No Executive

Secretary is an
Island

By John M. Read
What Career
Gaining Commitment &
Support From Others
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“The Beach”
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Teamwork in an Organisation -
Your Role.
High Performance Teams
have...
■ EffectiveLeadership
■ Mutual Trust
■ Excellent Communication
■ Clear Goals
 What teams are you a
member of?
■ Home Team - Your Boss,
your department…
■ Professional Team - All of
the Secretaries in your
company
■ Away Teams -
Interdepartmental teams
Some teams are well structured
others are less formal but still very
important
 Can You Be Like This?
■ Versatile - Can you change
roles at work?
■ Goal oriented - Know what
■ Strategically focused - Know
why
■ Practical - Know how
Understanding your role...
■ An Excellent Listener
– Verbal messages
– Body language
– Check your understanding
– When to speak, when to keep
quiet
– Listens
Using What You Hear for
Business
■ Able to sort information into
useful categories:
– Urgency - high/low
– Importance - high/low
– Sequence - first/second...
– Value - critical/moderate/low
 Perform better!

■ Judge timing of your

communication
■ Anticipate needs and meet
them early
■ Support others as well as
yourself
Understanding your role...

■ Leader:
– motivate business purpose
– clear goals
– standards of performance
– interpersonal skills
Leaders: People who can motivate
others to appropriate action
 Integrators
• Bring people, things, information together
• Make connections
• Good brain-stormers
• Collaborate well
• Good data gatherers
Specialists

• Special Skills
• Knowledge or Practice experts
• Functional role
• Need Good Communication Skills
• Learn to Share Knowledge
• Administration is a Specialty
 Other significant roles...
■ Confidant
■ Networker
These roles
depend on you...
■ To be able to
listen well and
tell little
■ Trust
■ Empathy
■ Social Skills
■ VITAL SKILLS
 Team Summary...
■ Team building 
■ Team maintaining 

■ Team blocking 
 Team
■ Focus Building &
Maintaining
■ Effort
■ Skills
 Team Blocking
■ Avoid Gossip
■ Don’t break confidences
■ Support your team
members
■ Show trust and try to do
the job
Trust Building

8 STEPS
 Step 1: Show Empathy
■ “Walk a mile in the other
person’s shoes”
■ Check others emotions as
well as their thinking
■ Share your knowledge &
experience with others
 Step 2: Be a Top Team
Player
■ Walk The Talk!
■ Sincerity - Show it in
Thoughts and Deeds
■ Deliver Performance
■ Support Your Teams
Step 3: Practice Openness
■ Commit only what you can
deliver
■ Don’t hide from the truth if
it goes wrong say so and
move on…
■ Communicate more…
express yourself confidently
Step 4: Speak Your Feelings
■ Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
– Recognising and naming your
feelings
– Expressing those feelings
without harming others
– Acknowledge others feelings
–

“No Man Is an Island”

 Emotional Intelligence
for Teams at Work
■ Self-awareness
■ Self-regulation
■ Motivation
■ Empathy
■ Social skills
 Step 5: Consistency
■ Between your thoughts and
your feelings

■ Between your words and

your actions

■ Of performance standards
Step 6: Keep Confidences
■ Do you talk a lot?

■ Can you prevent this from

becoming ‘talk too much’?

■ Gossip will destroy trust in

you.
 Step 7: Demonstrate
Competence
■ Set High Goals
■ Deliver more often than not
■ Ask for support when YOU
need it
■ Give support to others
when THEY need it
■ Your Work = Your Values
 Step 8: Be Polite At All
Times
■ Your Self Respect is No. 1
■ Others Respect is also No. 1
➪ Cannot have one without the
other
■ Politeness => Building &
Maintaining
Trust
 Soft Hazards At Work
■ Healthy Office Politics:
– normal working relationships
– power sharing
– the way things are done
– implied competency
– reputation
 Dirty Office Politics

■ Destructive
■ Personal
■ Lose - Lose - Lose
■ Grows unless it is managed
 Dirty Office Politics

If You find it: Report it

Ultimate Goal?
 Success is...
■ Respect
■ Actions
■ Listening & Responding
■ Adapting
■ Ethics
■ Trust
As at Work, So goes Life...
■ Promote the same values at
work as you wish for your
life
■ Bring to yourself what you
wish others to bring to
you...
You!
 What Career Next!

Thank You
Is your favorite team role?
■ Initiator:
Proposing tasks or
actions; defining group
problems; suggesting a
procedure.

■ Informer:Offering facts;
giving expression of feeling;
giving an opinion.
 Or…?
■ Clarifier:
Interpreting ideas
or suggestions; defining
terms; clarifying issues
before the group.

■ Summariser: Pulling
together related ideas;
restating suggestions;
Can you do this effectively?
■ Reality tester: Making a
critical analysis of an idea;
testing an idea against
some data trying to see if
the idea would work.
 Belonging to a Team...
■ Social-emotional activities
of group members that
maintain their involvement
and personal commitment to
the group. These roles
include encouraging other
members to participate,
praising and rewarding
 Maintaining the Team...

and other activities

designed to maintain a
friendly group atmosphere.
Maintenance roles include:
■ Harmonizer: Attempting
to reconcile disagreements;
reducing tension; getting
people to explore
 To maintain a Team...
■ Gatekeeper: Helping to keep
communication channels
open; facilitating the
participation of others;
suggesting procedures that
permit sharing remarks.
■ Consensus tester: Asking to
see if a group is nearing a
 Another Team Building
role...
■ Encourager: Being friendly,
warm and responsive to
others; indicating by facial
expressions or remark the
acceptance of others'
contributions.
You can always try this...
■ Compromiser: When his/her
own idea or status is
involved in a conflict,
offering a compromise
which yields status;
admitting error; modifying
an interest of group
cohesion or growth.
 Blocking Roles
■ Blocking roles refer to
activities that disrupt or
destroy the group.
■ Blocking roles include:
■ Aggressor: Deflating other's
status; attacking the group
or its values; joking in a
barbed or semi-concealed
 Negative aspects...
■ Blocker:Disagreeing and
opposing beyond reason;
resisting stubbornly the
group's wish for personally
orientated reasons; using
hidden agenda to thwart the
movement of the group.
 Another role to avoid...

■ Dominator: Asserting
authority or superiority to
manipulate the group or
certain of its members;
interrupting contributions of
others; controlling by means
of flattery or other forms of
patronizing behavior.
 Other destructive roles

■ Comedian: Making a display

in comical fashion by one's
lack of involvement;
abandoning the group while
remaining physically with it;
seeking recognition in ways
not relevant to group task.
Defeat the group this way...
■ Avoidance Behavior:
Pursuing special interests
not related to task; staying
off the subject to avoid
commitment; preventing the
group from facing
controversy.
 Key Interpersonal Skills
■ Empathy
– ‘walk a mile in my shoes’

■ Big Picture Thinking

■ Politeness and etiquette

 Relationship building
■ Trust
■ Integrity
■ EthicalBehavior
■ Communication Skills
■ From Rapport to
Collaboration
■ Task vs Rewards
■ Outcomes rather than
results
■ Politics - the seven deadly
sins
■ The Eight heavenly solutions
What are you looking for?
■ Values:
– Money
– Respect
– Creative Outlet
– Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Matching You to your Job
■ Key to success
■ Improving the match
■ Reaping the rewards

What Career Next!