

Shelagh, who spent more than a decade in the governance career and writes weekly about governance matters, will walk you through that world. Learn how a board distinguishes its role from that of management as directors bring expertise and oversight to multiple matters – value creation, audits, compliance, disclosure, transparency, risk management, diversity, cybersecurity and other tech issues as well as enterprise, social and corporate governance (ESG) and more. Boards and directors carry significant responsibilities and accountabilities, and they need concise, quality reporting.

Be prepared to enhance your insights on the principles of governance in this climate of stakeholder and shareholder activism, and learn why respectful debates and some healthy tension are signs of good governance. You can also be prepared to apply these insights to communications, presentations and reports you and your principal may prepare – not only materials intended for the board, but also those destined for management and other colleagues.

You’re intelligent and you know it, and that’s helped you build your career. You’ve also mastered a number of competencies that are critical to success as an EA. Labels will vary from one organization to the next, but it’s likely you’ve mastered accountability, adaptability, communications and interpersonal competencies. As an EA, it would be surprising if you didn’t cap these off with a service delivery (customer-centric) focus.

It’s entirely appropriate to rely on your natural intelligence and these core competencies as you build your career, but you also want to draw upon critical thinking skills. They’re pivotal to success as a leader, and they can be developed and refined. If you’d like to hone your critical thinking skills, why not think about them from a leadership approach? Shelagh brings perspectives developed over the course of three decades working alongside C-level executives.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

The difference between intelligence and critical thinking, and why you should apply both to the role

Critical thinking competencies, and how they benefit you

Making a commitment to critical thinking

Assistants often negotiate on behalf of their employers, and your ability to do so effectively is one more means by which you make yourself valuable.

Your readiness and ability to negotiate can have positive impacts on two key resources: time and finances. A good assistant will negotiate the most favourable possible terms when sourcing services, events and venues. Skilled assistants can also alleviate frustrations as they deploy their negotiation skills in scheduling and rescheduling meetings, implementing change, resolving or preventing sticky interpersonal situations, and securing sought after seats, reservations and bookings.

You may already know that Shelagh left the administrative role for a few years mid-career. She built an award-winning career as a sales rep for the same corporation in which she’d been first an executive secretary and then a trainer. She’d already accrued negotiation skills working in those C-level offices, but honed them even further in bringing parties together to achieve mutual wins.

The extent to which you’re comfortable and effective in negotiating on your own behalf can also impact you personally and professionally. Join Shelagh in exploration of principles and techniques for effective negotiating strategies. We'll also look at why and how you should plan to develop and draw upon negotiating skills when it comes to interviews, performance planning and career satisfaction.

You’ve established your career and possess multiple competencies that make you adept at executing others’ priorities. Given your job title, though, people won’t necessarily associate the role with authority.

You can change this and gain recognition and informal authority by igniting your influence. To do so, you need to think outside the traditional confines of the role. Shelagh will work with you on adapting and applying the practices of people a couple of levels above you on the organizational chart.

This session will provide you insights on healthy self-promotion, increasing your visibility and enhancing your reputation, and negotiating from a position of strength. These are all learned skills, and they’re not only for extroverts.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

Emotional and cultural intelligence for self-promotion

Lessons from the org chart: establishing visibility and recognition

Negotiation skills: strategies we didn’t learn in school

You give a lot to your career, but are you investing your energies in the right direction? Many assistants are known for a tendency toward perfectionism. Of course you want to be known for the quality of your work, but you may more effectively meet everyone’s needs if you approach this from a basis of nurturing your own resilience.

Join this recovering perfectionist for a look at prioritising resilience as a means to both high performance and career satisfaction!

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Why the question for perfection?
• How nurturing your resilience helps drive high performance
• The impact of networks on your resilience.

Perception is reality, so join Shelagh for a look at how executive presence begins with your own perceptions and attitudes. Do you feel your voice is heard? Would you like to enhance your ability to assert yourself, negotiate on your own behalf, or influence others?

Perhaps your focus is on making it through meetings or interviews with increased confidence. Much of this comes down to executive presence, and how to establish one that is authentic to you.

