Leveraging Leadership

Chief of Staff Success: Tips for Thriving in Startup Environments

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 161

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Emily Sander talks with Rafael Mari about the role of Chief of Staff and its development in France compared to the US. Rafael shares his journey from financial consulting to Chief of Staff roles in various companies, including his current position at Swan, a European banking service provider. They discuss the importance of building trust with the CEO, having clear ownership of projects, and the necessity for CEOs to genuinely want a Chief of Staff for the role to be successful.


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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction to Rafael Mari
00:42 Raphael's Career Journey
01:47 Differences Between French and American Chief of Staff Roles
03:18 Challenges in Chief of Staff Roles
05:16 Raphael's Experience at Swan
07:37 Scaling Challenges at Swan
09:50 Defining Objectives and Tracking Progress
11:13 Internal and External Communications
13:37 Building Trust and Humility
18:21 Navigating CEO Relationships
27:04 Ownership and Project Management
32:52 Advice for Aspiring Chiefs of Staff and CEOs

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Our guest today is Raphael Marie, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Hi, I'm to be here and joining you this podcast.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Beautiful. So can you just jump in and give folks a quick background? So how you got into your chief of staff roles, you came from kind of the consulting background and now have had a couple different stints as chief of staff.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Yeah, exactly. Um, so like a lot of chief of staffs, uh, have a pretty, uh, Varied background professional background. I started out in the financial consulting and then at some point I realized I wanted to be hands on in a company. And so I looked for a role that suited of a very broad spectrum of topics And and the chief of staff role came naturally. And so I joined the the Southern Europe branch of PPG. So some of the U S listeners might be familiar with this, uh, this big American company. And, uh, after a few years there, I decided to transition to the startup scene. I'm now working on my second stint as chief of staff in a scale up called Swan.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Very cool. And so because you've been part of different teams with different offices and different locations, what, what, what were your impressions of like the French side of things versus the American side of things? Yeah,

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

interesting question because the chief of staff position is just uh, I think compared to the United States and like with like a lot of things on the tech scene where We're lagging behind in terms of maturity and I know that the chief of staff position is one that's very well developed in the United States and it's now arriving in France where a lot of companies, started in the tech scene, but a lot of companies are now looking to open chief of staff roles. Amusingly enough, there is no French word for chief of staff. So I was just at a Yesterday at a conference for a French chief of staff and they had chief of staff as kind of a job position because the only, uh, the only, um, like a similar position that we had previously was, uh, the political position of, um, head of, um, cabinet. And, uh, there was no business, uh, position for chief of staffs. And so France is learning to integrate these positions, whereas I feel it's much more mature in the United States. And I see that chief of staff is quite of a, every company or every, uh, every C level, it's normal that they have a, uh, uh, chief of staff.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

it's certainly, it's certainly growing and I would still call it an emerging role in the U S but I think a little bit further along than maybe some other places. Um, but there's still a lot of variety when you say chief of staff in the U S you could be like, is that a chief of staff for a six person startup or is that a chief of staff for Intel? Cause those are two very different things. But yes, we're, we kind of came out of the same, Background with like we had it in the military. We had it in politics. It's very well established and we're kind of lifting and shifting, so to speak into the business world. So we'll see, we'll see where that lands.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Yeah, I think it's also interesting to look at. You mentioned it, that you touched upon the topic, but being the chief of staff in a, and I saw both. So I have this perspective on that, but being a chief of staff in a. In a small company versus being a chief of staff in a, let's say, medium, large sized company, the roles are, are quite different. And, uh, also if you look at the job listings for chief of staff positions, at least in France, and I don't know how it is in the United States I've only been job hunting in, uh, in France. But if you look at the job listings, you'll find everything across the spectrum from someone with, who's right out of. with a few months of experience to people who have 10 15 years of professional experience. And so expectation, uh, for that position is is really, uh, it's all over the place, I would say, in terms of what companies are looking for and expecting.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yeah, I would say the same thing here. I mean, there's, I've seen chief of staff internships, which. Are kind of interesting and cool to think about it, but it's like, oh, that's very, very different than, all right, we have a seasoned senior, uh, CXO professional who's helping with the strategy and is the consigliere to the CEO and everything else. So yeah, definitely seeing similar things.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

