The Hidden Value that is the Admin

One of the first pieces of advice my old boss Bart gave me was, “be on good terms with your client’s EA.” Bart knew that access and information all funneled through these very tight bottlenecks.

A company’s org chart is about official flow of power – but has little insight for value. Bart was telling me that my client’s EA was perhaps even more important that the client herself. 

Executive Assistant’s become vital resources by restricting access, screening information, making meetings happen, coordinating management tasks, performing HR duties, and so forth. In other words, they are often the only person in a company that has touch in all the usual stovepipes. They will know marketing, development, HR, taxes, corporate policy, sales, administration, and so on.

But look at the org chart above. Maggie is merely a dotted appendage to the VP of Importance. Or so says the org chart.

In reality, Maggie is the go-to person if they want information from Irving, if they need to find out who in another element of the company, what company business partners might be appropriate, office gossip, and so forth. In order to get what they need from Maggie, they will give her a very valuable commodity – context.

As Maggie gets more context from different parts of the siloed company, she becomes a value reservoir. Over time, Maggie not only knows what’s going on, but is likely the only person with structural and historic context as to why it is happening. If anyone would take the time to ask her for an opinion, she’d also likely have some good ideas about how to make whatever is happening better.

This overly simple social graph illustrates the impacts of Maggie’s relationships. She controls access to Irving (who is very important, we aren’t saying he isn’t). She has direct access to Bob and Bobby from their group. But she also has access to accounting, business development and research & development. 

Each time Hamid needs something specific, Maggie learns about R&D. The same with accounting or the other parts of the company. 

Her role in the org chart is an intentional bottleneck for access to Irving. Functionally, she becomes a value reservoir that is most often unofficially tapped.  Unfortunately, organizations often value these people at appendages and pay them accordingly.  These valuable reservoirs are not recognized as the business analyst marvels they actually are.

Watch for your value reservoirs, respect them by tapping their knowledge, and reward them.