Assistants are accustomed to advocating for their colleagues, but are not always as comfortable with self-advocacy. Career growth is impacted by your capabilities, insights and integrity, but it’s also helped along by healthy doses of self-promotion. Plan to look at exhibiting your best traits through your communication style, including a focus on body language.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

Eight steps for effective self-promotion

How to enhance your visibility and recognition of your contributions

Negotiating like an executive

While your organisation may have a good orientation program, it’s likely that you as an assistant have found yourself the point person when it comes to helping newcomers settle in to the office. If you’re meeting these needs without structure or planning, this impacts your productivity. This can create uncertainty for a new colleague, and frustration for both of you.

Ensuring your new colleagues feel welcome and well grounded supports their effectiveness. Planning and documenting onboarding practices also represents a good return on investments (ROI) of time and expertise in recruitment efforts. Join Shelagh to explore the elements of a good onboarding program, including preboarding, microlearning and more.

Since it’s a rare assistant who doesn’t welcome at least one or two new principals (bosses) over the course of a career, we’ll also focus on why and how you should be prepared to onboard a new principal.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Adding value through onboarding (induction)
• Elements of the onboarding process
• Onboarding your principal (boss)

If you’ve ever found yourself playing catch up in the office or struggling to get out the door at a reasonable hour, this interactive session will help you work smart and not just hard. You're no doubt highly committed, but are you proactively managing your time and priorities?

Sometimes it's an issue of workload. Perhaps you support multiple committees, supervise challenging colleagues, or find yourself approaching burnout. When you have a lot on your plate, it can be easy to slip into a reactive mode.

Be prepared to assess the difference between being busy and being productive, and to consider organizational strategies that support efficiencies. Shelagh will also discuss how use of an annual calendar and work plan can increase your capacity to be proactive, and also have a positive impact for your colleagues.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Assess whether you’re making the best use of your time in the office
• Learn how to recognize a career plateau that hinders productivity
• Identify practical steps to help shift from a reactive to proactive mode
• Tips on organizational practices to increase efficiencies

Debate has followed a prominent business publication's article about the “vanishing” executive assistant, and we continue to witness the accelerated rise of artificial intelligence (AI). In the midst of all this, one thing is for certain: assistants of all job titles need to be able to adapt to and manage change.

While change is something assistants routinely handle, it’s increasingly unfolding on different levels. Technology, demographics and other factors are driving changes that can be developmental, disruptive or transformational in nature. Join Shelagh for a look at how to adapt and not only cope, but thrive in times of change.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

Learn about developmental, disruptive and transformational change

Explore how to nurture your resilience through self-care

How to build confidence and convey value through self-management

The best assistants are recognized as extensions of their executives. They’re well informed and acquit themselves with confidence. Despite this, even C-level assistants sometimes hesitate or experience discomfort when asked to speak in front of a group.

Whether it's a planned presentation or a request to provide a project or event update during a meeting, each such occasion represents an opportunity to enhance your reputation and your capacity to influence decision making. Shelagh studied speech arts and was winning public speaking competitions at the age of 13, and shares the strategies that supported her success in interview situations and as an EA.

Focused preparation goes a long way, and this session will position you to tackle speaking opportunities with greater skill and confidence. You'll come away with Shelagh's step-by-step process to prepare for presentation success.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Step-by-step tips on preparing and polishing a presentation
• Flipping your perspective to sharpen your presentation skills
• Proactive strategies to ease unwanted nerves
• Principles you can also apply to speaking confidently at meetings and interviews

This interactive session will challenge you to assess the impact your writing skills have on your career prospects. Whether you’re comfortable in your current role or want to enhance prospects for promotion, you’ll benefit by considering what your business writing says about your credibility, currency and professionalism.

Join Shelagh to enhance your ability to write for multiple audiences and demographics, with concise content that’s underpinned by good grammar, proper punctuation and organizational knowledge. Even the best assistants will benefit from revisiting how to structure business communications with clarity and logic. We’ll also focus on your choice of words, and how your writing can either convey or toss away power and influence.

Through this session, you’ll reassess your writing skills from the perspectives of executives and other colleagues as well as clients and recruiters. In the process, you’ll gain insights on how to ensure your written communications yield positive reputational impacts for you and for your employer.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Writing with your audiences in mind
• Be concise: write so that people will read your work
• How to structure your communications with clarity and logic
• How to ensure your grammar and language enhance, not diminish, your reputation

If you’ve shunned social media or stayed on its sidelines, you’re in good company. What you may not realize is just how relevant some channels can be to your brand and your career.