That's what I saw. And, uh, before I joined this company, so I'm now working at Swan, which is a banking as a service provider and the leading banking as a service provider in Europe, about 250 people and we're, uh, we're growing, uh, at a rapid pace. So that puts us in the growth scale up phase of companies. But before joining Swan, I was working as a, at a small cyber security startup. I joined as the second or third employee, and you could tell that the needs for that kind of, uh, startup were, were, that kind of company were, were very much closer to these more junior roles you would want someone, uh, who's going to take a lot of, a big role in, uh, say consumer facing and, uh, the sales, uh, the sales process. then it's just a matter of, hey, it's nice if I have someone who can take care of some basic financial HR administrative topics and lend a hand with fundraising. And so let me just package all of that into a business school type junior profile. At PPG and here at SWAN, it's completely different. And I think this was what I was looking for when I changed companies a year ago. this, as you mentioned, just being the, kind of the, the, the second brain of the CEO, having this, uh, complete vision of what the company is doing and being able to, to provide insights and to run topics that the CEO just doesn't have the time to do. And to allow that person as well to, uh, To be the best CEO that they can, like usually CEOs, especially in startups. Aren't, um, their, their number one strength isn't necessarily taking a company from 200 to a thousand people. And so being able to take some of that, maybe let's say internal organizational topics, CXO, you mentioned totally linked to operations, another topic where France is less mature than, than the United States, taking that out of their, uh, there's out of their, let's say day to day. And giving them more time just to provide that leadership and vision, I think is, uh, was super enticing with this role.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yeah. Very cool. So you mentioned Swan and kind of where they sit in the, in the French market, 250 people. When you joined, how many people were there? Wow.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

I joined, it was right after a series B, which I think is interesting because it's, uh, oftentimes these chief of staff positions, especially for more senior profiles will be added after fundraising, uh, uh, event, uh, events. um, it was about 130 people. So we've doubled in a year and, uh, we're looking to continue growing at a rapid pace as well.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

are you looking to continue that pace or even grow exponentially, like even faster?

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

I think we'll continue that pace and grow, uh, let's say about a hundred, uh, 150 people a

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Wow. Okay.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

so as you

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Okay.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

