The 4 relationships that matter to a Chief of Staff

This is the 4th article in my 5-part series on Chief of Staff (CoS) role. Here are the links to previous articles: Who exactly is a Chief of Staff?; CoS — The 2nd Brain of the Executive; The 3 things they don’t tell you about a CoS Role.

While a Chief of Staff’s singular focus is the success of the Executive, success doesn’t happen in isolation, since an Executive always relies on a strong Leadership team to drive the results for the organization. So a CoS role ends up as someone helping the organization also, in addition to supporting a single leader. That’s a huge responsibility – to focus on the success of all, and not just on the success of one. But this doesn’t mean that a CoS needs to stretch himself/herself thin to act as a CoS for the entire Leadership team. It only means that a CoS must build productive (long-term) relationships with the important people in the Executive’s network who all contribute to the success of the organization and the Executive. And as we all know – productive relationships are built on trust.

The bottom-line is – every CoS needs to work on a relationship-building exercise, to varying degrees, across 4 dimensions:

• The Executive (obviously)
• The Executive’s Leadership team (who report to the Executive)
• The Clients & Stakeholders
• The Executive’s Peers

Why are these relationships important?

Most of the times, every CoS will need to work directly with many Leaders in the network of the Executive. And given that, usually, there will never be any reporting relationships between these Leaders and the CoS, it becomes a little tricky for any CoS to get things done or even simply to obtain any timely information that is important to execute things. So it becomes imperative for a CoS to derive (very carefully) some influence from the Executive so that he/she can collaborate effectively with the Leaders to get things done. But this requires significant relationship building because, a CoS needs to know which doors to knock on, to influence the outcomes targeted by the Executive. These relationships are key to the effectiveness of a CoS and in my experience, this has been one of the rewarding parts of my role.

I have already written about the relationship between a CoS and the Executive in the previous articles. Let’s look at working with the other 3 types of audience/relationships.

Working with the Executive’s Leadership team:

Once a CoS joins an organization, the Leadership team realizes that now, the CoS is also privy to some confidential and strategic matters. Naturally, some members of the team might experience or exhibit a bit of hesitation, to tabulate some important matters in the presence of a new person, who is not in their rank or has fewer years of experience than they do. Trust, always, takes some time to build on. A CoS could accelerate trust-building by increasing individual interactions with the members of this team. One approach I took to accelerate my relationship-building phase was to help some of the Leaders with some side-projects or small initiatives. Keeping an eye on such small tasks that you can help a Leader with, is always a good idea.

Ultimately, the sooner a CoS imbues the impression of performing as a cross-functional connective tissue in the organization, the tighter will be the alignment to work in harmony.

When it comes to Executive’s interactions with his/her Leadership teams – in a forum set up (one-on-one meetings aside), a CoS can add a lot of value by formulating and implementing effective meeting models. This includes articulating the purpose, agenda, forms of interaction, frequency and keeping a tab on all action items, no matter whom they are delegated to (the CoS or anyone else from the team). The CoS needs to closely track the effectiveness of decisions – strategic and operational – taken in Leadership meetings, that help in moving the organization forward. A CoS might experience little challenge in chasing some action items, especially the ones owned by some leaders in this team. One principle I always practice in such tricky situations is ‘consultative ruthlessness’. This means that I do factor in some buffer for some delays in deliverables and yet, I chase ruthlessly while keeping the Executive informed about it.

Working with the Executive’s Clients & Stakeholders:

It is no brainer that Clients and Stakeholders are utmost critical to the Executive. For it is their feedback (in addition to organizational outcomes) that influences the Executive’s growth, eminence and stature in the organization. A CoS will have many opportunities to be in the same room when the Executive is interacting with this set of people, on organization strategy, key result areas, challenges, solutions and plans. Many times, a CoS will need to take things forward, in the absence of the Executive, with the Clients, Stakeholders to drive some action items, either directly with them or in collaboration with their Chiefs of Staff. So it will become extremely critical for a CoS to execute things in their rhythm, while still balancing with the needs of the Executive.

One thumb rule: Always prioritize responding to the asks of the clients/stakeholders. You might not have answers immediately but respond with current status or timeline expectations. Also – take proactive ownership on setting up the meeting cadences. It is always good to be in the driver seat when it comes to recurring meetings, no matter which leader is formally chairing the meeting.

Working with the Executive’s Peers:

The Executive’s peers could be other Executives from the same organization or adjacent organizations within the same firm. While they might not directly influence the key outcomes of the Executive’s organization, they still form an important layer in the Executive’s network because Executives often compare notes about each others’ organizations, performance, strategy, challenges and priorities. And they typically lookout for some intersections, to unlock some business opportunities or collaboration opportunities that give them some advantage in terms of people, skills, money, technology etc. Such opportunities take the shape of some strategic initiatives, for which the Executive could be co-sponsor or owner or driver. Hence, it might be a good idea for a CoS to study the peers of the Executive and their world (organization, strengths and motivations).

Of course, there could also be some potential political landmines which a CoS might need to carefully navigate while working with the Executive’s peers. But by and large, an Executive with astute leadership skills helps the CoS in this aspect. But beyond that, a CoS can and must build some healthy trust with the peers of the Executive.

Evolution of the CoS’ role through the Executive’s and Organization’s priorities:

Building trust with the Executive’s Leadership team, Clients & Stakeholders and Peers takes time. From my experience, it usually doesn’t happen in just about 6 months or 8 months. However, when it really fructifies, you see that the CoS role would have then bridged the Executive’s priorities and the organization’s priorities. In my opinion, the ramp-up curve for this role will begin to flatten in this stage. About 6 months after I took up my CoS role, I came across an interesting framework here that illustrates this bridging of the role from the Executive’s realm to the Organization’s realm.

This framework provides a great North Star for every CoS in their constantly evolving role. It has four quadrants, with each one representing a different phase of the CoS and impact on the organization. A Chief of Staff can typically start in quadrant 1 and transition clockwise to quadrants 3 and 4.

However, as I have mentioned earlier, the evolution of any CoS role is a function of the capabilities of the CoS, the Executive’s leadership skills and the organization’s dynamics. With those factors at play, I conjecture that only some will reach quadrants 3 & 4, not all. And every CoS must aspire to be one of those few.

What else do you think a CoS can do to build strong relationships? Please share your thoughts, in the comments.

The next part will be the final article in this series.