Social media can be the contemporary networking equivalent of a golf club membership, as you can make mutually beneficial connections. LinkedIn can serve as your online CV – complete with endorsements and recommendations. If you choose, social media can also serve as a vehicle for professional development.

Join Shelagh for an interactive look at local, national and international networks that can become valued resources. You’ll learn how to tap in to social media as a networking mechanism and which resources can be relevant for your professional development. If you’ve contemplated social media but have reservations about how to get going, we’ll cover how to establish accounts. By the end of this session, you’ll be able to make better informed decisions about whether any of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have a place in your career.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Learn how social media can influence your career prospects
• Explore social media in the context of professional development
• Reassess whether or not some channels have a place in your professional life
• Learn the core steps of setting up LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts

The best assistants are extensions of their principals (bosses). You're well positioned to represent the brand - your office, department or division and the organization itself - and build positive, authentic perceptions. External networks and professional associations represent additional opportunities to add value by serving as a brand ambassador.

These associations also represent opportunities to expose yourself to new people, ideas and best practices while nurturing your resilience. That's critical in a career where you're constantly supporting others' success.

In this session, we’ll look at networking principles, how to establish internal and external networks, and the personal and professional benefits of developing international networks through technology.

Plan to look at a couple of case studies, as Shelagh helped professionalize a national network of counterparts who work in the same sector but may be situated up to thousands of kilometers/miles apart from one another. Shelagh will provide an overview of the evolution and structure of this professional association, and how technology plays a role in its success.

She'll also identify strategies on how to make the business case, launch and nurture your own internal network if your employer isn't already tapping into such a resource. Shelagh has launched two internal networks, one in 2006 and another in 2012, and both are still going strong.

We’ll wrap up by pushing the boundaries beyond what you might consider a typical network. With technology, we can establish and nurture digital networks across the globe. This presents opportunities to expose yourself to different cultures, practices and people, all of which enhance your CQ/cultural intelligence. At the same time, you'll be building a network of supportive contacts who share practices and business travel insights.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• • Networks as a means of adding value to your employer while enhancing your resilience and cultural intelligence (CQ)
  • The benefits of formalizing networks with sector or other peers across the city, region or country
  • How to make the business case for an internal network, and then launch it
  • Digital networks: exploring International networks of assistants on social media

Our business and personal lives are increasingly digital, and we often rely on technology without blinking an eye. If you tackle work projects from home or respond to emails outside office hours, you may find yourself using personal hardware for business purposes. Nor is it uncommon for people to rely on their employers’ networks when using their personal smartphones.

With this blurring of boundaries, it’s important to be aware of the potential implications of a cyber breach – for you, and for your employer. We’ll take a look at those breach implications, and the latest tactics cyber criminals employ. This is important, because EAs working with senior executives and boards are attractive targets. We’ll wrap up by looking at practical, proactive measures you can take to mitigate those risks in the office and in your personal life.

Join Shelagh in this session, and you'll see why she's been been called the assistants' cybersecurity whisperer.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Breach implications
• Recognising risk
• Mitigating risk - best practices

"May you live in interesting times." Digital disruption has become part of the lexicon, but did you know that we’ve embarked upon the Fourth Industrial Revolution, aka IR4.0? Pundits have applied other terms to this era we’ve entered, with some labelling it as transformational and others referring to it as The Great Disruption.

We routinely hear about artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and how all these advances are expected to transform not only the way business is done, but society itself. There are other changes on the horizon, as well. What do all these changes mean for the assistant’s career, and what skills will assistants need in order to continue to add value? Time will tell, but emotional intelligence and complex problem solving skills alone likely won’t be enough. Assistants will also want to continue to adapt and refine their skill sets.

In the midst of uncertainty, one thing assistants can do is work on their resilience. That’s good for an individual, and also good for their clients, colleagues and employers. Join Shelagh for a look at how adaptability, lifelong learning and networking nurture one’s resilience and capacity to add value in times of change.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Gain perspective on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and an overview of tech advances
• Examine how tech advances have already impacted the career, and what skills will remain relevant
• Explore how to nurture your resilience through adaptability, lifelong learning and peer networks

Artificial Intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality. Advanced robotics, blockchain and drones. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Just kidding when it comes to these last three. The others, however, are more than abstract concepts; they’re the new facts of life and part of the Great Disruption. They also represent some aspects of IR4.0, aka the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

It's not that long ago that pundits were questioning whether the internet would have much impact on the retail and media sectors. We now know the answer, and there are projections that we may soon look back in the same way on today's questions about blockchain technology.