that comes with huge challenges because you've gotta, you've gotta change the mindset of a company from everyone can just work together in the same, basically the same room, give or take a hey. We're now running this company. We're 250. We're going to be 400. need processes. We need operational processes to be able to, uh, we make, we need governance. We need decisional frameworks, uh, so that, uh, it's not just three people sitting down after work, uh, having dinner together and deciding for the company.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yeah, which is great for the, for that phase and that stage. But there comes a point where that no longer is, is, is tenable and sustainable. So you mentioned part of the chief of staff role for you is to offload a bunch of that scaling from your principal. So can you talk a little bit about like, what does that entail for you? You kind of mentioned some internal processes and some governance, but what is the communication like with your principal about those things? What's your interaction like with the rest of the leadership team to make your Your team and company ready to scale at that level.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Yeah. So, uh, I think one of the core parts of the chief of staff job is, uh, to contribute to the definition of objectives and to, uh, ensure that they're tracked and followed and that there's delivery on those objectives that that's across the C suite. So one part of my job is going to be to help with. the environment and the framework and the tools so that we can define. As a company, the objective, the objective, sorry, that we want to achieve, in the coming, uh, 12, 18 months, and then being the person that's gonna go and make sure that, uh, that these objectives are met. And if you compare that to my role as a chief of staff in a much bigger company, I had exactly the same role. So I was at the committee. Contributing to those discussions, bringing some perspective as well from someone who sees a lot of topics across different, uh, business units, uh, the processes were already there when I arrived and my goal was to run them. Whereas in a scale up, oftentimes the chief of staff will also have. build, not necessarily from scratch, but to build a lot of those tools and processes and frameworks. Um, that's, I would say is a good third of my job. Another third is, uh, internal and external communications, uh, making sure that the entire company is aligned on what we want to achieve, helping my CEO with the external communications, especially with our investors, on fundraising events, which I think again is A core, uh, uh, let's say part of the scope of the chief of staff, uh, but more across, uh, let's say startup scale up companies. For a more mature company, you could have, uh, instead of fundraising, you could have a role in, uh, merger and acquisition events and, uh, integrating companies, identifying targets, uh, et cetera, et cetera. And then I guess the third part is just. Everyone needs someone where, at some point in the room, there's a conversation, uh, Okay, so we have this topic, it's cross functional with product, sales. Compliance and risk, uh, maybe a bit, even a bit of tech who can take, who can take care of it. and usually people have, uh, have a lot on their plates. And so the chief of staff is going to be able to play this operations role. And, uh, at Swan, we're also building a, uh, an operations team, but just taking cross functional projects as they come in. Uh, so working on a strategic planning, working on, uh, delivering a set of, uh, features for a specific customer, uh, and coordinating, uh, different teams. So for me, one of the key and oftentimes overlooked, uh, skills for a good chief of staff. Is internal communicate communication is a chief of staff isn't usually they're not managing anyone, but still you need people to to be aligned to contribute on projects that you're running. And for me, internal communications is really one of the three core skills that a chief of staff can have and one that's often overlooked.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

That's a great point. And a lot of chiefs of staff. will say that and they know that. And sometimes it's a matter of, well, how do I do that? Cause I have these personalities over here that go this way. I have these personalities that don't want to have anything to do with this project or with the chief of staff. So I'm curious, you know, do you have some advice or tips or tricks for actually like how to do that?

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Yeah. So first up would be, uh, this is definitely a low ego job, uh, really to be humble. And of course, this is true of a lot of things in life, but for a chief of staff. You need to be able to serve as the lightning rod at times for your CEO's, uh, let's say, uh, uh, stress release. And it's, it's not fun, but that's just, uh, that's, that's the way it is. And usually it's just working with someone, but you also have to be humble when you're going to speak to people. Oftentimes chief of staffs will come from, uh, from, from very good college education, uh, top tier high, top tier MBA programs or top tier universities. And I saw that at PPG, you can't come in and you think you're smart. You think, you know, a lot of things you have great exposition. You're very close to the decision makers in a company, but you can't go and see someone who's been doing a job for 10, five, 10, 15, sometimes 20 years and not Approach that with humility because if you come in and you project this, uh, this, um, let's say this vibe that you're going to explain as oftentimes a relatively young person, you're going to explain how things should be done and how the world should, uh, should run. That's definitely a recipe for, uh, for failure. And also, once you're transitioning out of the job, once you've been a chief of staff, especially if you're staying in the company. Um, might be used to being on the executive committee. You might be used again to this proximity to power and decision making because this isn't making his power. You need to put that aside and come in with humidity and recognize that you still have a lot to learn and that you don't know everything. So low ego humidity is one. And the second one would be, um, To, to build trust with people and to build trust with people, you need to explain two things. One is that you're going to bring value to them. If they see you as just another constraint in their day to day, just something else on their plate. That's going to take time away from, uh, what their, their objectives are and they're supposed to be doing your, that's not going to work out. uh, to succeed in that, you, you need to show them that you're going to actually. Usually take some time, uh, that they'd be spending on the project. Uh, you're going to be fixing some things for them. You're gonna, uh, just be useful and they're going to see you as someone who brings value as opposed to someone who brings constraints. And finally, I'd say always start with why. Why are, uh, why are we doing this? And the why needs to be explained again and again and again. The why needs to be clear and there needs to be buy in because if there's no buy, if there's no why, there can't be buy in. But if there's no buy in on the why, any cross functional project will not work in an optimal fashion. So I'm

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Love that. Okay. So I agree 100 percent with coming to consensus on the why. And sometimes I've heard that phrase by chiefs of staff as getting agreement on the what, like, what are we all ultimately trying to do here?

