Today’s content is taken from my award-winning book “A-Z Pearls of Wisdom for Executive PAs”. It is fitting to consider in light of Administrative Professionals Day on Wednesday 27th.
The Pearls of Wisdom in my book introduce you to techniques, tools, models (call them what you will) which you can put into practice to be the very best you can be, so that you can achieve excellence in whatever you do.
One resounding message is that PAs need to be adaptable and flexible in their working styles. As PAs, we need an awareness of how we and others “tick”. We need to tailor how we work to suit our managers and our team, to ensure we get the very best out of ourselves and others. I do feel I should put a “health warning” on my book though – for my intention is not to produce a robotic production line of cloned PAs. This de-humanisation of you as individuals is not the purpose of sharing my Pearls of Wisdom.
As I type this, I am all too aware of the journalistic scare-mongering rearing its head in the form of articles that tell us our profession will be redundant. As technology advances, we are told the work we do can be replaced by robots, AI and apps (and of course, it can be done more efficiently negating the human-errors that inevitably do occur). I abhorrently do not believe this.
For relationships are at the heart of any successful organisation and human contact will never be replaced by insensitive and characterless apps and robots. Right at the very beginning of my book I acknowledge that the role of the PA is challenging and demanding – you are very often working with different (strong) characters in your organisations – this is what makes the workplace (and the world!) so challenging. It is also what makes the workplace so exciting.
We are all unique.
We need to value this diversity.
My message to you is that, with all the great knowledge gleaned from my Pearls of Wisdom, you put them into practice but ensure you do not lose YOU!