As with all revolutions, this one is impacting both personal and business lives. Alexa, Cora and Siri aren’t simply names any more; they’re among the AI products bearing human monikers. Since AI is projected to increase gross domestic product (GDP) around the globe, astute business leaders are assessing both risks and opportunities associated with digital breakthroughs and disruption.

Astute assistants are doing the same, rather than resting on their EQ laurels. Join Shelagh for a discussion of the administrative career in light of these tech advances, and how to build and maintain resilience in these times of change.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Familiarize yourself with the basics of IR4.0, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Blockchain technology
• Consider the ramifications for your career 5 and 10 years out; where will you add value?
• Identify resources to help you adapt
• Identify how to establish or maintain boundaries between your personal and business lives
• Consider how inter-generational mentorships can benefit everyone; explore potential for tapping into (or being!) a Millennial digital mentor

Have you ever thought about applying your EA skills to a role in which you support a board of directors? Or perhaps you and your executive produce deliverables that wind up in front of a board, and you’d like to better understand the world of governance­­.

The governance career is a great option for experienced professionals who like a challenge. Your work must be accurate and efficient, and you need to be organized, flexible and proactive. A board needs a strategic thinker, and the challenges you face require you to be both diplomatic and solution-focused. If you like growth, you’ll appreciate the opportunity to work with and learn from a number of high achievers.

While some boards require that their staff have paralegal education and experience, others provide opportunities for high performing EAs. Shelagh will share her insights, earned over the course of more than a decade of responsibility for a board and its committees, on this stimulating career path.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Working effectively with high achievers
• Confidence via credibility: intro to governance
• Inside the role
• Systems for board management
• Skillful board and relationship management

You continually strive to perform at a high level in your role, which may involve preparing or polishing some of the materials that ultimately wind up in front of the board of directors. Or perhaps you want to gain strategic insights to ensure you add value as an assistant. In either case, it’s helpful to build your understanding of governance. If you’ve ever wondered how a board functions, or why directors may challenge management and ask questions, this session will provide insights on the strategic nature of governance.

Shelagh, who spent more than a decade in the governance career and writes weekly about governance matters, will walk you through that world. Learn how a board distinguishes its role from that of management as directors bring expertise and oversight to multiple matters – value creation, audits, compliance, disclosure, transparency, risk management, diversity, cybersecurity and other tech issues as well as enterprise, social and corporate governance (ESG) and more. Boards and directors carry significant responsibilities and accountabilities, and they need concise, quality reporting.

Be prepared to enhance your insights on the principles of governance in this climate of stakeholder and shareholder activism, and learn why respectful debates and some healthy tension are signs of good governance. You can also be prepared to apply these insights to communications, presentations and reports you and your principal may prepare – not only materials intended for the board, but also those destined for management and other colleagues.

Expectations of boards are high, and your contributions to the board’s success are also held to a high standard. You need to communicate effectively and produce quality meeting packages in addition to navigating sensitive situations and maintaining confidentiality.

While reporting structures vary, you’re likely accountable to a number of stakeholders. Relationship management skills are key to your success. You’re constantly collaborating with directors, C-level colleagues and their EAs.

Technical skills aside, it’s your emotional and cultural intelligence that help you secure deliverables, produce relevant meeting packages in a timely manner and gain stakeholders’ respect. We'll look at relationships and expectations, and getting the job done through influence rather than authority. We'll also focus on establishing and maintaining credibility, trust and confidence through the quality of your communications, meetings and board packages.

TAKEAWAYS:

• Rising expectations
• Establishing and maintaining credibility, trust and confidence
• Communicating with the board and management
• Gettng those deliverables in on time
• Managing relations and expectations

The days of welcoming a new director with a handshake, a parking pass and a manual are hopefully long gone. Just as governance and the expectations of directors continue to evolve, so too should onboarding practices.