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

uh,

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

that, then it's a matter of how and people can offer ideas and recommendations and all these things. But if we're kind of going towards different Okay. ultimate goals, then that can get tricky. Um, for your points about being humble and adding value, I agree with both of those. And I was just speaking with someone the other day and they had a situation where, uh, I'd love your opinion on this. They had a situation where the original founders were very set in their ways. They brought in a chief of staff because they wanted stuff taken off their plate, but they were talking, you know, And like basically micromanaging to like, you know, I want the grammar of this email to be like this instead of that and I want it to be this way and, uh, you know, part of our, part of my conversation with this individual was you have to come in there and, and listen to them and respect. Where they're coming from and understand like why they're wanting to do it that way, but also help them get to the next stage of the business. Cause they can't stay in that stage doing what they're doing at that, like micro management level. So you have to help them and almost say, Hey, that's great. We're both trying to get to this. Now we're going to do it this way, which is a little bit of a pushback. So I was just curious as I was listening to you, I was like, yes, yes, yes. I agree with everything you're saying. And there might be some situations that might call for something like a little bit different, or you have like different tools in your tool belt, so to speak.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Um, yeah, that's a brilliant example. So I was more talking about running cross functional projects, but the relationship with the CEO and the example that you give is, I think, is perfect for anyone aspiring or starting a job, a position as a chief of staff is kind of a case study of the position of chief of staff. And for me, it touches upon two, uh, really important topics. One is. You need to be in the head of the person that you're chief of staffing for. So you need to, you mentioned that they were specific about the wording, the grammar, the micromanagement. That's part of it. You, you, usually you need to adapt to how a person functions and thinks, and you really need to be thinking along with them. And now that brings us to the second point. It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to agree. But before you start, and part of the role of chief of staff is to tell the CEO or COO or whomever they're working with, is to be able to tell them, hey, I disagree with you because of the perspective that I have. I think, sorry, I think things should be done X, Y, or Z differently. But, um, for that to work, you first need to build trust. And I think this is one maybe of the most difficult aspects in the Chief of Staff position. It's this hyper reliance on a relationship with one single person. I think there are no other jobs in the company that where the success of the position is so dependent on a good relationship with just one person. And before you go telling a CEO that they're doing it wrong or you would do it differently, you first need to have to build that trust. And I think that's why would, I would say this not to the chief of staffs who are listening, but to the CEOs who are listening. You need for any other position, you can say, Hey, if you, if you hire a sales rep and they're not, I don't, they're not, they're not, they're not doing, it's not working out after, I don't know, three months or six months. maybe you, you, you change, you're hiring a product, uh, PM. It doesn't work out after three months. You, you, you might, uh, sever the relationship. You need to give them time because you need time for them to understand the entire business. That oftentimes they're just stepping in, and you need time for you and them to build that relationship of trust they can say, Hey, I think you're wrong and not be afraid that they're gonna get their head severed, which is, which is difficult, honestly. So I think it's a position where you need a bit more time to, to make sure that it's working. But. And this is something that's super difficult. Like when you're for all the chief of staffs who are listening to us and who might be considering with the aspiring chief of staffs, when you look at job offers, the job description, uh, it might match the company that you're looking at. It makes sense. You'd like the sector, you'd like the industry. So hard, because it's hard to know whether you're going to gel with that person that you'll be the chief of staff for. And sometimes, no one's at fault, it just doesn't work out, and that's part of it. And that's, I feel, maybe the most difficult thing about this position, is this hyper reliance on one relationship.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

