EA to Rockstar Communicator - a tale to inspire...

One of the things that makes me truly happy in my work is when my clients start to get AMAZING results and those results are noticed.

About 2 years ago, I took on an EA client, who hired me on behalf of her CIO boss. They wanted me to do a lot of the communications legwork for their 250-strong department. She, an EA, had no formal communications training or experience, but she knew it was needed.

OUR STARTING POINT:

• Low team morale - including the boss of the team who was overwhelmed by the challenges he'd inherited.
• Restructures and redundancies looming
• Almost no in-person communication
• Sporadic low-level communication
• No regular communication from the leadership
• Zero contact with the wider business (their customers), and
• Huge, exhausting workloads.

My client knew something had to change but didn’t know where to start.
It was stressful and demoralising for her, her boss, and the whole team.

She had a strong instinct about what needed to change, but no CLARITY around what to do, and no SYSTEMS to shift morale, communications within the team, or how to drive impact - without dropping any balls in her EA role.

HOW WE ROCKED IT
We worked closely together and achieved some huge wins:

• Launched a regular communication out to the business to start to build connection with customers.
• Ran the first-ever team conference: also the first time some of the team had ever met in person.
• We held live customer panels: the first time the team had ever heard directly from their customers.
• We launched a monthly podcast series from the CIO to his people managers.
• We created a playbook to welcome new starters to the team.
• We transformed lengthy and confusing board papers into fresh and simple dashboards.

AN UNEXPECTED RESULT
One awesome result was completely unexpected for both my client and myself: after 18 months of working  together, she was PROMOTED from EA into an engagement and communications role. This role was created for her based on the value she was delivering through our work together.

AND she received a $20k PAYRISE.  

Now I work as her coach and mentor  to help her continue to grow.

I’m so proud of her. She was already doing an amazing job. And now, she has ‘up-levelled’ herself into a business relationship and communications role. She had a hunger to grow and add huge value, and a motivation to boost her boss’s and team's success and morale.

AFTER SOME TIME TOGETHER, HERE'S WHAT SURPRISED US...

• Momentum comes from MASTERY of the basics. She was awesome at being an EA; I didn’t touch that. But we matched it with high-end business communication training: crafting and editing messages, getting the right information from people, understanding, and even sometimes shaping business strategy.
• CLARITY is key. Clarity on our starting point, what was and wasn’t working, where the gaps were, her boss’s priorities - then creating a plan to move forward.
• LISTENING & 'REAL' CHAT: Her ability to start conversations across the organisation and connect people was key to her success. She helped her boss understand and respond to employee pain points, suggestions. She mastered building messages to help her boss unite teams, take the heat off leadership, and drive awesome conversations. She became a strategic business partner and resource to her boss, the leadership, the business, AND the team.

AND THE POINT IS? 
Her original goal wasn’t to change roles. She just wanted to be the best EA she could be and add huge value to her boss.

But over the course of our time together, she changed her MINDSET, realized the strength and potential of her core skills, and began to see what was possible for her.

Whatever your goals; moving into a business relationship role, a communications role, stepping up in your EA role, or just continuing to grow and get strong...
If you feel some hand-holding and coaching would help, book a call with me and let’s have a chat.