The care you invest in the design and delivery of your onboarding program can make a new director feel welcome and generate dividends in terms of directors’ capacity to hit the ground running. Directors benefit just as much from a good sense of board and organizational culture as they do from gaining clarity on budgets, committees, strategic planning and sectoral challenges and opportunities.

Your onboarding program needs to accommodate both experienced and novice directors and, depending on the organization, appointed and elected directors. This session will include discussion of management’s role in the process, a focus on cybersecurity practices as an element of onboarding, pacing the process and shared responsibilities associated with board mentorship.

TAKEAWAYS:

• How to structure your onboarding processes so that new directors understand the organizational culture and can be effective contributors
• Key elements of an effective onboarding program
• Steps for incorporating a board mentorship program
• How to pace your onboarding so you don’t overload a new board member
• Adding value to your contributions to the board

You don't chair board or board committee meetings, but you can certainly take a lead when it comes to organizational systems that will benefit you, directors and your management team.

The quality of your agendas can impact meeting success, which supports a strategic focus and ensures effective use of busy directors' time. We’ll focus on agenda design as well as the use of consent agendas and report templates.

Since securing colleagues’ agenda deliverables in a timely manner can sometimes be a challenge, we'll also look at communicating with work plans and calendars to ensure that colleagues know what’s expected of them and when. These tools also help you increase your efficiencies, and support transparency that provides board members a good sense of cyclical undertakings.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Understand how consent agendas work and help make the best use of meeting time
• Tips for agenda templates that help directors and management better prepare for meetings
• Encourage efficiencies through the use of cover briefs/report templates
• Why a work plan/forward calendar is a win:win for you and your colleagues
• Tips for developing your own work plan/forward calendar

The minutes you record for your board and your board committees form official, permanent records of the board's actions and decisions. They serve to record participants' execution of their responsibilities.

As if that wasn't enough pressure, your work may be discoverable. Minutes may be used to explain, challenge or defend a position after the fact. You need to balance these factors with respect for busy directors and management colleagues, who want concise, accurate records of such meetings.

While recording standards have evolved over time, one thing hasn't changed: many recorders are uncomfortable with the task, or uncertain about getting minutes right. You want to document information that's relevant for institutional purposes, which means you need to distinguish between what should and shouldn't be recorded.

Shelagh can help you elevate the quality of your minutes as well as your confidence when it comes to this important aspect of the job. Anticipate discussion of purpose, accessibility, context and organizational needs. We’ll also look at the recorder's neutrality, how to record resolutions, and the art of attribution.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Enhance your confidence when it comes to recording board and committee meetings
• Ensure that your recording practices have evolved and meet board and organizational needs
• Understand what should and shouldn't be recorded
• Come away with tips to assess your minutes for neutrality

The board is responsible for oversight of your organization's risk management. The topic routinely appears on board agendas, whether it falls under the heading of enterprise risk management (ERM) or through reviews of risk registers and/or heat maps. You may also hear directors and management discussing integrated risk management (IRM).

Risk management is an important strategic business discipline that can impact your organization’s ability to execute on its strategic plan. You needn't be an expert on the topic, but astute EAs/ governance professionals will want to learn more.

Effective risk management results in informed decision making, and it reflects a series of processes put in place to manage risks. Shelagh will walk you through risk processes and the different roles that employees, management and the board hold in an organization’s risk management. We’ll explore different types of risks and terminology such as risk appetite, ownership and tolerance before moving on to internal controls, internal audit and mitigation strategies.

Shelagh will provide you a clear, elevated understanding of risk management oversight.

Board members, senior executives and those who support them are appealing targets for cybercriminals.

Your board will already be providing oversight of the organization's cybersecurity practices, because data in general and the organization's "crown jewels" in particular are critical to an organization’s ability to deliver on its strategic plan.

Have you and your board given thought, though, to communication practices between individual directors, and with you and your management management team? Have people changed practices based on inherent risks? Join Shelagh for a breakdown of cybersecurity terminology, a look at how breaches occur and information boards should be considering. We’ll look at wrap up with a review of practical, proactive measures you, your board and management can take to mitigate risks.

YOUR TAKEAWAYS:

• Get the latest updates on cybersecurity risks
• Assess whether your board's practices are inadvertently creating risks
• Learn what effective boards are doing to help mitigate cybersecurity risks