So well said. I think you keyed in on a whole bunch of, of great points there. It's, it is a hyper reliance on one relationship. I'd never heard it phrased that way, but that's a great way to put it because it is trust is, is paramount. And that said over and over and over again, but I love. Your call out to CEOs and principals that, Hey, like you, you can't be sitting there at the end of week two and the chief of staff can't read my mind yet. So I guess it's not working out. Like you gotta give, you gotta give that time, um, and meet them halfway.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

usually when, uh, at least when I was hired and when a few times as chief of staff and when chief of staffs are hired, what they're usually told is, I want you to be empowered. I want you to be the co CEO of the company that's been founded five years ago, and that you've just joined on day three. It's hard to be able to make those calls. And so I think it does require more time than other positions.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yeah. Great. What are some, uh, so how are you involved in some of the strategic decisions? Are you part of that conversation? Are you having like one on one behind the scenes conversations with the principal? And then, you know, once a decision is made, part of your job is to, to Is to agree or just to say, okay, I understand that's the decision. And then put that into action as best as you can.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

So I think the right decision making framework here is something that we're striving for, um, is to, uh, so you're, you're part of the conversations and you're here as well. You're a chief of staff. You're, you're there to help with the alignment. And, uh, decisions aren't made, uh, or rarely made in, in large forums. And when I say large, I need at least like seven, just seven or eight people. And it's not a consensus building. Uh, that's not really how organizations work. And so as the chief of staff and the owner of the, at least co owner of the agenda of the CEO, you have this role to, uh, help them make the The decisions by, uh, providing the analysis ahead of hand by providing the context for the decisions that need to be made by identifying ahead of time. Some of the objections that can be raised by even providing some of the list of options. And once you do that, and that you don't necessarily do it alone, it's a decision on, let's say, a troublesome customer. You can do that with the account management team or with the sales team, but you're. managing everything in the lead up to the decision making process so that the CEO has all the information they need so that the objections are addressed and ideally so that the topic has been kind of, um, already thought through the, the best option has been identified. And so the decision is easy for them. You're, you're I heard a CEO once say, actually, it was the chief of staff to the, the, one of their Uh, former presidents of the French Republic, uh, he, he said, uh, at the time the, the president was just, uh, the, uh, treasury secretary, but the, the, the, the former president told him when he started his job, everyone comes to me with problems and everyone comes to me telling me that something can be done. And it's your job to come to me with solutions and explaining how something can be done. And I think that's. That's the role of the chief of staff is to guide the decision process. And if you're doing that right, then you're part and parcel of the actual decision, because you've done of the work ahead. Normally, the decision afterwards is almost a foregone conclusion.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

I think that's a good reminder that when you're talking about a CEO or anyone at the C speed level, but particularly the CEO, they don't get easy problems. They don't get the, Oh, here's an easy one. Like, get it. This we're going this way. Oh, that's easy. Where, you know, let me make this decision. It's, it's a complex problem. A number of people have probably tried to solve it beforehand and it's gotten to them. So they don't get the easy stuff. So having someone who's like, all right, here is something that needs to be addressed, but here's also, here's, here's some ways to think about it. Here's some helpful context. Here's some options or solutions. I think is sometimes, I mean, In a CEO's day, it's a breath of fresh air out of everything they're hearing.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

because they're a CEO will be content switching from all the problems that they have to address from all the people who come to them with issues from all, let's say the kind of the, the, the time consuming effort to, uh, just like be the face of the company. And so they don't have time to deep dive on what the options are, what the ins and outs of every single options are. And if you come to them with just that work done, it makes it so much easier for them. So as you said, like a breath of fresh air, I think is, uh, is really a nice way of putting it.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yes. I've, I've often said have a bias for done, but I like your phrase even better. Like come to them with done and they'll, and they'll love you for it. Um, my second to last question for you would be, you touched on ownership of projects and initiatives. So I'm wondering, I often get, People asking, you know, Emily, should I own this? Like, do I own it temporarily and then hand it off? Some people are like, what does she do? So I, I'm, I feel like I have to own something, but not really. So what, what is your take on kind of what types of projects or initiatives should a chief of staff be looking to own? Um, and is that a temporary thing or a long term thing in your opinion?

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Um, that's a tricky one because it really depends on the needs of the company and it's going to be both. Um, so I'll give you a typical consultant and the people from McKinsey or Bain who are listening to us will be happy. Um, but it depends. It depends. Uh, that being said, one thing that everyone should push for, uh, CEOs, chief of staffs, regardless in a company is ownership, clear ownership, who owns which topic. And it doesn't really, I would say as a chief of staff, first and foremost, push for peer ownership before even focusing on what you should own yourself. Um, then of course it's, it's nice to deliver projects. It builds self worth. It's, it's. it's it helps will bidding trust and rapport with people in the company. So owning short term projects is a is part of the job and it's going to depend on what the needs of the companies are. It could be integrating a company post MNA. It could be unfortunately, if things are not going well, identifying. What the next steps in terms of, uh, they, uh, layovers is it could be as well, uh, preparing the strategic business plan for the company. It could be, uh, something as simple as defining, contributing to defining the remote policy of the company. But what's great about the chief of staff position is that the top and this is why I love the chief of staff position. And, uh, I, I'm a, I'm a big advocate of this, uh, disposition. It's the topics are so varied, uh, there. They're very, uh, they, there's a lot of, a company always has more, more topics than they have resources. And so you'll be working on HR topics on, uh, on, um, on, uh, financial topics on, on sales and marketing topics. And that's really what makes the job. Super interesting. Now, as to long term, so these are all short term topics. Should you own something long term? At some point, it's going to be hard to a significantly large long term project and have the time to be able to do all the things, the other things a chief of staff should do. If a chief of staff is taking that up and it's clear that the goal is not to hand over, let's say, uh, this new team. I don't know you, you temporary ownership of the finance team. If it's clear, there's no clear transition, uh, that part of the project is to hire a CFO, then Okay. Why not? But some point it's going to become likely that you'll have to choose between CFO or, or, or head of finance or chief of staff, because hard to do both at the same time. That said, I have seen some teams where the, some companies where the chief of staff has a team usually working on strategic strategy, working on project management, and that just like, Gives them a broader chief of staff, chief of operations role, and it's possible as well. So, it really, it

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yeah. It totally depends. And as you were listing those different things that a chief of staff can do, you actually listed the, the four you listed were things that I actually did. So I was like, yes, yes, yes. And yes. Um, but it's in, in, in like my experience with chief of staff, it was, I had basically like two ongoing. Roles, I guess, which is one like keep the CEO sane, which is just like being like the strategic partner and being the right hand person behind the scenes, having candid conversations, soundboarding, all that good stuff. And that was just like ongoing long term forever for chief of staff. And then it was the, um, the company wide goals. So initially setting that up and putting it together and then monitoring and tracking that ongoing. And then obviously those things evolve and change as you go along. So that was a. Like living, breathing dynamic thing. And I like that one. Um, I like being on point for it because it, it allowed me to interact with leadership, with senior management, with mid level management, with, you know, rank and file folks from all departments across the company. So I enjoyed that one a lot. It, it helped me learn and stay, um, keep a pulse on things, but then I would rotate different initiatives too. Like. Like for a while I was HR and for a while it was like, Emily, go find us a CFO. And that was my job to transition them in. So these things were all under, you know, under my umbrella, but it was understood it was very temporary. We don't, we don't want Emily for very long.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

No, but that honestly, this, this versatility for me is what makes the job so amazing. of the key skills, of course, therefore for a good chief of staff, you need to be curious. Uh, maybe HR topics aren't your forte. But the good thing is you don't have to do just HR, you'll be working on something else afterwards. But while you're doing HR, you need to be curious about it and you need to be sufficiently enthusiastic. And I'm not taking HR as a, as a, as a good or bad example. It's just the last business unit that you mentioned. Um, you need to be curious about it. Curiosity really, uh, one of the key skills for a chief of staff.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

All right. So my last question, you mentioned some really great call outs for principals, if they're considering bringing on a chief of staff, or if they have one now and they're like, how do I best use, utilize this role? If, uh, if a. Aspiring or current principle is listening. What advice or what considerations would you, would you tell them?

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

a, wow, that's a really good question. And I, I, I've never answered that question actually. So thank, thanks for asking it really good for that. of all, I'd hearken back to what I said about giving that person time. And I would say, CEOs will be, especially in a fast paced tech environment, uh, but even in other companies, there'll be, there'll be swapped. Take the time to train, to, to upskill your chief of staff on the company. And on yourself, how do you think what's important to you? What's not important to you? What do you like to do? What do you not want to do? And also give them the opportunity to, uh, learn about everything that the company is doing, because that, that detailed understanding is then going to pay dividends. So I would say if you're hiring as chief of staff and usually, especially in the tech scene, they, you want someone and people will be out on someone who's going to hit the ground running from day one, what Hey, from day one, give them, give them two, three months just to get to know the company, the product, the customers that that'll pay dividends down the road. secondly, I would be, uh, be crystal clear about. topic of ownership, what do you want them to own? What do you want them to contribute to, but not own? And, uh, what do you want them to think about at some point? Uh, what's the perspectives in terms of, uh, ownership, but be very clear, uh, about what you're taking on and what you want them to take on and to own and what the deliverables are going to be and what the KPIs and how successful look like. But one of the worst scenarios would be, um. That you say, Hey, this is important that the company needs this done and you just leave it at that. And I've been doing it so far and it's not clear whether the chief of staff needs to contribute, take it, uh, um, take ownership of it or not. And in the end what happens is that usually they'll, they'll do it without fully doing it because they don't want to, uh, they're not sure whether they should or not. Uh, so, so, uh, really like do that. I would say communicate often. I really, again, you're swamped, but set up, set up a time to, to, to just half an hour, a lunch here and lunch there to be able to talk about any topic that comes up and, um, Yeah, finally, I would say if you're going to hire a chief of staff, you need to want a chief of staff. first job, I joined a company and the chief of staff position was created at the kind of the initiative of the CHRO, the head of HR. Because she'd seen chiefs of staffs in all the companies that she'd been at and she thought it was, uh, It was valuable, but the CEO that I was the chief of staff to in the first year before he transitioned, that there was a new CEO, um, had never had a chief of staff, was very intent on doing things himself and his own way. really the bottom line was, didn't feel the need or the want for a chief of staff. So if you're a principal out there and you're considering a chief of staff position. Make sure that it's something that you want. And of course there's potential. And I think I've, we've mentioned it a lot to, to help you, but you need to want it. You need to be sure to want it. And one of the worst scenarios would be that you're not meeting the charge for that position. And for example, that it's your investors who are pushing for, uh, let's say your board pushes you and talking about the tech scene. Again, your board pursues you to have a chief of staff and you're not fully convinced don't hire that person.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Yeah. Wow. So we've got invest the time upfront, make the investment upfront cause it'll reap dividends. Um, be crystal clear about expectations and the level of involvement. You want the chief of staff to have ongoing communication, touch points, interaction. Um, what was, uh, the fourth one? Yeah.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

and make sure you want a chief of staff.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Make sure you want a chief of staff.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

Sounds simple, but that's kind of a deal breaker. If you don't want a chief of staff, um, to hire one. So

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

and I'm sure it's happened more often than we think. And that's definitely not a recipe for for success.

emily-sander_1_10-16-2024_093522:

beautiful, set it up for success and it will be a game changer for your business. Raphael, that was a beautiful way to wrap things up. So we'll leave it there, but thank you so much for sharing. This has been a really amazing conversation and you've brought up some topics in a, in ways that people haven't before. So I appreciate, appreciate your thoughts and insights.

rafael-mari--he-_1_10-16-2024_183522:

Appreciate as well. And thanks for the time. Emily and anyone who's been listening really, uh, really enjoyed the moment.